Ah, Look at All the Lonely Queers
Andrew Haigh and Contemporary Gay Subjectivity in Weekend
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/2238-2046.2026.61895Keywords:
Contemporary queer cinema, Queer creative act, Weekend, Andrew Haigh, RealismAbstract
This paper examines how the queer film Weekend (2011), directed by Andrew Haigh,
portrays characters who, through acts of self-narrativization, explore the subjectivity of
contemporary white gay men, especially loneliness and isolation. Dissecting how Haigh
operates the tools of the realistic drama, the analysis demonstrates how the artistic gesture
becomes the instrument to deal with this inherent solitude, working as a mirror of the
director’s filmic gesture. The investigation makes use of excerpts from interviews with the
filmmaker, as well as reflections on realism in contemporary cinema and key concepts from
queer theory, to illustrate how the film becomes a window connecting the intimacy of
queer existences in private and what is said and shown about them in public.
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