Two of the most flamboyant British model workers make their big-screen debut nearly twelve years after the cancellation of their popular sitcom. In “Absolutely Fabulous”, Edina (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) are still oozing glitz and glamour, living the high life they are accustomed to; shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hotspots in the most stylish of ways. Blamed for a major incident involving the rumored death of famed supermodel Kate Moss at an uber fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich; the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent and live the high life forever more. “Absolutely Fabulous” is directed by Madie Fletcher, and is rated R for adult language including sexual references, and some drug use.
“Absolutely Fabulous” is a great example of a big-screen adaptation that happened ten years too late. That’s not to say that the on-screen chemistry between Saunders and Lumley doesn’t gel to the effect of giving their audience a few laughs in between. The duo still hold the title as the queens of rude comedy by a landslide. But what the film reigns in with decent laughs, it lacks in storyline or justification for a big screen debut now, nearly thirty years after the show first debuted to British television. The script (written by Saunders) has a bad case of ADHD, meaning it greatly has focus issues for one story arc at a time. The movie (Like a frog) jumps from pad to pad of incoherent material that lacks any kind of continuity or flow with the previous scene. Because of that, “Absolutely Fabulous” quite often feels like a bunch of ideas that Saunders threw against a wall to see what would stick. Very little does. What works about this film being a half hour television sitcom, is that it only has to fill twenty minutes of material each week. With an 83 minute full-length feature, you begin to see the holes and downtime between real genuine laughs.
The main arc for the movie is the disappearance of Supermodel Kate Moss, and what I loved about this storyline is it showcased the very bizarre and overreactions of a world plagued by paparazzi and social media, complete with every person on Earth giving their two cents. With more patience, this idea could’ve materialized into something more than just a ten minute punchline that ran out of steam fast. The movie does what “Zoolander 2” certainly couldn’t earlier this year, inviting us into a world so ridiculous that it’s hard not to just laugh at it all. Once Moss goes overboard, the reaction from pop TV really lacks the kind of depth for the possible death of one of its biggest stars. This is brilliant to bring up this idea, but the film kind of just depleats the air out of this balloon of energy, then forgets about it nearly for good. After ten minutes of shock reactions, this is never brought up again until the very ending where everything was deposited easily enough so we can wrap everything up. Nothing ever takes its time, and I honestly could’ve used a little more mischief from two women who are known for it.
On the subject of their performances, Edina and Patsy feel like something fresh for the current wave of quick-witted comedy that currently plagues the scene. What works so effortlessly is that these two feel as close as Sisters, and it’s in that friendship where we understand how lost one would be without the other. As Edina, Saunders really is the focus front-and-center for the movie, and I felt that this was kind of a poor choice considering Patsy is definitely the funnier of the two. Patsy doesn’t have a lot to do until the final third of the movie, making the most of her time with old-school rumors from the TV show making their presence felt. The final twenty minutes of the movie was definitely the closest to everything that made this duo the comedic bombshell that they were, and at least it sent me home on a positive note, despite the bumbling level of incoherence that withstood for the entirety of the movie. Sadly, this is one of those films where 90% of the good lines are in the trailer. If you’ve seen it, you’ve seen everything that you need to from this mess.
Fans of the original series might find a spark of something that I didn’t within this film, but the material doesn’t have much crossover appeal. I’m not a major fan, but I certainly watched and enjoyed a majority of what I saw from the television show, and as someone who has minor experience with both, I would recommend popping in the DVD of the TV show if you’ve got it. I mentioned before how crisp twenty minutes is with this movie, as opposed to the film that does run with some pretty poor pacing. By the second act of the movie, the joke was up and I sadly realized that it wasn’t going to get much better from here. This one is strictly for the highest of die-hards within the Absolutely Fabulous universe.
If you must see “Absolutely Fabulous”, I would recommend waiting for DVD. There’s certainly nothing here that warrants a long distance drive to the big city market theaters to check it out. With the exception of the raunchy but charming charisma of the film’s two main stars, the movie lacks any kind of emotional depth or clarity in focus for long enough to ever make this something more. The movie feels like an all-night drinking episode that you are sure to forget the morning after.
4/10