A Look at Fackham Hall – This Brisk, Humorous Takeoff on Downton Which Is Delightfully Ephemeral.
Perhaps the sense of an ending era around us: following a long period of inactivity, the parody is making a resurgence. The past few months observed the revival of this playful category, which, at its best, mocks the grandiosity of overly serious genre with a torrent of exaggerated stereotypes, sight gags, and dumb-brilliant double entendres.
Unserious times, it seems, beget knowingly unserious, gag-packed, welcome light amusement.
The Latest Entry in This Absurd Wave
The newest of these silly send-ups comes in the form of Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that pokes fun at the easily mockable pretensions of gilded English costume epics. Co-written by British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr and overseen by Jim O'Hanlon, the film finds ample of source material to work with and exploits every bit of it.
Starting with a ridiculous beginning and culminating in a ludicrous finish, this enjoyable aristocratic caper crams each of its hour and a half with jokes and bits running the gamut from the juvenile to the truly humorous.
A Pastiche of Upstairs, Downstairs
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall offers a caricature of overly dignified aristocrats and very obsequious staff. The narrative revolves around the feckless Lord Davenport (brought to life by a wonderfully pretentious Damian Lewis) and his book-averse wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Having lost their four sons in a series of tragic accidents, their hopes fall upon securing unions for their two girls.
One daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has secured the family goal of a promise to marry the suitable first cousin, Archibald (an impeccably slimy Tom Felton). Yet once she backs out, the onus transfers to the unmarried elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), considered a spinster at 23 and and holds dangerously modern ideas concerning a woman's own mind.
The Film's Humor Lands Most Effectively
The spoof fares much better when sending up the suffocating expectations placed on early 20th-century women – a subject typically treated for self-serious drama. The stereotype of proper, coveted femininity provides the best punching bags.
The plot, as befitting a purposefully absurd parody, is of lesser importance to the jokes. Carr keeps them arriving at a pleasantly funny clip. Included is a homicide, an incompetent investigation, and an illicit love affair featuring the roguish thief Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
A Note on Pure Silliness
Everything is for harmless amusement, however, this approach comes with constraints. The dialed-up foolishness of a spoof may tire quickly, and the entertainment value on this particular variety diminishes somewhere between sketch and feature.
At a certain point, one may desire to retreat to the world of (at least a modicum of) reason. Yet, you have to applaud a wholehearted devotion to this type of comedy. Given that we are to distract ourselves to death, let's at least see the funny side.
