A Look at Fackham Hall – This Fast-Paced, Witty Takeoff on Downton Which Is Delightfully Throwaway.
Maybe the sense of an ending era around us: after years of dormancy, the parody is staging a comeback. The recent season saw the re-emergence of this unserious film style, which, at its best, mocks the grandiosity of pompously earnest genre with a flood of heightened tropes, sight gags, and stupid-clever puns.
Playful eras, so it goes, beget deliberately shallow, joke-dense, pleasantly insubstantial amusement.
The Newest Offering in This Absurd Trend
The latest of these absurd spoofs comes in the form of Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that jabs at the very pokeable self-importance of opulent British period dramas. Penned in part by UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the movie has plenty of inspiration to mine and wastes none of it.
Opening on a ludicrous start to a ludicrous finish, this entertaining upper-class adventure packs each of its runtime with gags and sketches that vary from the puerile all the way to the truly humorous.
A Send-Up of Aristocrats and Servants
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall offers a caricature of overly dignified rich people and overly fawning help. The story focuses on the hapless Lord Davenport (portrayed by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their four sons in various calamitous events, their plans are pinned on securing unions for their offspring.
The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has accomplished the aristocratic objective of a promise to marry the right first cousin, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). Yet when she withdraws, the onus transfers to the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), described as a spinster of a woman" and and holds unladylike notions about women's independence.
Where the Humor Works Best
The film achieves greater effect when satirizing the oppressive norms imposed on early 20th-century women – an area often mined for po-faced melodrama. The stereotype of proper, coveted ladylike behavior supplies the best material for mockery.
The plot, as befitting an intentionally ridiculous send-up, is of lesser importance to the jokes. Carr delivers them coming at a pleasantly funny clip. The film features a murder, a farcical probe, and a forbidden romance involving the plucky pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
A Note on Lighthearted Fun
It's all in the spirit of playful comedy, though that itself comes with constraints. The heightened foolishness inherent to parody can wear quickly, and the comic fuel on this particular variety runs out in the space between sketch and a full-length film.
After a while, audiences could long to go back to the world of (at least a modicum of) coherence. Yet, you have to admire a sincere commitment to the craft. Given that we are to amuse ourselves to death, we might as well find the humor in it.
