Netflix has added another twisty thriller to its library this week – with the arrival of the brand new murder mystery film The Weekend Away.
Based on a novel of the same name by Sarah Alderson, The Weekend Away cast features Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester as a new mum who embarks on a minibreak to Croatia with her recently divorced friend – only for things to go horribly, tragically awry.
If you’ve watched it and are still coming to terms with some of the shocking twists that occur in the final act, you can check out our full explainer below.
**Spoiler warning for The Weekend Away**
The Weekend Away ending explained
There are a lot of twists and turns in the film – so it’s probably best to start by recapping some of the earlier events before we jump straight to the ending.
The film begins when Beth – a married, seemingly settled woman who has recently given birth to her first child – meets her recently-divorced, more free-spirited friend Kate for a weekend away in Croatia.
It immediately becomes apparent that they have different ideas of how they want to spend the holiday. Whereas Beth is looking for a more relaxing break, Kate is in the mood for some hard-partying, and so on their first evening she drags a somewhat reluctant Beth on a wild night out.
This, unsurprisingly, is where the problems begin. The next morning, Beth wakes up with no memory of the night before and finds that Kate is nowhere to be seen. Instantly, it seems obvious that she has been drugged and so along with Zain – a Syrian taxi driver she met the previous day – she tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.
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Before Kate’s dead body is found, a few key discoveries are made. One is that Kate had arranged for two escorts to come back to their Airbnb flat – but that they had then run off with her bag in an act of robbery. Secondly, Beth’s husband Rob mysteriously shows up, claiming somewhat improbably that he’s there to help with the investigation.
After Kate’s body shows up, it soon becomes clear why Rob was really there – looking over messages on Kate’s phone, Beth is able to work out that she had been having a long-term affair with her husband.
Fast forward a little bit, and Beth has become a major suspect in the Croatian police’s investigation into the murder, in large part because of her apparent motive – to get revenge for the affair. It seems unclear how she will prove her innocence until she comes across a mysterious room belonging to the landlord of her Airbnb, which includes security footage of all the tooms in the property.
By reviewing the footage, she is able to see that Kate had pursued the thieves after they had stolen her bag, before being driven back by Pavic, one of the policeman who was now looking into the murder.
Beth becomes convinced it was Pavic who killed Kate after he had made a pass at her and she had refused his advances. She confronts him, and in the resultant tussle, the police officer falls to his death. Shortly afterward, Pavic’s police partner Kovac seems to confirm this version of events, while also revealing that Pavic had a history of assaulting sex workers.
The case seems to be closed, and Beth heads back to her London home. But there is one more twist left – and it’s a major one.
Who killed Kate in The Weekend Away?
Back in London, Beth arrives to drop off her child at Rob’s for the weekend, and initially rejects his offer to stay for a cup of tea. However, when he asks her to fetch a spare car key from his jacket pocket, she finds something else in there: a bead from the necklace that Kate was wearing the night of her murder.
Aghast at the discovery, she begins to phone Kovac in Croatia to explain, but when Rob interrupts her she instead decides that she’ll take him up on his offer for tea after all. She then confronts him, telling him she knows everything before he reluctantly confesses what really happened.
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He explains that he had been in Croatia to beg Kate not to say anything to Beth about the affair, which had led to a violent confrontation. He hit her and she slipped, hitting her head on some rocks and falling into the water, where she later drowned.
Despite his pleas to Beth not to say anything to the police, it is soon revealed that she had been on the line to Kovac the whole time – who had informed the British police about everything. As the film ends, we watch the coppers close in as Beth escapes with her baby in tow.
The Weekend Away is now streaming on Netflix. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our guide to the best series on Netflix and best movies on Netflix, or visit our TV Guide.
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