Fackham Hall Review – This Rapid-Fire, Humorous Parody of Downton Abbey Which Is Pleasantly Ephemeral.
Maybe the notion of end times pervading: subsequent to a lengthy span of inactivity, the spoof is making a comeback. The past few months witnessed the re-emergence of this playful category, which, in its finest form, skewers the self-importance of overly serious genre with a flood of exaggerated stereotypes, visual jokes, and ridiculously smart wordplay.
Frivolous eras, so it goes, beget deliberately shallow, laugh-filled, welcome light amusement.
A Recent Entry in This Silly Wave
The latest of these goofy parodies comes in the form of Fackham Hall, a parody of Downton Abbey that pokes fun at the highly satirizable pretensions of gilded English costume epics. Penned in part by UK-Irish comic Jimmy Carr and directed by Jim O'Hanlon, the film finds ample of inspiration to work with and uses all of it.
Starting with a ludicrous start and culminating in a ludicrous finish, this entertaining aristocratic caper fills all of its 97 minutes with jokes and bits running the gamut from the juvenile all the way to the truly humorous.
A Pastiche of Upstairs, Downstairs
In the vein of Downton, Fackham Hall delivers a caricature of extremely pompous aristocrats and very obsequious servants. The plot revolves around the hapless Lord Davenport (brought to life by an enjoyably affected Damian Lewis) and his literature-hating wife, Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston). Following the loss of their male heirs in separate unfortunate mishaps, their aspirations are pinned on finding matches for their two girls.
The younger daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), has achieved the family goal of a promise to marry the right kinsman, Archibald (a perfectly smarmy Tom Felton). However after she pulls out, the burden transfers to the unattached elder sister, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie), who is a spinster of a woman" and and holds unladylike beliefs concerning female autonomy.
The Film's Comedy Succeeds
The film is significantly more successful when satirizing the oppressive expectations forced upon early 20th-century women – a subject often mined for po-faced melodrama. The archetype of proper, coveted ladylike behavior provides the best material for mockery.
The plot, as is fitting for a deliberately silly spoof, is secondary to the bits. The co-writer delivers them coming at an amiably humorous clip. The film features a killing, a farcical probe, and an illicit love affair involving the roguish pickpocket Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe) and Rose.
A Note on Lighthearted Fun
It's all for harmless amusement, though that itself comes with constraints. The heightened foolishness of a spoof might grate over time, and the mileage on this particular variety runs out somewhere between sketch and feature.
At a certain point, one may desire to go back to the world of (at least a modicum of) logic. Yet, you have to admire a sincere commitment to the artform. In an age where we might to amuse ourselves to death, we might as well see the funny side.
