Fackham Hall
I’ve pretty much stopped consuming the news and now my brain only has space for celebrity deaths and dumb shit. I know that’s super ignorant and not helpful to society but I’m sick and my self-prescribed treatment is Cheap Laughter™. It’s a decent medicine and it goes by many names. So if you’ve got a similar diagnosis, perhaps you’d be a good candidate for
FACKHAM HALL
If you liked Gosford Park but thought it would’ve been better if Mel Brooks directed it, then you may enjoy Fackham Hall, the new spoof from director Jim O’Hanlon that’s co-written by Jimmy Carr, his brother and two other brothers. It took four grown men to write this send up of prestige period British television: one to watch Downton Abbey and note down all the ripe material, one for wordplay, one for poo jokes and one for writing silly little signs that appear in the background of many scenes. I can only imagine how insufferable that writers’ room was but I appreciate their efforts. Others, it seems, did not. But more on that later.
Thomasin McKenzie stars as Rose Davenport, the second daughter of Lord Humphrey Davenport (Damian Lewis) and Lady Prudence Davenport (Katherine Waterston), owners of grand English manor Fackham Hall. It’s the 1930s and Rose’s sister is about to marry their cousin Archibald Davenport (Tom Felton) to keep the home in the family, since women cannot inherit and back then, marrying your cousin was more a suggestion than a hard rule.
On the other side of town, an orphan boy/man and pickpocket named Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) receives a letter to bring to Lord Davenport. But upon arriving at Fackham Hall he becomes a hall boy instead, forgets about the letter and falls for Rose. After a brief class-spanning courtship there’s a murder and the film turns into Gosford Park with a Temu Poirot leading the investigation. Gags are aplenty and the game is afoot.
Thank God for stupidity
The Windsor cinema audience were vocal about their disapproval of the film, with exclamations of “oh that was just awful” and “negative stars, what a waste of time” echoing across the foyer after the screening. I’m chuffed for them that they’re not currently medicated by Cheap Laughter™ but I disagree with their opinions; on the contrary (and perhaps also fueled by Spite™), I kinda like Fackham Hall.
It is by no means a clever parody. It’s not interested in saying anything meaningful about our curiosity with TV aristocracy; it’s just a regular spoof that sends up the oversaturation of prestige drama (how many seasons and movies has Downton had now?) by picking the lowest hanging fruit and turning them into jokes, visual gags and wordplay.
Some of these jokes touch on the ridiculousness of the upper class (like Lord Davenport using his valet’s hands rather than his own to drink his tea and the bougiest servants quarters housing five beds) but generally, the film’s rapid-fire cadence is catering to a modern taste for absurdity and declining attention spans rather than those looking for deeper meaning in their comedy.
For me, that’s totally fine, especially since comedies over the past however-long have become a bit too concerned with having something to say. Post-Covid ‘Eat the Rich’ tales like Triangle of Sadness, The Menu and Saltburn saturated the market and Yorgos Lanthimos seems to release a satire almost yearly now. I like all of those things, make no mistake, but sometimes I need a break from being reminded how shit the world is.
And I think that’s where Fackham Hall finds its home – that space in the brain where jokes are processed and forgotten just as quickly and where intellect can be checked at the door. It’s not bold enough to be offensive in any way and it’s just well-composed enough to mimic the aesthetic sensibilities of the things it’s sending up. That might not seem like a compliment but I do mean it sincerely.
It also features a cast that’s fully committed to the bit and whose timing and performances carry the film. Worth special shoutouts are Thomasin McKenzie, who is wonderful, as she is in everything, as the comedic foil; Damian Lewis, who has a penchant for physical comedy that I was unaware of; and Katherine Waterston, whose caricatured English accent and facial expressions evoke a live action Aardman character and were perhaps my favourite part of the film.
It had been some time since a full blown spoof film got released in cinemas but the success of last year’s Naked Gun reboot might signal a growing thirst for the genre. With the revival of the Scary Movie franchise set for this year it’ll be interesting to see if a genre comeback is on the cards. If the world continues on its current trajectory and the news stays bad, then maybe.
Because in times of chaos, it feels comforting to be able to turn your mind to something unapologetically dumb. In that sense, Fackham Hall is just what the doctor ordered: pure idiocy in an easy to swallow pill.
Verdict
☆☆☆
