A family affair
★★★✩✩
Reviewed by Keren David
There was a moment while watching Netflix’s new romantic comedy A family affair when I asked myself whether it was really the right choice for the JCAt the beginning, young Zara, assistant to a famous actor, is doing his shopping for him when she asks him: “Do you eat ham, Chris?” – possibly the least JC-friendly line in the history of romantic comedies. Of course, there’s a family Christmas with a giant Christmas tree, meaningful gifts, and lots of extra syrup.
No matter. Chris may be called Chris, eat ham, and be an actor, but he’s played by Zac Efron, one of the more decorative Jewish Hollywood stars of all time, even amidst plastic surgery rumors that have caused a stir on social media. And Zara is played by rising star Joey King, who is also Jewish and was last seen in the Holocaust drama. We were the lucky onesThe author of A family affair is Carrie Solomon, who may sound Jewish, although I can’t really find any evidence for that.
Those are all the excuses I needed to put my feet up and enjoy a very silly movie that offers an excellent escape during difficult times. (“What nonsense is this?” my husband asked, unromantically, as I took notes on Efron’s muscular torso. “It’s work!” I protested, but that may not have convinced him.) In the good old days, 24-year-old Zara and 30-something Chris would have been made for a workplace romance, despite his whiny neediness. But in the #MeToo era, Chris falls for Zara’s mother Brooke, a writer played by Nicole Kidman, who is supposedly 16 years his senior. (“I’m Australian,” she says; “Oh, do you know Margot Robbie?” he asks). Dazzled by his blue eyes and aforementioned muscles, and after drinking a lot of tequila, she takes him to bed and rips his clothes off. Her daughter is very horrified when she discovers the clothes a few minutes later, as is inevitable in such films.
And so it goes, as you’d expect. The film pokes fun at Efron’s expense – “Your agents and managers are trashing you just to make money off you,” Zara tells him, while Kidman responds blankly to a compliment on her dress: “Well, it’s been in the closet for years.” His character is underplayed, as roles played by pretty women have been for years, but he manages the transition from whiny to desirable with the ease that comes from a talented actor playing a not-so-good one.
Likewise, Kidman succeeds in making us believe that an intelligent woman could find hidden depths in this man-child. You just have to forget the 2012 film The Paper Boy, that brimmed with twisted sexual attraction between two more interesting characters played by the same actors. That was noir, this is marshmallow pink.
The real heart of this easy-to-watch film is the relationships between the women. There’s Kidman and her mother-in-law/editor Leila (the relationship is explained in a tough bit of dialogue that could serve as a “how not to do it” in a screenwriting class). Played by Kathy Bates, Leila is warm and wise, and the bond between the two women is more believable than the chemistry between Brooke and Chris.
And then there’s Zara, who starts the film as a really annoying, unassuming Generation Z brat. “He’s such a diva!” she complains about her boss, to which her grandmother replies, “Yes, honey, so are you.” Greetings from the sofa! Thankfully, the film challenges her self-centered perspective and lets her think outside the box. She develops enough to arrange a reconciliation between her mother and her boss at the supermarket that’s so understated you wonder if Netflix ran out of money and had to finish the film on the cheap. In short, if you’re looking for a fun way to spend an afternoon that doesn’t require you to worry any of your brain cells, then Zara is for you. A family affair is almost perfect.
