The Weekend Away, a thriller movie starring OG Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester, premiered on Netflix this Thursday. Since then, it feels as though everyone who’s watched it wants to share their verdict.

Written by Sarah Alderson from her own novel and directed by Kim Farrant, the new Netflix thriller “The Weekend Away” is cut from the same cloth as those great cheesy ’90s thrillers like “Double Jeopardy” where the plot has more twists than the serpentine roads Beth’s taxi takes to get to her AirBnB. But that’s okay. The pleasure of a thriller like this is to get lost in its locales and caught up in the web it spins.

Farrant and cinematographer Noah Greenberg capture the alluring sunny beauty of Split, Croatia with fluid camera movements. Pink sunsets contrast against ancient stone buildings. The filmmakers frame the actors like classic postcards or vacation photos, the cityscape always in the distance behind them. Even during the film’s darker twists, the tourist vibes remain as if the whole movie were told through a slide show recapping the most disastrous getaway ever.

The film follows Meester’s character Beth, a new mum, as she travels to Croatia for a weekend getaway. Her travel companion is best friend Kate (Christina Wolfe), who is super-glamorous and newly divorced. But when Kate goes missing, it falls on Beth to find out what has happened to her.

If you’re thinking it sounds like a proper potboiler one you’ll want to take with a hefty pinch of salt, you’re absolutely right. Discussing what drew her to the project, her first movie role in three years, Meester told Elle: “I thought it was a really interesting perspective to tell the story: someone who’s going through motherhood for the first time, who’s rediscovering herself and finding herself.
“And, of course, going through the out-of-this-world, unbelievably dramatic and tragic suspense—that stuff was also incredibly appealing to me, because I thought it read really exciting and fun on the page.”

Among viewers, The Weekend Away is definitely splitting opinion, with verdicts ranging from “wild” and “interesting” to “so freaking predictable”.

One person tweeted: “Even Blair Waldorf couldn’t save The Weekend Away.” Savage. Still, there’s no doubting that the film has found an audience: it’s currently in the top five on UK Netflix.