A Family Affair review: Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King serve a ...
The basic premise of A Family Affair—an older woman dating a man much younger and more famous than her—might remind you of Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s recent The Idea of You but the similarities between the two films end right there. Starring Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, and Joey King, the Richard LaGravenese directorial isn’t as concerned with the gaping age difference between its lovers as it is with earning the approval of the woman’s daughter.
At 111 minutes, the Netflix film follows Zara (King), a 24-year-old personal assistant to the action superstar Chris Cole (Efron) who runs his petty, whimsical errands at all times in the hopes of becoming his associate producer one day. Chris is the classic movie star prototype—a self-obsessed, unreasonable, unpredictable man-child with an overblown eggshell ego—the kind Hollywood films love to hate. One day feeling guilty about firing Zara as he does whenever he feels like it, he shows up at her home looking to apologise.
But he meets her ravishing writer mother Brooke (Kidman) instead. The two begin talking over tequila shots and before they can make sense of what’s what, they end up in bed together only to be walked in on by Zara. So repulsed and disgusted she is by this inappropriate liaison, she spends most of the rest of the movie trying to keep them apart. But as it turns out, Chris and Brooke’s hook-up develops into something deeper and more fulfilling than the heady rush of a new love.
Albeit predictable, Carrie Solomon’s screenplay is smart and carries emotional heft with enough room for each character to flourish, have a backstory, and find a fitting resolution to their conflicts. Though a dramatic actor of considerable repute—remember his last year’s
The Iron Claw?—Efron proves yet again that he is a delightful comedic actor too. He elevates half-decent lines to laugh-out-loud funny, thanks to his impeccable comic timing.
Netflix’s favourite, King, is wonderful too even if she spends most of the film sulking. Kidman brings a suave elegance and a diva-like sheen to her character. Brooke is a successful author who has loved and lost and is full of untapped desire. It is a role that should have been brimming with life and yearning, but Kidman somehow turns her into an alabaster martyr. However, you should watch out for her scenes with her mother-in-law Leila (a terrific Kathy Bates). They are some of the film’s absolute best.
Though packaged as a low-stakes, feel-good rom-com with a lovely third act, A Family Affair has a lot to say. Set in Los Angeles, it’s not too different from Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s The Fall Guy in the way it critiques the eccentricities of movie stars and showbiz. Take, for instance, Brooke (and by extension us, the audience) finding out that despite starring in the billion-dollar sci-fi franchise Icarus Rush that catapulted him to global superstardom, Chris has no idea about the myth of Icarus.
However, Liza Koshy’s typecasting as the lead’s black best friend Eugenie didn’t sit well with me. We’re half past 2024, surely Hollywood can do better than this?
It shares commonalities with all the films mentioned above and even An Action Hero (2022) closer home. But unlike any of these movies, A Family Affair doesn’t as much scratch the surface to explore the inconveniences of age-gap relationships or your daughter not approving of your dating life. Netflix’s new romcom stays strictly buoyant, happily focusing on tidy, neat solutions that can only be achieved in movies.
