A Family Affair
Just as its title suggests, “A Family Affair” is a predictable rom com with one dimensional characters whose motives seem to change at random to fit the plotline. In last month’s streaming romance “The Idea of You,” a beautiful Oscar winning actress starred as an older woman falling for a much younger celebrity; this month, it’s “Paperboy” co-stars Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron playing award-winning author Brooke Harwood and superhero franchise star Chris Cole.
Brooke’s 24-year old daughter Zara (Joey King) is Chris’ beleaguered personal assistant, but that doesn’t mean she spends all her time picking up his dry cleaning or groceries though she does do those things, too or even that she wants to be an actress herself. She just knows he needs someone like her to take care of him and believes he’ll eventually make good on his promises to help her career.
Zar has quit, again so many times before when he was about to go off and shoot another sequel in his popular “Icarus” series, only for her mother or grandmother to talk her into coming back because they need the money or it’s not really that bad. This time, she’s really done it. Her mom is Brooke; they’ve lived alone together since Brooke became a widow 11 years ago. They have Leila (Kathy Bates), their warm hearted and supportive mother in law and grandmother who lives just two blocks away.
But Leila lost her restaurant job during the pandemic and can’t afford to retire yet. Chris goes over there how did he know where they live? we were never told while Zar is packing up all of his stuff from their house (how did he end up living there? it was never mentioned). He meets Brooke at the door, she lets him in (why?), and then They literally rip each other’s clothes off, in the living room, on the floor, and he goes down on her why are they doing this? we were never told.
Zar comes home 10 minutes later she forgot her phone, which is why Brooke was calling it over and over in a panic (why didn’t Zar hear it ringing?) and sees them. This leads to what is supposed to be an amusing scene of Zar retching into every available receptacle. It is not. Zar agrees to go back to work for Chris who needs an assistant now more than ever because his ex-manager just quit (wasn’t that Zar’s job?) but only if she gets a producer credit on his new movie and he promises never to see or speak to her mother again. He keeps the first promise but not the second.
The problem is that the idea of being a beautiful person in the show business who is more lonely than entitled has been overused, and this movie should have done something with it. After Chris has been shown to be self-centered and unintelligent, we are expected to buy that he would bond with a prize winning novelist with books lining her walls who explains to him that his character’s name is taken from the Greek myth of Icarus, they agree to meaningless sex, and then fall in forever love.
That relationship doesn’t even clear the (admittedly) low bar for good faith required by attractive people smooching movies. Though King does her best harried anxious horrified triple play, Zara’s two best friends played by Liza Koshy and Sherry Cola are consistently more interesting and vibrant characters than she is.
The last section is very weak, with an unnecessary mix-up, an overdue reality check and a zig into Hallmark channel like cozy white Christmas territory. The nadir comes in a jarring confession that seems like an attempt at making the Brooke/Chris connection feel earned but reads like exactly the kind of random punch up Zara and her screenwriter friend would’ve jettisoned.
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