The Weekend Away review – trashy Netflix thriller just about gets the job done

Leighton Meester's likeable performance is what makes this throwaway thriller, based on the airport paperback of the same name by Sarah Alderson (who also wrote the script), worthwhile viewing for lovers of ludicrous potboilers. The Weekend Away is entirely and increasingly preposterous, but its exotic European location, steady pacing, and Meester's anchoring turn means it goes down easy enough in the hands of director Kim Farrant.

Meester is Beth, a thirty-something mother whose life is now consumed by the arrival of her new baby. She arrives in beautifully sunny Split, Croatia, to meet her best friend, Kate (Christina Wolfe), after a long time apart. Right away we sense the tension between the two, both in manner and appearance. Kate is heavily made-up; Beth prefers a more natural look. At dinner, Beth apologises for being a bad friend. A drunken night out ensues, after which Beth awakens to find that Kate is missing and she can't remember how they got home. Untrusted by the police, Beth enlists the help of her taxi driver, a Syrian man named Zain (Ziad Bakri), to help her find out what's happened.

Catering to our desire for escape, the movie never sheds its sunny sheen – footchases and dark turns all go down in the postcard-worthy streets and tourist locations. As events escalate, Meester manages what's often difficult for a clueless protagonist: she keeps us on Beth's side. Taking its cues from Gone Girl – though it never pretends to be as clever – the movie flirts with memory and notions of gaslighting. There are several suspects – too many, perhaps – and an endless succession of twists, presumably to ensure that the viewer is caught out by at least one of them.

Elsewhere, the same book might have been stretched over six tedious hour-long episodes. Here's the proof these things are easily and preferably delivered in under 90 minutes. If The Weekend Away sounds like the sort of thing you'd devour on a beach somewhere in paper form, it's mostly fit for purpose as Friday night viewing with the customary glass of wine. Then, like that, it's gone.

The Weekend Away is streaming on Netflix from 3 March.