Fackham Hall – A Fast-Paced, Witty Downton Abbey Spoof Which Is Refreshingly Lightweight.
It could be the notion of uncertain days pervading: after years of quiet, the parody is making a comeback. The past few months witnessed the rebirth of this playful category, which, when done well, mocks the pretensions of overly serious genre with a torrent of pitched clichés, visual jokes, and dumb-brilliant double entendres.
Playful periods, so it goes, create an appetite for knowingly unserious, gag-packed, refreshingly shallow fun.
The Latest Addition in This Goofy Wave
The newest of these silly send-ups is Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that needles the highly satirizable airs of opulent English costume epics. The screenplay comes from UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the feature has plenty of material to work with and exploits every bit of it.
Starting with a ludicrous start all the way to its preposterous conclusion, this amusing upper-class adventure fills every one of its runtime with jokes and bits running the gamut from the puerile to the authentically hilarious.
A Mimicry of The Gentry and Staff
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall offers a caricature of very self-important the nobility and very obsequious help. The narrative focuses on the feckless Lord Davenport (portrayed by a wonderfully pretentious Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their four sons in a series of calamitous events, their hopes fall upon securing unions for their daughters.
One daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the family goal of a promise to marry the appropriate close relative, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). However after she withdraws, the pressure transfers to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as an old maid already and and holds dangerously modern beliefs regarding female autonomy.
Its Laughs Succeeds
The spoof achieves greater effect when sending up the suffocating expectations imposed on pre-war ladies – a subject typically treated for earnest storytelling. The archetype of respectable, enviable femininity provides the richest material for mockery.
The narrative thread, as befitting a purposefully absurd spoof, is secondary to the bits. The co-writer serves them up arriving at a consistently comedic clip. The film features a murder, an incompetent investigation, and a star-crossed attraction involving the plucky pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
A Note on Lighthearted Fun
Everything is in lighthearted fun, but that very quality has limitations. The heightened foolishness of a spoof may tire over time, and the mileage on this particular variety diminishes at the intersection of sketch and a full-length film.
At a certain point, audiences could long to return to a realm of (at least a modicum of) reason. Yet, you have to applaud a genuine dedication to this type of comedy. If we're going to distract ourselves relentlessly, let's at least laugh at it.
