Review: 'Long Weekend' imperfectly turns romantic-comedy expectations on their heads

You would think there aren’t any surprises left in romantic comedies — and then an offbeat little gem called “Long Weekend” shows up to spring not one but two twists on the viewer.

Bart (Finn Wittrock) is a down-and-out writer in Los Angeles, a guy who has dealt with a lot in the last year — including, we are told in installments, that his fiancée dumped him, he can’t get his work published, and he has to move out of his apartment and into the garage of his best friend Doug (Damon Wayans Jr.). There’s something else in Bart’s recent past that’s casting its shadow, but that won’t be revealed for awhile.

When Bart meets Vienna (played by Zoe Chao), who’s visiting Los Angeles, she seems too good to be true. In fact, while they’re having drinks at a neighborhood bar and checking out the jukebox, Bart asks Vienna if she’s one of those “manic pixie dream girl” characters too many of his fellow writers put in movies like this. She says she’s not, but what Vienna ultimately does say sounds equally far-fetched to Bart and to the viewer. (No, I’m not going to tell you what her story is. That’s for you to find out.)

That’s not the only twist that writer-director Steve Basilone, who has worked on such sitcoms as “Community” and “The Goldbergs,” unfurls before the end credits. Either you’re on board with those shifts or you’re not — and your feelings toward the leads will determine on which side of that fence you land.

Wittrock, an impossibly handsome actor who’s had sizable roles in “American Horror Story” and “Ratched,” sells us on what a messed-up guy Bart is. But the best thing in “Long Weekend” is Chao (“Downhill,” “The High Note”), who brings an earthy vulnerability to what could have been a thankless role — but turns out to be the warmly glowing center of it all.

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‘Long Weekend’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 12, in theaters where open. Rated R for language throughout. Running time: 91 minutes.