Origin and release year: United States (2024 – A Family Affair)
Starring: Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Kathy Bates, Liza Koshy, Olivia Macklin, Sherry Cola, Ian Gregg
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Screenwriter: Carrie Solomon
Synopsis: An unexpected romance triggers comic consequences for a young woman, her mother, and her boss, grappling with the complications of love, sex, and identity. (IMDb)
Honestly, this film left A LOT to be desired. It wasn’t entirely boring, it was interesting enough for you to keep it running (whether you were paying attention in detail or not), but it wasn’t particularly fun either.
It was just a movie. Not good. Not bad. Just a movie.
Honestly, Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman is a casting combination that will make you click on the film in your Netflix ‘for you page’ immediately. However, the hype ends almost immediately after that. We should’ve known by the fact that the Netflix preview trailer scene happens within the first 5 minutes of the film.
The meet cute (and main catalyst for the plot) was a giant question mark in itself. A strange man (I don’t care if you’re aware of him as your daughter’s boss and a superstar or not) enters your house and you immediately start drinking with him as he waits for your daughter FOR HOURS. By the way, he just helps himself to someone else’s tequila, which is hella strange. Like even in a stranger’s house you’d wait for them to hand you a glass of water, not expensive alcohol… Then he excuses his behaviour by saying that he’s ‘famous’. Like bro, no one cares if you’re famous or not, this is not your mother’s house… Anyways, we digress – this is still a review and not a rant, but the point remains. Then Efron and Kidman continue to have this weird sexual chemistry in broad daylight in this absurd situation, knowing who they are in relation to each other, after only having met 10 minutes ago. The whole thing just made you tilt your head in confusion.
It wasn’t just that scene either… The storyline in itself was just completely unconvincing… Regardless of the fact that, “It’s just a movie.” No matter how nonsensical a plot, your audience still needs to be convinced. That is the very basis of genres like fantasy.
Even the ending was concluded in the most ridiculous way as Zara (played by Joey King) says, “This whole situation is weird which is why it works,” which is all great and dandy but without us even getting to see the emotional process of her accepting her mom and boss’ relationship, it made no sense. Granted she set them back up to excuse her awful behaviour and ease her conscience, but we still didn’t see any angst in her actions or even her genuinely growing fond of the pairing to excuse the lack of angst.
In fact, despite her character being kind of the protagonist (we say ‘kind of’ because she was but it didn’t feel like it). King is an ambiguous narcissist in the film, which is why her friend Eugenie (played by Liza Koshy) eventually tells her that she’s full of it. Don’t get us wrong, the narcissism was quite clear but everything else about her character was vague, hence the ambiguity.
Nicole Kidman, bless her, is lucky that she is such a talented actress. Despite the not so stellar screenwriting, she was still able to sell us on her character and have us rooting for her, despite the fact that she takes ridiculously long to clean and cook. The script really didn’t think through the timing of her actual actions or what she was doing in the story, which is one example of why she lacked dimension. Despite that, she was still endearing.
Zac Efron’s character was just wishy washy in terms of everything really. On a side-note, this writer thinks that Zac Efron should never act within a movie ever again. Seeing him act that terribly was giving ‘aah oop, jump scare’… When we all know that he’s a much better actor than that. Well done to him for getting so immersed into his character though.
The most convincing characters in the entire film were Leila (played by Kathy Bates) and Eugenie. However, Eugenie didn’t even get enough screen time to resolve her main conflict in the film. She was just used as a vehicle to tell Zara’s story without her character being given any weight. We would’ve loved to know what lead to her and Malcolm fighting, why his parents liked her dress more than her, how they broke up, etc. we understand that the point of those conflicts was to emphasize Zara’s indifference but since you’ve sparked our curiosity… None of that ever gets answered or addressed by the end of the film, just skimmed over to get back to Zara who quite frankly is not that intriguing to watch. It’s a very frustrating point.
Nonetheless, like we said, the movie is watchable. That’s where it ends.
What did you think of A Family Affair? Let us know in the comments!