A Week Away has already arrived on Netflix. Now, you know why we love this movie and so much more after what its stars told us in our exclusive interview. The film is a hymn to youth, to life and to faith in the new and better opportunities that await us if we are only willing to jump into the void and let ourselves go. It’s a song to the future. Because the future is in our hands. It’s time to analyze everything in our review. Ready?
Here we go!
At the beginning of the film we meet Will, an orphan teenager whose antics are growing and leading him to a point of no return. Mischief was his way of escaping an uncertain future and a reality that scared and saddened him in equal measure: he was alone and had nowhere to go. His parents were gone, he had no family and no friends. There was only him. And that was drowning him, so the antics were his escape from thinking too much about it, not feeling anything.
However, there comes a point where reformatory is dangerously close… so much so that the only way out is a Christian camp. Nothing could be further from what Will wants but desperate situations, desperate measures. So he embarks on that adventure with George, the son of the woman who gives him this opportunity when everything seemed lost. She’s the only one who believed in him in a long time.
As soon as he arrives at the camp, he meets Avery and he feels something for her, he had not felt anything at all for so long, that seeing her moves him inside in an unexpected but wonderful way. He has to get closer to her. George understands what Will feels because the exact same thing happens to him with Presley, Avery’s best friend. He feels something enormously strong for her and it’s reciprocated… but neither of them dares to take that step.
This is the premise of the film and thus, through songs, dances and challenges, the characters get to know and discover themselves, let themselves be carried away and take that leap of faith, that leap into the void that is so scary. And they fall in love. Avery is a girl who, although she faces life with a smile, she has also suffered a lot. Her mother died and… it hurts to think of her. She had never told anyone about her mother or how she feels about it. Until she met Will.
That sweet, mysterious boy, with a shell around his heart almost as big as hers, makes her feel something special. He makes her feel alive. And she knows that he has a huge heart, a heart that doesn’t fit in his chest, even if he never shows it, she sees it. She sees it in the way he treats her and talks to George, she sees it in his camaraderie with him, she sees it in the way he looks at her, as if she’s the only one who anchors him here and there. To now.
And it’s exactly like that for Will. Avery is the first person to see him. It had been a long time since anyone did because everyone had judged him for his antics, they saw in him a bad boy who would probably end up in a reformatory or jail. Only George’s mother knew there might be something more about him and, now, Avery. She knows there is. And he also knows that there’s so much more to her than just that perfect, religious-girl facade. Avery, George, and her mother are the first to make him feel anything in years. That make him feel like he has a family.
But that’s a dangerous feeling for Will.
Because what happens when you take that leap of faith, when you regain something that you lost so long ago … is that if you lose it again, you simply break. That’s why Will protected himself so much, because he didn’t want to feel broken again. But when the lie he told everyone, including Avery, from the beginning, falls under his own weight, everything collapses like a house of cards.
That is what happens with lies. In the end, they are always discovered and you must face their consequences, devastating as they are. Will imagines that Avery won’t want to know anything more about him. He not only lied to him, but he is not the type of boy that her father would accept, whom she would accept in her life. After all, that’s why he lied, out of fear of rejection, out of fear of not being enough. He had never felt that it was, why would it be different in that camp and with Avery?
But it was.
I was very surprised by Avery’s maturity at this point in the story. She fell in love with Will and he lied to her about basically everything about he since he met her but, somehow, she knew how to see through it, she knew how to see through that web of lies and saw the truth: the Will she had known, that she had fallen in love with, was authentic.
There had been no deception in that. Yes, he misled her about his past but not about who he was. She knew him and he knew her.
Honestly, if I already loved Avery at this point she won everything from me. You have to be very mature to think like that, to forgive a lie simply because you are sure that there were no lies in what is really important. I admire her a lot because not everyone would be capable of something like this, least of all someone who suffered so much and is also hurt, someone who confided so much to Will.
And that scene where she goes for Will, where she fights for him when he had already given up, broken, thinking that he had lost everything. Oh, boys that scene is so powerful. I love her. I love them.
In general, I find it very brave and good that A Week Away has gotten out of the cliché of the fight between the protagonists, breaking molds at all times. I loved it!
I also liked that they differed in terms of the treatment of the antagonist.
Avery is the most popular girl in camp so Will isn’t the only one noticing her. But that third boy is not your typical antagonist. He discovers Will’s lie, yes, and tries to get closer to Avery, but he doesn’t force the situation and when he realizes that Avery is happy with Will, accepts that and withdraws, what’s more, he comes to appreciate Will for who he is, not who he pretended to be.
In the midst of all this, what happens to Presley and George? They are more tender than life. Neither dares to take the step although they both love each other in silence but Will’s presence gives George another perspective. He is like the brother he always dreamed and makes him dare more, take more risks … and, in the end, he ends up making it clear to Presley what he feels, as she does to him and they seem super cute together (insert emoji with heart eyes here).
In the end, Will gets what he never ever thought he would have again, what he never dared dream of getting back: a family. And I have to go to dry my tears because I’m proud of all my babies.
A Week Away has it all. It is full of music, dance, life. It delights those of us who grew up with High School Musical or Camp Rock but will also bring these types of films to those new generations. A Week Away is called to mark a generation, just as High School Musical or Camp Rock marked us.
We’re in for A Week Away sequel!
And here ends our review of A Week Away. If you want more, take the opportunity to remember what their stars told us about the future of these characters and a possible sequel in our exclusive interview here.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share with us in the comments below!
A Week Away is available to watch on Netflix.
