From Jeremy Kibler

For a serious drama, a wacky farce, or even a mix of both, A Family Affair does have one dishy hook: a movie star’s assistant discovers her mother has slept with and is now dating the Hollywood hunk. Sometimes charming but mostly bland and inoffensive, this lightweight fluff has all of the ingredients to be more than it is, particularly with a cast this appealing and watchable. It’s a tepid affair, as it turns out, but it is also the nicest, sunniest May-December romance that you could watch at home with Mom.

24-year-old Zara (Joey King) has been the long-suffering assistant to 34-year-old diva movie star Chris Cole (Zac Efron) for two years. When she decides to assert herself and quit, Chris comes to her Malibu family home to get her back. Enter Zara’s Australian mother Brooke (Nicole Kidman), an accomplished but stagnant writer who lost her husband 11 years ago. The two break into the tequila and get to chatting, and before you know it, Brooke and Chris are getting it on (in the most chaste, shirt-ripping fashion), only for Zara to walk in and get frazzled. Because of this little affair, Chris offers Zara to be his associate producer while still wooing Brooke, who hasn’t felt this happy in a while. Of course, since she has had to deal with Chris breaking up with many women, Zara needs to know that his intentions with her mother are pure. 

What starts with a fine setup for a breezy farce strays into dull, overlong romantic-comedy goo. Things would be different if the romance were electric and if the comedy were punchier, but alas, here we are. Even the satirical Hollywood stuff—Chris is shooting the latest terrible action tentpole in what is pitched to him as “Die Hard meets Miracle on 34th Street meets Speed”—is never sharp enough. Perhaps this needed the warm, cozy Nancy Meyers touch instead of a flat, brightly lit sitcom look and much, much more McMansion porn. Or, like the film’s key plot point involving a script rewrite, maybe A Family Affair needed one, too.

Carrie Solomon’s script needn’t pick a single lane, but as a romantic comedy, a coming-of-age story, and a mother-daughter story, it probably wouldn’t have hurt. Once Chris and Brooke do begin spending more and more time together without Zara’s knowledge—oh, the montages—the wheels keep turning very slowly. Director Richard Lagravenese (P.S. I Love You and The Last Five Years) does capture everything with a light touch, but almost nothing holds enough weight to be worth our concern anyway. 

An endearing Joey King puts all of her honed comic timing for physical comedy on display and makes every emotional moment ring true. It’s refreshing that Zara is career-oriented and not concerned with a romantic relationship for herself; in fact, she’s even a little repulsed by her boss who happens to look like Zac Efron. Efron plays a version of himself, only as a hot, super-famous star of a superhero franchise called “Icarus Rush” who’s out of touch and has no friends, but it’s a self-parodic performance that only benefits a little from Efron’s charisma. Though Kidman makes everything look effortless—and both she and Efron are effortlessly beautiful people—they don’t have the kind of red-hot chemistry as romantic partners that they need in order to root for Brooke and Chris. Their characters do each share their own personal losses, but a few honest moments aside, the relationship never feels like more than a fling. This time, Kidman doesn’t have to pee on Efron’s jellyfish-stung bod (yes, this is a thing that happened in Lee Daniels’ sweaty hot mess The Paperboy).

The solid supporting cast is entirely here to play emotional support for our leads, and not much else. Kathy Bates can’t help but be wisdom incarnate ready for a heart-to-heart as Brooke’s mother-in-law, an ex-editor and photographer, and yes, she does it delightfully. Liza Koshy is on hand for some zingers as Zara’s sassy best friend Genie, and as Zara’s other friend, a playwright who could rewrite the hackjob Chris Cole is contractually obligated to star in, Sherry Cola goes oddly underutilized.

Everyone is affable enough and easy on the eyes, but even as escapism, A Family Affair is never sexy enough, funny enough, or genuinely heartfelt enough. Luckily, The Idea of You is right there on Prime Video.

Rating: 2/5

A Family Affair hits Netflix on June 28, 2024. 

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