A Family Affair (2024) “Bearded Joe Shorn of Jokes” (Review)

Rather famously, the TV critic of the Daily Mirror was not impressed with John Cleese’s sitcom Fawlty Towers when it made its debut in 1975. “Long John Short on Jokes” was the pronouncement of the former Monty Python star’s farcical hotelier comedy, now considered a much loved classic and often recognised as the greatest British sitcom of all time. Released to VOD in the UK on 20th May comes another farce set in a hotel, South African filmmaker Warren Fischer’s A Family Affair. It stars the shaggy comedian Joe Wilkinson and I fear I must paraphrase the critic of the Mirror before me here and decree that A Family Affair sees Bearded Joe Shorn of Jokes. It remains to be seen if, like my predecessor, these words will come back to haunt me, but I’m quietly confident that they will not.

A UK/South African co-production, A Family Affair is headed up by familiar British names like Wilkinson, Laura Aikman, Jane Asher and Coling Hoult, and supported by mostly unknown (to these shores) South African actors doing their best British. The film tells the story of Edward (Wilkinson) and his wife Helen (Aikman) who run a country manor house as a spiritual retreat, with help from their resident guru Rhys (Hoult). The trio may offer their paying guests a silent and peaceful respite away from the pressures and stresses of the modern world, but that very real world is now rapidly encrouching upon our hosts, with the crumbling manor house and scathing online reviews seeing the bank threatening to foreclose. With no option left, Edward arranges a public auction for the business and property.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t told Helen, who has invited her parents Margaret and Walter (Asher and Michael Maxwell) down to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary on the same day. Matters are also further complicated by the arrival of Edward’s father Albert (David Sherwood) who is ostensibly mourning the recent death of his wife and Edward’s mother and intending to spread the ashes in the manor house’s grounds. Further complications ensue thanks to Albert’s companion and carer, Jessica (Jazzara Jaslyn), a young, blonde gold digger who develops designs on Walter in the mistaken belief that he is loaded. Designs unwittingly helped along when Margaret partakes of Rhys’ personal supply of organic green tea, in reality a shockingly strong sedative, and ends up comatose. As the auction commences, Edward has to deal with a mysterious guest and potential buyer (Adrian Galley) who appears to die not once, but twice, and hold everything together to get a sale.

A Family Affair continues the tradition of the comical British farces of the 1970s, including those of Ray Cooney and the aforementioned Fawlty Towers. Indeed, just looking at that poster reminds me of a similar graphic for the feature film spin-off of Man About the House. Unfortunately, it fails to reach the heights of those due to two reasons; the first is that it simply doesn’t possess the zip and pace that those farces operated with and, even at just seventy-two minutes, feels rather sluggish, rather like the BBC’s afternoon drama department (Doctors, Father Brown, Moving On) had decided to have a go at a Cooney. The second is that it just isn’t very funny. I appreciate that farce is an acquired taste but, although all the usual tropes are there (there’s even a character who is repeatedly sans trousers, and the hazards of trying to hide a “dead” guest from everyone certainly recalls the classic Fawlty Towers episode The Kipper and the Corpse) and falls rather flat, despite the best efforts of Wilkinson and Hoult who have consistently performed well in other comedies, each often from the pen of Ricky Gervais.

A Family Affair is ultimately rather predictable. This is the kind of movie in which, the minute that the idea of the ashes of Edward’s late mother is established, you know that they will end up on the floor or in someone’s face – A Family Affair gives you both results. Within the first ten minutes I think I counted at least four knob gags; there’s the unashamed nudist guest, an embarrassingly graphic Fifty Shades of Grey style audio book discussing “bulges” in Margaret and Walter’s car, Albert requesting from his son a jacket to hide the erection that Jessica has given him, and a giant pink dildo in the room of the deceased guest that our hosts attempt to hide when booking everyone in with predictably poor results. Add to this, a “comedy” South Asian accent from a persistant telesales caller and my enthusiasm had already waned before the film even started proper. I’m not surprised that the peerless Jane Asher disappears for great lengths of time as Margaret is “out of it”. To be honest, I wish I could have joined her.

Mark’s Archive – A Family Affair (2024)