Fackham Hall – This Fast-Paced, Witty Takeoff on Downton That's Pleasantly Lightweight.
Maybe the sense of an ending era around us: subsequent to a lengthy span of inactivity, the comedic send-up is staging a comeback. This summer observed the re-emergence of this lighthearted genre, which, at its best, lampoons the self-importance of overly serious genres with a flood of pitched clichés, sight gags, and stupid-clever puns.
Playful periods, apparently, create an appetite for self-awarely frivolous, joke-dense, welcome light amusement.
The Latest Offering in This Silly Resurgence
The most recent of these absurd spoofs arrives as Fackham Hall, a takeoff on the British period drama that needles the highly satirizable self-importance of gilded English costume epics. Penned in part by UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the film has plenty of inspiration to draw from and wastes none of it.
From a ridiculous beginning and culminating in a preposterous conclusion, this amusing upper-class adventure packs all of its hour and a half with jokes and bits ranging from the juvenile all the way to the authentically hilarious.
A Send-Up of Aristocrats and Servants
Similar to Downton, Fackham Hall presents a caricature of overly dignified rich people and overly fawning staff. The narrative focuses on the feckless Lord Davenport (played by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his anti-reading wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their four sons in separate tragic accidents, their aspirations fall upon securing unions for their daughters.
The junior daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has achieved the aristocratic objective of a promise to marry the right first cousin, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). But after she backs out, the burden transfers to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered a "dried-up husk already and who harbors unladylike ideas regarding a woman's own mind.
Where the Laughs Works Best
The parody achieves greater effect when joking about the stifling social constraints placed on early 20th-century women – a topic typically treated for self-serious drama. The stereotype of idealized ladylike behavior offers the most fertile punching bags.
The narrative thread, as one would expect from a deliberately silly spoof, takes a back seat to the gags. The writer delivers them maintaining an amiably humorous pace. The film features a homicide, a bungled inquiry, and a forbidden romance between the plucky pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
A Note on Frivolous Amusement
Everything is in the spirit of playful comedy, however, this approach comes with constraints. The heightened absurdity of a spoof might grate after a while, and the mileage on this particular variety diminishes somewhere between a skit and feature.
Eventually, you might wish to go back to a realm of (at least a modicum of) coherence. But, it's necessary to admire a sincere commitment to the artform. In an age where we might to amuse ourselves relentlessly, let's at least laugh at it.
