Maybe the sense of an ending era pervading: subsequent to a lengthy span of dormancy, the comedic send-up is making a return. This summer witnessed the re-emergence of this unserious film style, which, at its best, skewers the self-importance of excessively solemn genre with a flood of pitched clichés, physical comedy, and stupid-clever puns.
Unserious eras, so it goes, create an appetite for deliberately shallow, gag-packed, refreshingly shallow amusement.
The Newest Addition in This Absurd Trend
The newest of these silly send-ups arrives as Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that pokes fun at the very pokeable airs of gilded UK historical series. The screenplay comes from stand-up performer Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the movie has a wealth of source material to mine and wastes none of it.
From a ludicrous start and culminating in a ludicrous finish, this enjoyable aristocratic caper crams each of its hour and a half with jokes and bits running the gamut from the childish all the way to the authentically hilarious.
A Send-Up of Upstairs, Downstairs
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a pastiche of extremely pompous rich people and very obsequious help. The narrative centers on the hapless Lord Davenport (played by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his literature-hating wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their four sons in various calamitous events, their aspirations are pinned on marrying off their daughters.
The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has accomplished the family goal of a promise to marry the appropriate kinsman, Archibald (a wonderfully unctuous Tom Felton). Yet after she pulls out, the onus shifts to the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered an old maid already and and possesses dangerously modern notions regarding female autonomy.
The Film's Humor Lands Most Effectively
The spoof is significantly more successful when satirizing the suffocating social constraints forced upon pre-war females – an area typically treated for self-serious drama. The archetype of idealized femininity supplies the best material for mockery.
The storyline, as befitting a deliberately silly send-up, is secondary to the bits. Carr delivers them coming at a pleasantly funny pace. Included is a killing, a bungled inquiry, and an illicit love affair between the plucky pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
The Constraints of Frivolous Amusement
The entire affair is in the spirit of playful comedy, but that very quality has limitations. The dialed-up foolishness inherent to parody might grate over time, and the mileage in this instance diminishes somewhere between a skit and feature.
After a while, audiences could long to return to the world of (very slight) logic. Nevertheless, one must applaud a wholehearted devotion to the craft. Given that we are to amuse ourselves unto oblivion, we might as well laugh at it.
