‘A Family Affair’ Review – A Swoon-Worthy Romance With A Main Character Problem

The most refreshing thing about A Family Affair is that it doesn’t side with its ostensible protagonist.

Zara Ford (Joey King) is an aimless, 24-year-old aspiring movie producer one day. She thought she would get a foot in the door by playing personal assistant to Chris Cole (Zac Efron), a Hollywood Chris of the insufferable variety. He tortures her with insane requests, and after two years, she’s had enough and quits. Realizing he needs her ahead of a huge film shoot, he goes to her house to ask her to return, only to find her mother, Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman), cleaning the house. The two quickly hit it off and hook up after some midday tequila shots, which Zara naturally walks in on and is traumatized. Brooke, a famous author and widow of 11 years, insists that Chris is a fling, but he wears down her defenses, and they begin dating, to Zara’s horror and disgust.

To be fair, Zara’s concerns about her mother dating her boss are valid. It’s weird at best and a conflict of interest at worst. Then, there’s her knowledge of Chris’s dating history and how he treats his girlfriends. (The film opens with her delivering breakup Cartier earrings to Cole while he’s on a date.) The problem with Zara’s concerns is that she is utterly insufferable. Her self-involvement frequently defies logic, where she makes everything from her mother’s decade-long loneliness to her best friend Eugenie’s (Liza Koshy) breakup about her. Her lack of self-awareness is also exhausting, to the point that you might believe her loved ones should be considered for sainthood. A character like Zara is engineered to zap the joy out of a rom-com like this.

And yet, joy permeates A Family Affair. The source is its central romance between Brooke and Chris. The older woman-younger man, civilian-celebrity trope is well-worn rom-com territory that leaves little room for surprise. (The Idea of You played in the sandbox two months ago.) Sensing that, director Richard Lagravenese plants their relationship in less typical but more fertile soil. There’s no mistaken identity, but they identify as mutually isolated and stagnant, consequences of losing loved ones and settling into complacency. Their age and class differences are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Free from those narrative expectations, the sparks start flying almost immediately, with Chris and Brooke indulging in the giddy, nervous, and revelatory experience of finding someone who sees you when few others do. Their post-dinner date on a New York set at a movie studio captures that spirit, making for one of the year’s most swoon-worthy, romantic scenes. 

Chris and Brooke’s romance is so charming that it feels wrong that they aren’t the focal point. Zara takes center stage as the film closely tracks how their relationship profoundly affects her. The film does get some great comedic moments from her struggles with her mom’s new boyfriend, such as her walking in on them and running straight into a door. (The follow-up scene, where Brooke takes Zara to her pediatrician, is a great meta-gag.) However, Zara’s behavior wears thin, especially considering she isn’t a petulant teenager but a petulant adult. What keeps the film from skidding off the rails by Zara’s hand is how readily her loved ones take her to task: Brooke, Chris, Eugenie, and grandmother Leila (Kathy Bates) all tell her to grow up. It’s a valuable lesson, but it’s learned a bit too late and, worse still, distracts and detracts from the more compelling story.

To Joey King’s credit, Zara is less intolerable on screen than on the page. King hits the comedic and some of the dramatic beats well, adding genuine anxiety about Zara’s lack of self-worth and agency to her performance. She only loses the thread when Zara veers into being tiresome but ends on a solid note. The film truly belongs to Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman, though, reuniting after their 2012 film The Paperboy. The two make for a dazzling pair, conveying a mature, realistic rapport that still allows for romantic whimsy and moving affection. Efron is clearly having fun as Chris, but he doesn’t swing too big to lose credibility or nuance. As for Kidman, she modulates perfectly between excitement and weariness as she struggles to fully embrace her new relationship while managing her daughter’s behavior.

Despite its skewed focus on the wrong character, A Family Affair largely succeeds as a swirling yet grounded love story between two unlikely people. The film does its best to leave behind cheesy dialogue and obvious plot points to try and strike at something more unique in the rom-com genre. Besides the basic platitudes like “love wins” and “anything is possible,” the greatest takeaway from the film is that sometimes it’s best to leave your family behind, especially if they are a 24-year-old aspiring movie producer.

A Family Affair is currently available to stream on Netflix.