AUGUST 4, 2016
There’s such a thing as leaving well enough alone.
And in the case of the famed BBC television series “Absolutely Fabulous,” we already have such wonderful memories of publicist Edina (“Eddy”) Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and fashionista Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley). Yes, there’s been talk about an “Absolutely Fabulous” movie for two decades, but Lumley is now 70 years old, and while she looks fantastic, the project feels like an idea whose time has come and gone.
Still, when it was announced that there would be an “Ab Fab” movie, I was as giddy as anyone. The chance to see Eddy and Patsy swilling Stoli Bollis together again sounded like heaven. But in order to make a successful movie, you have to have an idea for a successful movie, and that’s where “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” has fallen short.
For those who have somehow missed the “Absolutely Fabulous” train, here’s the set-up. Edina is a publicist who, feeling the ravages of time setting upon her, is desperate to hop on to any new fad so that she can appear both young and hip. Patsy, a magazine editor who never seems to do any actual work, is Edina’s enabler, and both women smoke, drink and do enough drugs to keep the economy of Colombia afloat for decades. Rumor has it that Patsy, a champagne aficionado, has not had a bite of solid food since the 1970s.
The adult in the family is Edina’s straight-laced daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha), who must pick up all of the pieces of her mother’s destructiveness and now a divorcee, has a daughter Lola (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) whom Edina is trying to introduce to her hedonistic lifestyle. Also living with them is Edina’s mother (June Whitfield, going strong at age 90) and popping in now and then is Edina’s empty-headed assistant Bubble (the wonderful Jane Horrocks who lights up the screen the few times she’s seen).
When the film begins, Edina’s client list has shrunk to the 1960s pop star Lulu and Spice Girl Emma Bunton. So when Patsy learns that supermodel Kate Moss is looking to find new PR representation, Eddy and Patsy rush to Kate’s cocktail party with such enthusiasm that Eddy knocks the supermodel into the Thames where she presumably drowns. Now an international pariah, Eddy flees with Patsy and Lola to the south of France (“where everyone’s a criminal”) to start a new life.
The trap that many TV series fall into when they jump to a film screen is the notion that now, everything has to be big, big BIG! Exotic locations! Major guest stars! (The most egregious example of this was the dreadful “Sex and the City 2.”) And sadly “Absolutely Fabulous” falls into the same trap. Sure it’s fun to see Eddy & Patsy walking the streets of the French Riviera, but that gets tiring after 30 seconds. Without a solid story to back up the visuals, the whole film seems like an empty exercise.
For “Ab Fab,” home has always been where its heart is. And that heart is almost completely missing from the film. As the stern Saffy, Sawalha is a few nice moments, particularly when she is forced to sing on the stage of an English drag club. But Whitfield as Mother and Horrocks as Bubble are barely more than cameos, and as Lola, Donaldson-Holness is used more as a prop than as a fully-developed character. Such a shame.
Saunders and Lumley have wanted to get an “Ab Fab” movie off the ground for years, and cheers to them — they finally did it. And “Ab Fab” completists will undoubtedly be curious.
But if you’re a fan and have a DVD box set of the “Ab Fab” series, pop them in, and keep your memories of the glory days alive.
GRADE: C
