Directed By Richard LaGravenese

Starring – Joey King, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron

The Plot – An unexpected romance triggers comic consequences for a Zora (King), her mother, Brooke (Kidman), and her boss, Chris (Efron), grappling with the complications of love, sex, and identity as they all plan to co-exist with their newfound realities.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and some strong adult language.

A Family Affair | Official Trailer | Netflix (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Truthfully, very few things effectively register to this Netflix offering, but the decorated ensemble are continuously giving their all to the integrity of their respective characters, with a vibrancy of personality and even humility that prove their undying commitment. Efron and Kidman are perhaps too good to be in a movie of this caliber, but Zac loses himself in the depths of a shallow Hollywood playboy, crafting this larger than life antagonist of sorts that feels like the male version of Meryl Streep’s turn in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, and Kidman stirs ingredients of overwhelming grief and compassion towards a recovering woman who definitely should’ve been the movie’s primary focus. Joey King has also done so many of these Netflix romantic comedies by this point that her comedic timing is impeccable, and as a result the floundering gags of familiarity do find some occasional momentum in the ways King gleefully embraces them, despite her character being all kinds of immature that threaten to squash the sentiment. There are also noteworthy supporting turns from the iconic Kathy Bates and the tragically underrated Sherry Cola, who both deserved to be in the film a lot more than the finished product includes them, rounding out a collective ensemble that gives this film more wings than it rightfully deserved, with none of them sleeping through their respective efforts that helps suppress the idea of Netflix being of lesser quality. In addition to the performances, there are some endearing dynamics away from the love of Kidman and Efron’s characters that were like a welcoming breath of fresh air to the proceedings, serving as the only moments in the film where the people depicted felt like living, breathing human beings. The greatest of these is definitely the dependable bond between Kidman and Bates’ characters, who as in-laws from a previous marriage supplant what the other one needs almost telepathically. As to where most of the film is smothered in this schmaltzy artificiality that feels borrowed from Nora Roberts or Hallmark movies, this dynamic is the only time the film bordered on genuine emotion and bountiful insight, prescribing a glance into the film we should’ve gotten if Netflix wasn’t as primed to impress the teenage and young adult demographics so forcefully. Lastly, the inside baseball of cinematic productions gives the script an art-imitating-life kind of enveloping when it periodically leans away from its blossoming romance, that is a bit refreshing to see Efron candidly spoof, with ironic feelings towards some of his own strange decisions with embraced projects that prove he’s not above poking fun at himself. Obviously, this aspect will cater more to people who understand and appreciate how productions play out behind the scenes, but even to the inexperienced, it’s lighter and fluffier than those wet blanketed moments of the movie’s romance, proving that LaGravenese has plenty to say about superstar personalities that he has steered in his over twenty-five years in the industry.

NEGATIVES

Structurally and emotionally, this film fails on nearly everything that it attempts to grasp, beginning especially with the front-and-center romance between Kidman and Efron that fails to woo on even the smallest increments. Part of the reason for this is in the complete lack of romantic chemistry between them that fails to register any of the sparks or sentiment to the audience that are supposed to be basking in their glow of this romantic comedy, but so much more lends itself to the way the romance is conceived during their initial engagements, with deception and lust serving as the primary ingredients for their embracing. If the script took any time fleshing out why each of them are perfect for each other, mainly what one of them brings to what the other is missing, it would’ve felt like an ideal pairing, but the script’s primary dependency on King’s character undercooks their tender dynamic in ways that has us essentially experiencing it from miles away, with unintentionally laughable on-the-nose dialogue and set-ups that feel like they were literally lifted from a MILF porn segment, only with about half of the believability of those flimsily constructed sequences. But even while the romance flounders, the comedy side of that aforementioned designation somehow does a lot worse, with predictably derivative gags and illogical character motivations that only happen to serve the movements of the plot and ensuing conflict into motion, all the while solidifying one laugh in the entirety of the engagement. Comedies continue to be a problem for Netflix, and with ‘A Family Affair’, it’s certainly easy to see why, as the punchlines lack a lot of focus and set-up to their various deliveries, resulting in these abrupt manifestations that don’t feel even remotely believable or impactful to the ways they’re continuously shuffled in, resulting in the prolonged agony of sequences that the audience often waits for the characters in the film to catch up to. The script is also a sloppy tone-deaf mess, both with its characters and shifts that often make this feel like two different creators coming together to argue what kind of film this should rightfully be. Aside from an aforementioned lack of focus to Brooke’s side of the story, the film clumsily concocts its character designs with personalities that are a bit unflattering, and therefore impossible to properly invest in, with King’s exaggerated emphasis to destroying her Mom’s tranquility feeling every bit immature as it is inappropriate, and Chris’ introduction to the film certifying him as this douchebag of sorts, who somehow miraculously changes once he meets the right woman. Somewhere in the middle of these two awful people is Kidman’s Brooke, who as already argued should be the film’s primary focus, but is instead subjected to two sides of this childishly stupid rivalry, which strangely enough feels like an internal retort of Chris and Zora’s own suppressed feelings for one another. If this isn’t enough, when Chris and Brooke eventually get together, the film’s look and tone change as drastically as I’ve seen in a movie, this year, with overzealous production values that smother the intention of trying to convey this as a blossoming romance between these two people. Not only is the comedy nearly absent during the entirety of the film’s inferior second half, but the visuals involving warmly glowing lighting and piano-driven scores comes quite literally out of nowhere, making this feel like it was plucked directly from the Hallmark channel, with about as much subtlety to artistic merit as a locomotive barreling through an oil plant. Finally, and most par for the course with regards to the romance genre, the film is so inescapably predictable that it can easily be certified as background noise, in which you can do household chores, come back to it, and feel like you barely missed any pivotal development with the storytelling. This is felt the loudest during an easily telegraphed third act, in which a typical distancing between characters comes as a result of something that could easily be resolved in a three minute conversation between them, but instead lingers extendedly so that our characters have something to threaten their otherwise peaceful existence, other than the boredom that blankets this engagement and two hours from my Saturday that I will never get back.

OVERALL
‘A Family Affair’ is Netflix’s latest attempt to bridge the gap of cinematic balance and equality, but instead further divides it with undercooked elements of romance and comedy that leave it an unfocused and tonally drifting mess. Despite the best efforts from a radiant ensemble of noteworthy lead and supporting talents, LaGravenese’s film is ultimately doomed by unoriginal levels of storytelling and artistic integrity borrowed from better movies, leaving it another for the lazy and uninspired pile that the streaming giant has built an empire on.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-