ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS THE MOVIE
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“You don’t know this, and I don’t know this…”
“You don’t know this, and I don’t know this…”
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There’s a long, long list of hugely successful, often hilarious TV series that tanked on the big screen. Sex in The City, Kath and Kim, Mrs Brown’s Boys rate high among cinematic disasters. Remember The Nanny movie (aka The Beautician and The Beast)? Probably not, and there’s a very good reason for that. It’s the same reason that Seinfeld The Movie has never been made. If only the producers of Absolutely Fabulous had read the same memo.
But they didn’t, and with some trepidation we rejoin Eddie (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) in the same time warp they inhabited in the 1990’s. Of course, it’s now 2016 and these would-be IT-girls and PR-gurus still believe they’re modern, contemporary, happening and fabulous! But of course they’re not, they never were, and that was the joke. Awkwardly it still is but where that concept once wrapped in cigarette smoke and endless Bolly (darling) gave rise to some of television’s funniest moments, here the smoke is stale, the Bolly is flat and the joke is stretched beyond breaking. In fact, it doesn’t make it to the opening credits.
Absolutely Fabulous The Movie is, at best, a slog. It re-works all the old set-ups (Eddie falls out of car, hilarious! Patsy walks into a bollard, side-splitting!) with none of the satirical punch that made the early series an indispensable part of the zeitgeist. Remember Eddie’s court-room rant against laws for stupid people, utterly unaware how she defined that stupidity? Now that was funny.
This time they’re on the run for probably killing supermodel Kate Moss. They hide out on the Riviera. They drink, get drunk, fall over and stand up again while a flotilla of cameos do what they can to distract us from the unfolding car crash. But they can’t pull a veil over the lazy writing, sloppy pacing and the stench of self-indulgence that sits over the entire project. The TV show was already tiring by the end of Season 3 (1996) much less the exhausted revival in 2011. Today it’s on life support, and that’s not funny.
Die-hard fans and apologists will find a way to enjoy themselves as they did with Sex in The City, Kath and Kim and Mrs Brown’s Boys. Many, many glasses of pre-movie Bolly will help. But if you really want to to watch AbsFab at its genuinely hilarious and relevant best, revisit episodes like Fat, France or Iso Tank. Absolutely Fabulous The Movie is many things, however fabulous is not one of them.
// COLIN FRASER
Previewed at Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 25 July 2016.
But they didn’t, and with some trepidation we rejoin Eddie (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) in the same time warp they inhabited in the 1990’s. Of course, it’s now 2016 and these would-be IT-girls and PR-gurus still believe they’re modern, contemporary, happening and fabulous! But of course they’re not, they never were, and that was the joke. Awkwardly it still is but where that concept once wrapped in cigarette smoke and endless Bolly (darling) gave rise to some of television’s funniest moments, here the smoke is stale, the Bolly is flat and the joke is stretched beyond breaking. In fact, it doesn’t make it to the opening credits.
Absolutely Fabulous The Movie is, at best, a slog. It re-works all the old set-ups (Eddie falls out of car, hilarious! Patsy walks into a bollard, side-splitting!) with none of the satirical punch that made the early series an indispensable part of the zeitgeist. Remember Eddie’s court-room rant against laws for stupid people, utterly unaware how she defined that stupidity? Now that was funny.
This time they’re on the run for probably killing supermodel Kate Moss. They hide out on the Riviera. They drink, get drunk, fall over and stand up again while a flotilla of cameos do what they can to distract us from the unfolding car crash. But they can’t pull a veil over the lazy writing, sloppy pacing and the stench of self-indulgence that sits over the entire project. The TV show was already tiring by the end of Season 3 (1996) much less the exhausted revival in 2011. Today it’s on life support, and that’s not funny.
Die-hard fans and apologists will find a way to enjoy themselves as they did with Sex in The City, Kath and Kim and Mrs Brown’s Boys. Many, many glasses of pre-movie Bolly will help. But if you really want to to watch AbsFab at its genuinely hilarious and relevant best, revisit episodes like Fat, France or Iso Tank. Absolutely Fabulous The Movie is many things, however fabulous is not one of them.
// COLIN FRASER
Previewed at Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 25 July 2016.
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STARRING
Jennifer Saunders
Joanna Lumley
Jane Horrocks
Julia Sawalha
DIRECTOR
Mandie Fletcher
WRITER
Jennifer Saunders
COUNTRY
UK
CLASSIFICATION
M
RUNTIME
91 minutes
AUSTRALIAN
RELEASE DATE
August 4, 2016
Jennifer Saunders
Joanna Lumley
Jane Horrocks
Julia Sawalha
DIRECTOR
Mandie Fletcher
WRITER
Jennifer Saunders
COUNTRY
UK
CLASSIFICATION
M
RUNTIME
91 minutes
AUSTRALIAN
RELEASE DATE
August 4, 2016
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