Fackham Hall Review – This Brisk, Humorous Downton Abbey Spoof That's Refreshingly Ephemeral.
Maybe the sense of uncertain days in the air: after years of quiet, the spoof is enjoying a resurgence. The past few months observed the rebirth of this unserious film style, which, when done well, skewers the grandiosity of excessively solemn dramas with a barrage of exaggerated stereotypes, physical comedy, and stupid-clever puns.
Frivolous times, it seems, beget deliberately shallow, gag-packed, pleasantly insubstantial entertainment.
The Newest Offering in This Goofy Wave
The latest of these goofy parodies arrives as Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that pokes fun at the very pokeable self-importance of wealthy English costume epics. The screenplay comes from UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the film has a wealth of material to draw from and uses all of it.
From a absurd opening and culminating in a ludicrous finish, this amusing aristocratic caper crams each of its runtime with gags and sketches that vary from the puerile to the truly humorous.
A Pastiche of Upstairs, Downstairs
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall presents a pastiche of extremely pompous rich people and very obsequious servants. The narrative focuses on the feckless Lord Davenport (portrayed by a wonderfully pretentious Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their male heirs in various tragic accidents, their aspirations fall upon finding matches for their daughters.
The junior daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the family goal of an engagement to the suitable close relative, Archibald (an impeccably slimy Tom Felton). However when she backs out, the onus transfers to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered an old maid of a woman" and and holds dangerously modern ideas concerning a woman's own mind.
The Film's Comedy Succeeds
The film is significantly more successful when joking about the stifling expectations placed on early 20th-century ladies – an area typically treated for self-serious drama. The trope of idealized ladylike behavior offers the best material for mockery.
The plot, as is fitting for a purposefully absurd spoof, is of lesser importance to the gags. Carr serves them up coming at a pleasantly funny rate. There is a murder, a farcical probe, and a forbidden romance featuring the charming thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
Limitations and Lighthearted Fun
Everything is in lighthearted fun, though that itself imposes restrictions. The heightened silliness characteristic of the genre might grate after a while, and the comic fuel on this particular variety expires at the intersection of a skit and feature.
After a while, you might wish to return to a realm of (very slight) logic. Yet, it's necessary to applaud a sincere commitment to the artform. If we're going to entertain ourselves to death, we might as well see the funny side.
