Nicole Kidman as Brooke Harwood and Zac Efron as Chris Cole in A Family Affair. Photo: Supplied.
The new romantic comedy A Family Affair — starring Australia’s Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman and American actor Zac Efron — lacks fervour and is one liaison that’s best forgotten.
The film follows Zara Ford (Joey King, Uglies, The Kissing Booth), a young woman who discovers that her single mother Brooke Harwood (Kidman, The Hours, Perfect Strangers, Being Ricardos) is having an affair with her self-centered movie star boss Chris Cole (Efron, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, Vile).
The story is set following this surprising involvement which kicks off with hysterical (few comical) consequences for a young woman, her mother and her employer as they face the complications of love, sex, identity and an age-gap scenario. The latter aspect though is the least of its problems. It falls into the same niche rom-com genre of The Idea of You, which similarly explores the story of a beloved young celebrity falling for an older woman. However, the sparks were evident in the sweltering Anne Hathaway-Nicholas Galitzine romance.
Efron and Kidman have a proven chemistry in The Paperboy from 2012, but that’s sadly lacking in their second cinematic collaboration. It’s unbelievable how little ardour there is to be found here between the two, who are among Hollywood’s most charismatic stars. Their courtship unfolds clumsily under Richard LaGravenese’s inept guidance. He’s reported to have “wanted the first sexual scene to be comic” because “it wasn’t about being sexy.”
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The Paperboy, directed by Lee Daniels, bursts with more heat even in its expendable moments than A Family Affair manages in its crucial intimate scenes!
Zara is a 24-year-old who is the movie star’s on-call, 24/7, long-suffering, personal assistant, doing everything from picking up his groceries and dry-cleaning to making 11th hour deliveries of diamond stud earrings he gives to the girls he dates as break-up presents. Zara feels frustrated, seeing what a demanding and womanising narcissist Chris is, and fears for her mother.
“The way he goes through women … he’s going to hurt her … and I’m going have to kill him.”
A complex girl, Zara is also selfish and a bit immature. Not unlikeable, she gets her redemption at the end. She is also loud, yelling and screaming if things don’t go her way. Her exasperating behaviour comes to the fore in a specific scene with her mother. Brooke, who is also an award-winning author, admits her amorous feelings towards Cole to her daughter: “I am starting to feel things that I never thought I would feel again, not since your father died.” It’s an admission that appalls Zara, who angrily shouts back at her mother: “No! You did not just say that!
From there on in Zara goes out of her way to create barriers, hell-bent on not recognising their blossoming connection. At first, Chris resists temptation, but uncertainty quickly grows into an “awesome” relationship.
When working for Cole begins to take its toll, Zara quits her job on an impulse. Then, on cue, Chris first meets Brooke when he goes to the house to persuade Zara to come back to work for him. Instead, he spends time with the middle-aged mother and their attraction slowly leads them to the bedroom which is where Zara (surprisingly) first finds them!
Shocked as Zara is, she agrees to return to work for Chris in exchange for an associate producer credit on his new movie and a promise that he will never see her mother again. He keeps the first promise but not the second, leading to the expected altercations and impediments.
Zara still lives with Brooke, a widow for 11 years. They are both very close to Leila Ford (Oscar-winning Kathy Bates, Misery, The Miracle Club, Tammy), Brooke’s gorgeous, warmhearted and supportive mother-in-law and Zara’s grandmother.
It’s at a special Christmas gathering when “chestnuts are roastin’ on an open fire” that Leila admits Chris is “a peach.” Brooke reveals “… he makes me feel so wonderful!”
It’s also a time when a loving grandmother sets out to educate Zara. Explaining some facts of life, Leila points out that Chris makes Brooke happy. “If you can’t get over this moody mopey attitude, then fake it!”
Richard LaGravenese (Beautiful Creatures, P. S. I Love You, Paris Je T’aime, Freedom Writers) helms the film from the producers (Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum) of Anyone but You, with a script by Carrie Solomon.
Even though LaGravenese “saw in it a coming-of-age story for three different characters at three different stages of their lives,” his direction is oddly stiff and tedious. It’s A Family Affair that, at times, feels lifeless.
A Family Affair, directed by Richard LaGravenese, is streaming on Netflix.
