‘A FAMILY AFFAIR’ Review: Zac Efron & Nicole Kidman’s Reunion Offers Few Thrills

Courtney Howard // Film Critic

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Rated PG-13, 1 hour and 51 minutes

Directed by: Richard LaGravenese

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King, Kathy Bates, Liza Koshy, Ian Gregg, Sherry Cola

With A FAMILY AFFAIR, Richard LaGravenese has made a Nancy Meyers movie without Nancy Meyers being involved when maybe she should’ve been. It’s light-hearted, low stakes and features a white woman who barely needs to work to afford her cozy coastal home with a covetable kitchen. While it’s a better offering than many of the streamer’s below average, Hallmark-adjacent features, it lacks likeable characters whose complex internal lives feel authentic as well as audacious. And though there’s something admirable about showing broken people learning to heal themselves within some mild hijinks, the execution of these ideas is under-cooked, rushing to an unmemorable, unremarkable finale.

24-year-old Zara (Joey King) hates her job as a personal assistant and is in desperate need of a promotion. It’s too bad her narcissistic, ungrateful boss is the most famous celebrity on the planet, actor Chris Cole (Zac Efron). He’s promised her an associate producer credit on his next film, but she’s stuck in development hell, running thankless errands (like garnering protein powder) and servicing his bespoke needs (like rushing through bottlenecked LA traffic to deliver diamond earrings just in time for his scheduled break-up). He’s also borderline abusive, demanding she write apology notes to him when she’s late and forcing her to spend her own money on his dog’s half-birthday gifts (“The whole point is to surprise them,” he hilariously justifies). She’s had it – and quits, hightailing it back to her widowed writer mom Brooke’s (Nicole Kidman) Malibu mansion.

Soon after, Chris regrets letting Zara leave and decides to pay her a house visit to ask her to come back to work. However, he walks in on Brooke (who’s wearing a ratty Blondie concert tee while listening to Blondie on the stereo) in a vulnerable state and makes her even more susceptible to his spontaneous romantic advances once they start drinking tequila. Naturally, Zara returns home just in time to see the pair in bed together, sending her life into a tailspin. Chris makes Brooke endlessly happy, but makes Zara ridiculously unhappy while she tries to maintain professionalism as his associate producer. Brooke’s also taken to consulting her caring mother-in-law Leila (Kathy Bates), who encourages her to get her groove back in spite of Zara’s protests. Brooke must decide whether to follow her heart or her head.

Meyers-esque beige montages by the sea follow. Canoodling ensues. And the spoiled daughter’s childish laments continue, which sucks the joy out of her friendship with bestie Genie (Liza Koshy), who loves and loses an entire engagement in the background during the course of this story. Carrie Solomon’s script benefits from a necessary assist by LaGravenese, whose direction has a delightfully breezy balance of grounded naturalism and restrained screwball overtones. Siddhartha Khosla’s score also augments the atmospheric pull, evoking an airy California warmth and whimsy that feels as tenderly textured as the symphonic compositions in THE HOLIDAY.

Contrary to the genre and its formulaic tropes, the best scenes don’t involve the underwhelming shenanigans the filmmakers have cooked up (like Zara smooth-talking her way into a charity benefit, as well as Zara purposely screwing up the translation between Chris and his French director – which should’ve gotten her fired). They don’t even involve the inevitable “you lied to me” moment, which falls flat, nor the surprisingly abandoned C-story involving a sassy script doctor (Sherry Cola) waiting for her big break. What makes the picture buoyant are the simple set-ups that show characters revealing their hidden truths to each other, from Chris’ raw honesty with Brooke to Brooke’s heart-to-hearts with Leila.

Still, it has trouble connecting this trio’s wants, conflicts and resolutions in an innovative, let alone interesting, manner. We should feel sorry for Zara, having been terribly treated. However, once she (a full grown adult who should no longer live with her mom) begins complaining about who her mother (a neglected widow with her own autonomous needs) is dating, our allegiance pivots immediately to her mom. Zara is fairly irredeemable throughout a large portion of the picture and while that’s her journey to fix herself, it fails to conclude with a better redemptive angle. Chris has an arc outside of the female characters in his direct orbit, yet his inevitable change lacks any sense of propulsive momentum. Plus, it pats itself on the back with obnoxious self-congratulatory speak during a late night conversation between the two besties.

While it’s worth clicking play on this flighty frivolity to see Efron lampoon self-involved Hollywood types (he sings Cher’s “Believe” with such unwavering conviction, we totally believe he’s committed to the bit), it’s a bit of a drag that the filmmakers didn’t heighten the comedy, nor the inherent poignancy. Unlike Efron and Kidman’s previous cinematic outing together, Lee Daniels’ bonkers bonanza THE PAPERBOY, and in a world where we’ve already seen older women rediscover their self-worth and sexual agency with younger men in THE IDEA OF YOU and HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK, unfortunately there’s little to love in this affair.

Grade: C

 A FAMILY AFFAIR begins streaming on Netflix on June 28.