R | 1h 36m | Comedy, Drama | 2026
Writer and director Nora Kirkpatrick examines the way we expect to trust our marriage partners enough to share our deepest, darkest secrets with. It’s touching, funny, and thoughtful.
Originally titled “A Tree Fell in the Woods,” “Couples Weekend” starts off with two couples heading for a New Year’s Eve getaway in the woods.
‘If a Tree Falls in the Woods’
Married couple Mitch (Josh Gad) and Melanie (Ashley Park) are meeting their married-couple friends Josh (Daveed Diggs) and Debs (Alexandra Daddario) at an isolated cabin.
Debs and Mitch are childhood buddies. On the morning of the first day, these two hiking enthusiasts trek through the woods to see the sunrise that has the local reputation of being particularly awesome.
While walking, a massive tree falls, nearly squashing them. They head back to the house, eager to share their close-call experience, but arrive in time to catch Josh and Melanie in flagrante delicto, as seen through the kitchen window.
Debs immediately freaks out, but confrontation-phobic Mitch physically sits on her in the snow, until she acquiesces to see how it plays out and how many lies are told. Knowledge is power, after all. As a winter storm cuts off all Uber-escape possibilities, the friends-in-the-know settle in for a nearly unendurable ordeal of keeping a lid on it.
Couples Weekend
“Couples Weekend” puts infidelity under a microscope and in a pressure-cooker. The couples are stuck in the cabin and are therefore forced into having the tough talks. The really tough talks.
There’s an early-introduction Deus ex Machina of sorts, by way of “enhanced” inebriation. Mitch, who is having himself a vehement, all-out, self-harming, alcoholic bender, discovers via Gary, the cabin owner and handyman (Kevin Pollak)—a cache of well-aged wine that appears to be spiked with a magic potion that functions like a mash-up of LSD and Ecstasy. It induces feel-good, truth-telling hallucinations.
Dangerous truth-telling can be fun under the right circumstances! But what starts off as a joke leads to some really good truthfulness all around. All combinations and permutations of the two couples are paired up over the course of the film, which provides an interesting and shifting dynamic throughout.
The characters are all forced to talk about not just the elephant in the room, but also the trail of muddy footprints it tracked through the house to the living room, which no one except Debs wishes to address. That is, footprints representing insecurities, fears, low self-esteem, accumulated anger, and so on.
Conclusion
The performances are all top-notch, and all are given the opportunity to shine. Though they aren’t a couple, Gad and Daddario have the best chemistry, feeling just like old friends. In the third act, when the four are finally all together, the ensemble acting is very satisfying.
What’s also satisfying is that the ending never feels inevitable. As the movie progresses, there are lots of ways that it could play out and at no point is it predictable. “Couples Weekend” offers hope that relationships can evolve as long as one pays homage to truthfulness.
Glossing over infidelity most certainly isn’t happening here. Both couples clearly have quite a bit of work to do. But due to the heartfelt vulnerability on display that allows them all to have compassion for each other’s plights, there’s hope for them all.
‘Couples Weekend’
Director: Nora Kirkpatrick
Starring: Josh Gad, Alexandra Daddario, Ashley Park, Daveed Diggs, Kevin Pollak
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Re-release Date: June 8, 2026
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
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