A Family Affair

A Family Affair
Starring Joey King, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Kathy Bates
Directed by Richard LaGravenese

The rom-com is one that rarely makes a lasting impact apart from the lovelorn couples who adore those types of things - and I'm not one of them. So going into "A Family Affair" I already had low expectations (and also exasperation as the movie is almost TWO HOURS LONG), so I guess I wasn't being fair to it or this review because all I thought of it was a higher budget, bigger star Hallmark vehicle with the same rigamarole you'd expect from any rom-com in history. Then I glanced at other reviews and found that my judgment is warranted, as everyone pretty much agreed this is just a run of the mill romantic comedy that'll soon, gratefully, be forgotten.

Zara (Joey King) is a 24-year-old assistant to megastar Chris Cole (Zac Efron), and he treats her like trash. He keeps her on call 24/7, has him do all his chores, and even makes her write apology letters to him when he thinks she did him wrong. He promised to make her an assistant but in the last two years that hasn't happened, and she gets fed up and quits.

Chris then goes to her home that she's sharing with her mother, and meets Brooke (Nicole Kidman) - Zara's mother - and the two hit it off and begin a relationship to Zara's chagrin. She doesn't want her mother dating Chris because she thinks she knows him and knows that he'll break her heart like all the other women have, and even though she works for him again as an assistant producer, she doesn't trust him. But she might just be seeing through jaded eyes, and doesn't see Brooke as more than her mother, leading to numerous confrontations and deep truths being revealed.

Fortunately the thing that saves this film, barely, is Joey King. She leaps headfirst into this role and really delivers some of the only laughs in the entire movie, and I actually found myself quietly amused by it (especially when she first sees her mother and Chris together, giving way to classic slapstick comedy). She has a frantic attitude where she's constantly running around screaming about one thing or another, but it's actually somewhat humorous. So kudos for that.

Yet when it comes to the actual "rom com," there's nothing there. It's surprising because Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron have starred together before in "The Paperboy" so you'd expect them to have some sort of chemistry, but there was nothing there. Kidman's performance especially - coming from an Oscar-winning actress - feels wooden, stiff, and stale. She maintains a posture of rigidness that never falters, and never really shows any sort of emotion. Efron has a bit more charm to his character but his scenes with Kidman feel forced and unwanted, and he bends into the stereotypical role of a movie star who's so self-absorbed that he doesn't actually have any real friends.

The story meanders its way, painfully slowly, and even takes a deep dive to Hallmark territory when they go to Joey's grandmother's house for Christmas (by the way, Kathy Bates plays her grandmother, and she's an absolute gem). The beats hit like a generic pop song, as Chris and Brooke have their fling, fall in love, Zara hates it and tries to break them up, things actually start coming together, a major wrench is thrown into the proceedings, people realize the truth, and all ends on a happy note. Blah, blah, blah. I like originality, and "A Family Affair" is as unoriginal as the title.

The Score: C-