In all the talk about the casualties of the ongoing war in Iraq, we don’t hear too much discussion of the disruption that the U.S. occupation creates for families of those sent overseas. In the case of members of the National Guard, who, after all are supposed to be primarily for domestic defense, it must be especially tough. Particularly, if they signed on prior to 9/11, they might easily have thought that the idea of guard members being called to active service overseas bordered on ridiculous.
“One Weekend a Month” is about a series of fateful phone calls that interrupts a busy single mother’s morning. As the tension escalates for Meg (Renee O’Connor), we learn that the only person willing or able to take care of her two kids while she and her guard unit are in Baghdad is her mother. Unfortunately, her mother is married to a man Meg regards as completely unacceptable to be around her children.
“One Weekend a Month” suffers from too narrow a focus; we never learn much about Meg and her situation other than the obvious . Still, while the ending is weak, it’s a tense, reasonably well made reminder that war, any war, has many repercussions beyond those we normally consider, and nearly all of them are disastrous.
