Netflix And Chill: A Family Affair (2024)

If you liked The Idea Of You then you should like A Family Affair, a rom-com with a similar age and status divide getting in the way of the potential romantic relationship at the heart of things. Unlike the former film, this gets a better balance of both the rom and the com elements, but it suffers slightly from a lack of any real chemistry and heat between the leads.

Zac Efron plays Chris Cole, a vain and selfish actor who constantly makes life difficult for his young assistant, Zara (Joey King). When he eventually goes too far, once again, and has Zara walking out on the job, Chris knows that he has to make things up to her. He heads to her family home, where he meets Zara's mother, Brooke (Nicole Kidman). Things quickly get hot and heavy for the two of them, which makes things very awkward when Zara eventually walks in on them in flagrante. Not only could this complicate things if Zara returns to work for Chris, but it puts Zara on edge as she waits for the moment when Chris inevitably hurts her mother. Because Chris eventually hurts every girl that he's been in a relationship with. It's what he does.

Although he has numerous directorial credits already, I am not overly familiar with the filmography of Richard LaGravenese. I have seen some of the features that he has written, including the fantastic The Fisher King, but nothing of his work that had him sitting in the big chair on set. Writer Carrie Solomon is also someone I am not too familiar with, but that's because this is her first big feature after holding a few production assistant roles on various projects (which is something to make you wonder how much of this is based on a strange reality that us normal people struggle to comprehend). I hope to see much more from Solomon in the future, she's got a great writing style that blends the melodrama with some good laughs, and just a pinch of raunch to keep things skating close to the realm of the spicy (relatively speaking).

The cast helps though, in many ways. While they don't have sparks flying between them, both Efron and Kidman are beautiful people who you could imagine falling for one another. The problem maybe lies with Kidman having to spend some time pretending she can hide her light under a bushel, and also having her character being a bit too restrained to allow herself to have as much fun as possible, but Efron doesn't need to worry about that. He has a blast portraying his character as the most ridiculously selfish and needy star you could imagine, although it's nice when the script also allows him to have just enough self-awareness to also occasionally poke fun at his lifestyle. King is also a lot of fun, very good with the sharp dialogue and the physical comedy she is given, and Kathy Bates pops up to play the wise and kindly grandmother in a turn so sweet and lovely that you can almost forget that time she hobbled a stranded writer in her home. Almost. 

This kept me chuckling throughout, it gave me a central relationship that I eventually felt invested in, and there were a few big laughs sprinkled throughout the 111-minute runtime (which felt nice and brisk, compared to the stream of movies that seemingly have to hit the 2-hour mark nowadays). The soundtrack is decent, the visuals help to keep things romantic (there's even a holiday sequence, because Christmas trimmings always add to the dream of an ideal love, for some reason), and the finale is as predictable and satisfying as you'd expect.

I'm not sure whether I would necessarily recommend a double-bill of this and The Idea Of You, but you could certainly do a lot worse. I rate both of them equally, but for different reasons, and if you had a good time with one then you're unlikely to hate the other.

7/10

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Unbroken (2014)

Jack O'Connell stars in this look at the incredibly tough life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who was shot down during WWII, survived for 47 days in a raft, and then ended up in a Japanese POW camp where he became the target of a particularly vicious authority figure there. It's a story that shows the very best and worst of human nature, and the movie is highly recommended, even to those already familiar with the tale.

Directed by Angelina Jolie, this is a film that ticks all of the boxes. There are many moments here that we've all seen before, but they all add up to an impressive final product. And I guess this is one of those many occasions when truth seems stranger than fiction. It certainly has moments that feel very much like traditional Hollywood moments, but this is almost necessary to outweigh the darker sequences.

Using the book by Laura Hillenbrand as a template, the screenplay has been put together by William Nicholson, Richard LaGravenese, and the Coen brothers. Yes, you read that right. The Coen brothers. While no part of this ever feels like a Coen brothers movie, it's interesting to wonder just how much they contributed, and whether their presence is the reason that the film doesn't gloss over some nastier incidents that will make viewers flinch.

O'Connell is fantastic in the lead role, even if his accent isn't exactly spot on. Going through an incredible transformation between the beginning and end of the movie, he manages to keep showing inner strength and some kind of hope (sometimes for rescue and sometimes, I guess, for death), and keeps you rooting for him even as the odds of him surviving look to grow bigger and bigger. Domnhall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund and Finn Wittrock do well in their supporting roles, and Jai Courtney even manages not to irritate me during his brief time onscreen, but the other major figure in the movie is the nasty Watanabe, played by Takamasa Ishihara. He does superb work, creating a monster who has no real rhyme or reason to his actions. He takes a dislike to Zamperini from the very beginning and that is that.

Jolie does a fine job in the director's chair. As by-the-numbers as it is, there are a number of ways in which she refuses to go for the most obvious approach. The score by Alexandre Desplat is used more sparingly than you'd expect, for example, and the material is supported mainly by those central performances and some reliably fine work from Roger Deakins.

Unbroken doesn't rewrite the rulebook. It's a great story, and it's told well.

7/10

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