Directed by: Richard LaGravenese
Written by: Carrie Solomon
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King, Kathy Bates, Sherry Cola
Rating: [2.5/5]
At a certain point in adulthood, individuals reach a place where they have a role they are defined by. One of the more blatant examples of this lies with parents, where no matter what stages of life they go through, their children will only see them as a parent and not a human being with their own desires and flaws. A Family Affair exemplifies this when the lead character reckons with the fact her mother has begun dating her narcissistic boss.
Always at the beck and call of her Hollywood star boss, Zara (Joey King) has had enough of the demands of the job and quits. Chris (Zac Efron), hoping to get Zara back, heads to her home and meets her mother, Brooke (Nicole Kidman), where they immediately strike a mutual attraction for each other. As they begin a relationship, Zara has major objections to this arrangement, which puts the dynamic in jeopardy.
One can easily see the dilemma Zara faces in this film. A true nightmarish scenario for her as the person she dislikes the most in the world has begun a relationship with the person on the other side of that spectrum. Her concern and anger coincide as she holds anger towards Chris but also concern for her mother getting involved with him romantically, given Zara knows exactly how the Hollywood star treats all of his previous girlfriends. She does not want her mother to represent another notch on his belt.
Therefore, we have a film of two individuals displaying this incredible chemistry with each other and someone in the middle trying to end it for everyone’s sake. This shows the two sides of the coin of this film and how one element works very well and the other makes the film capitulate under its silliness. It can go even simpler: whenever Nicole Kidman and Kathy Bates, who comes in later in the film, appear on screen, we see the magic of this story, but then we return to Joey King, and she takes a wrecking ball to all of the good will built. That summarizes the viewing experience of A Family Affair in a nutshell.
When just looking at the story of Brooke, this film carries some emotional fortitude to it as she places herself in a place where she can be heartbroken. After losing her husband, she has not allowed herself to feel what she does with Chris, and this journey does not come so easily, which Leila (Kathy Bates) helps her reckon with. Nicole Kidman, as expected, does what she does in each of her performances, which is deliver strong work. She makes Brooke such an easily watchable character and makes every scene with her an enjoyable one.
Then we have Joey King’s Zara, who needs to come to grips with the truth of her mother being an adult who has her own whims and desires. If she wants to face heartbreak, she can handle it on her own. Everything with Zara weighs the film down as the character comes across as extremely whiny throughout as she mostly exists as a foil for Brooke and Chris rather than a fully realized character. An unfortunate result, given we spend most of the runtime of this film following her shenanigans. It does make you wonder what this film would look like without this character in the middle of it all. Given every scene featuring Kidman and Bates worked so well, one could easily assume it would have made for a much better film overall in centering a story solely on a widow allowing herself to open up her heart again to love.
A major case of “what if,” A Family Affair proves through its execution that it focused far too much on the wrong character as its lead. Instead of diving further into a film centered on Brooke with the assistance of her mother-in-law to find love again, we have to follow around Zara and how much she hates this arrangement in her life. The issues did not stem from whether she had a valid point in feeling the way she did, but rather the manner in which her discontent plays out throughout this film just comes across quite childish in comparison to what the other characters evoke, leading to quite the disjointed film.
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