A FAMILY AFFAIR: Zac Efron plays himself brilliantly, and it’s good that he loves his face [REVIEW]

Just before the airing of A Family Affair, the movie The Lake House was on TV – one of those romantic dramedies I highly value for the positive emotions it evokes in me. I’ve seen it several times, so I didn’t finish it this time, but those few minutes were enough to set the mood. Then, I switched to Netflix to watch the latest film starring Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, and Joey King, not expecting the impressions from The Lake House to last. But, surprisingly, A Family Affair didn’t turn out to be another silly romantic comedy. It’s a film that tells an interesting, reflective story, partly about fictional characters and partly about the real people behind them. It does this without the kitsch we’ve come to expect from Polish cinema, which often produces screen romances set in the loft-like scenery of business Warsaw. It might develop slowly over the first 15 minutes and isn’t an energetic comedy of errors, but a cheerful social film, and Zac Efron’s presence compensates for the uneven pace.

I admit, the authenticity of the Kidman-Efron pair touched me, much like the chronological romance of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock once did. I didn’t think they’d match (Efron and Kidman). I’m not writing this sarcastically, like many commentators evaluating the effects of plastic surgery on actors’ faces. I mean the chemistry between the characters, as it is often said nowadays, and the ease with which they stepped into their roles. If it was otherwise, then congratulations on their talent in hiding mutual animosities. I’ll come back to the issue of faces later. The most important thing is that I see A Family Affair not just as a romantic comedy, but also as a more bitter summary of Nicole Kidman’s difficult life and perhaps the future existence of over 50-year-old Zac Efron, who will eventually collide with his aging body, as if crashing into a wall on a motorcycle. Returning to the actors’ faces, it’s interesting that they were somewhat cast for their looks. For some commentators, the film is funny, and for others, it’s tragic because Efron’s and Kidman’s faces seem to fear the passage of time as much as the fictional characters of the future and their physical portrayals of old age.

The plot separates the characters by a lot, but that might not matter at all because time and ways of life also divide them. His story, pace, experience, work consequences, and the vision of the future caused by it. It will be hard for the writer to live with a declining star who loves himself so much, although there is essentially nothing wrong with self-admiration. Generally, we love ourselves too little and too often society leaves no space in the ethical realm for self-affirmation. From childhood, which is supposed to be a period of unmediated happiness but is actually the breeding ground for all our adult and most painful mistakes. In this perspective, A Family Affair is not just a story about the romance between a younger man and an older woman, which is just the backdrop, but about the relationship between a lonely daughter and a domineering mother, who, by radically sacrificing herself for her child, left no space for the child to learn how difficult and simultaneously wonderfully indispensable it is to live independently. This means not only deciding for oneself without the parent’s involvement but also respecting the parent’s independence, as at some point the paths of mother and daughter, and all other configurations of these parental relationships, must asymmetrically diverge and run in different directions. I probably can’t imagine it completely, and many emotional chasms still await me for this reason; and maybe that’s why Richard LaGravenese’s film amused me romantically, maybe even moved me a bit. I appreciate these two narrative planes rationally, but I also rationally find the second half of the film overly sweet, causing the drama to drop like an unwatered peace lily in the summer heat. The finale lacked a twist and something that would shake the chair or couch. Somewhere the initial reflection was cut off, and shallow comedy prevailed.

Nevertheless, Zac Efron performed surprisingly well, even with his Ken-like jaw. He clearly values and even loves himself, which is not a bad thing if he visibly treats it with distance and a dose of self-mockery. Efron has undoubtedly matured in his acting to show himself as a vain star who wears a mask of vanity to protect his jelly-like interior trembling with fear. Beautiful muscles won’t change anything here. Nicole Kidman, on the other hand, remained in the background of her partner, and her rejuvenated face couldn’t help with that. She also tried to reflect on her life in an Efron-like way but didn’t fully succeed. Partly because of a differently written role, a different character of the heroine, facial expressions, and the constantly accompanying and distracting daughter, played by Joey King. I realize that Zara’s role had to be loud, but I didn’t expect it to be so shrill and filled with excessive emotions, which make Brooke Harwood’s daughter lose the authenticity of someone lost since childhood.

A Family Affair stands somewhere between a romantic comedy and a light social film. It has a somewhat forced happy ending, instead of trying to break the rules, which doesn’t necessarily mean entering the realm of psychological drama of the characters. The extensive holiday sequence unexpectedly classifies this title as a good Christmas movie, although it is not at the level of Last Christmas. Overall, a 6/10 is an appropriate rating to reward the main actors, the first part of the story, and criticize the disappointing finale.