Once “The Five-Star Weekend” gets rolling, the momentum fuels arguments that feel like the kind of deep, tough-because-they’re-true reckonings you only get with long-term ties.

A smartly executed adaptation of beach-read queen Elin Hilderbrand’s 2023 hit The Five-Star Weekend and that the shamelessly expository line issues from the irony-immune mouth of a perfectionist baking influencer played by Jennifer Garner.

It cuts the hard stuff about getting older with enough genuine comedy that even the sappy beats go down as easy as one of Hollis's recipes.

The Five Star Weekend clearly has the right ingredients, whether it’s a solid cast or directors like Jennifer Morrison and Minkie Spiro—the female gaze enhances this material! However, the show’s interest in schmaltz over soul searching makes it less profound than it aims to be. Still, it’s escapism at its best.

The premise feels forced with the desire to orchestrate another luxe reunion drama in the style of Big Little Lies, The Perfect Couple and The Four Seasons evidently so great that an implausibility is allowed to drive the plot. But there are some good lines — and some refreshing sullen ungirlyness from Hollis’s oldest friend, Tatum (Chloe Sevigny).

All told, and especially by the end, the limited series (which could, in theory, become an ongoing series) is best when it’s not taking itself too seriously.

It's as forgettable and as disposable as the biggest critics of the beach read genre would fear and did the unthinkable: for the first time in my life, it made me wish the weekend would end a lot sooner.