Fackham Hall Review – A Rapid-Fire, Humorous Downton Abbey Spoof That's Pleasantly Lightweight.
Maybe the feeling of an ending era around us: subsequent to a lengthy span of quiet, the parody is making a resurgence. The recent season witnessed the rebirth of this unserious film style, which, in its finest form, skewers the self-importance of pompously earnest genre with a torrent of pitched clichés, sight gags, and dumb-brilliant double entendres.
Playful times, it seems, create an appetite for deliberately shallow, joke-dense, welcome light amusement.
The Latest Addition in This Goofy Resurgence
The newest of these silly send-ups is Fackham Hall, a Downton Abbey spoof that pokes fun at the easily mockable self-importance of gilded English costume epics. Penned in part by stand-up performer Jimmy Carr and helmed by Jim O'Hanlon, the film has a wealth of material to work with and exploits every bit of it.
From a absurd opening to a ludicrous finish, this entertaining upper-class adventure packs all of its runtime with puns and routines ranging from the juvenile up to the genuinely funny.
A Send-Up of Upstairs, Downstairs
Much like Downton, Fackham Hall presents a pastiche of very self-important the nobility and overly fawning staff. The narrative centers on the feckless Lord Davenport (brought to life by a wonderfully pretentious Damian Lewis) and his book-averse wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their four sons in a series of tragic accidents, their hopes are pinned on securing unions for their offspring.
The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has achieved the family goal of betrothal to the right first cousin, Archibald (a wonderfully unctuous Tom Felton). Yet when she withdraws, the pressure shifts to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as an old maid at 23 and and holds radically progressive notions concerning female autonomy.
Its Comedy Lands Most Effectively
The film fares much better when sending up the stifling norms imposed on early 20th-century women – an area often mined for earnest storytelling. The archetype of idealized womanhood offers the richest comic targets.
The storyline, as befitting a deliberately silly spoof, takes a back seat to the gags. The co-writer delivers them coming at an amiably humorous pace. The film features a killing, an incompetent investigation, and a star-crossed attraction involving the roguish thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
The Constraints of Lighthearted Fun
The entire affair is for harmless amusement, but that very quality imposes restrictions. The amplified absurdity inherent to parody might grate after a while, and the entertainment value in this instance diminishes somewhere between sketch and feature.
Eventually, audiences could long to return to the world of (at least a modicum of) reason. Nevertheless, one must applaud a genuine dedication to the artform. In an age where we might to entertain ourselves relentlessly, let's at least find the humor in it.
