Fackham Hall
- Ben Pivoz
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
The big screen comedy is slowly disappearing. Humor is now found in every blockbuster franchise, so people don’t find it necessary to seek out straight comedies anymore, at least not in theaters. Studios haven’t been putting much money into them, as a result. However, in an unexpected turn of events, the genre may be getting some new life thanks to the parody. After the box office success of The Naked Gun reboot, as well as the announcement of a new entry in the Scary Movie franchise, there seems to be a renewed interest in the subgenre.
Not that I anticipate it making a lot of money, but we can now add Fackham Hall to the list. A spoof of British period pieces, it is a gleefully stupid, gag a second farce that will do anything for a laugh. The hit to miss ratio is pretty good. The characters, the story, everything makes only as much sense as it absolutely has to in order to set up the next joke. Literally, the one thing that matters for a movie like this is whether or not it is funny. I laughed a lot.
The well-to-do Davenport family is in danger of losing their beloved home, Fackham Hall. The only way to save it is for daughter Poppy to marry her odious cousin Archibald. Meanwhile, on the eve of the wedding, pickpocket Eric cons his way into a job as a servant at Fackham Hall. Once all the pieces are in place, there is a murder, and life at the estate is turned upside down.
Not a single word of that has anything to do with the movie’s true purpose, which is just to throw heaping helpings of nonsense at the viewer, using targets as varied as Downton Abbey, Gosford Park and the stories of Jane Austen as a rickety base. There are puns galore, visual absurdities, anachronistic pop culture references and many dick, fart and poop jokes, all delivered with a straight face by a cast fully committed to the bit. Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston and Damian Lewis are over the top, exaggerating their intentionally cliché characters in an amusing way.
This style of comedy is difficult to maintain for an entire feature. While Fackham Hall (93 minutes, without the end credits) isn’t the greatest example of it, it still does what it sets out to do successfully enough. The pacing is a little off at times (there are a couple of moments where it almost takes its plot seriously) and there are probably a few too many penis jokes, yet the word play is definitely on point. The non-stop barrage of one-liners and sight gags can be overwhelming and/or off-putting if it is not working. It worked for me. I had fun with its slapdash goofiness.
It is so hard to review something like this because the acting, story, characters, really all of the filmmaking, is largely irrelevant. It just comes down to the jokes. It is challenging to talk about those without merely repeating them. I won’t do that, so I will only say that several made me laugh out loud. For my tastes, the dumber the pun the better. If that is the kind of humor you enjoy, check this out. You won’t be disappointed.
3½ out of 5
Cast:
Ben Radcliffe as Eric Noone
Thomasin McKenzie as Rose Davenport
Katherine Waterston as Lady Davenport
Damian Lewis as Lord Davenport
Tom Felton as Archibald
Directed by Jim O’Hanlon
Written by Jimmy Carr, Patrick Carr, Andrew Dawson, Steve Dawson and Tim Inman
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