‘Fackham Hall’ offers a cheeky dismantling of the ‘Downton Abbey’ genre
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
If you said the words “Fackham Hall” after a few drinks, they might sound more than a bit like “f*ck ’em all,” wouldn’t they? That is about the level of the humor in the film directed by Jim O’Hanlon of “Coronation Street” fame and scripted by Jimmy Carr, Patrick Carr, Andrew Dawson, Steve Dawson and Tim Inman. At its best, “Fackham Hall is like “Downton Abbey” crossed with one of those old, cheeky, lowbrow, hit-or-miss “Carry On” films. At its worst, it’s more or less the same thing.
Humphrey Davenport (an admirably game Damian Lewis) is the happy idiot Lord of Fackham Hall. While England is in the grips of the Great Depression, when ordinary people struggle to survive, the Davenports wonder how much caviar to have before dinner, washing it down with Champagne from their cellars. As the voice-over reminds us, the Davenports “wanted for nothing.”
Nathan McMullen, Ben Radcliffe, Damian Lewis, and Emma Laird in “Fackham Hall.” (Bleecker Street)
In keeping with its “Downton Abbey” connection, however, there was the subject of primogeniture and entailment, meaning that if Humphrey were to be murdered (and, spoiler alert, he is), the property would not pass to his sons (ahem) John, Paul, George and Ringo because they are all dead or to his living daughters Poppy (Emma Laird) and Rose (New Zealand-born Thomasin McKenzie) or his wife Lady Davenport (American Katherine Waterston). (BTW, three of the four sons were lost to the Hindenburg, the Titanic and lightning on a golf course).
In a twist we might credit to Charles Dickens, we then meet a young “orphan boy,” working on the mean streets of London as a pickpocket named Eric Noone (pronounced “no one”). Eric (Ben Radcliffe, “Masters of the Air”) meets Rose, who is behind the wheel of the family Rolls-Royce, on the road to Fackham Hall, and it is love at first sight. Before you know it, Eric has been hired by the hard-to-please Mrs. MacAllister (the delightful Anna Maxwell Martin), who runs things “below stairs” at Fackham Hall along with the comically self-effacing head butler Cyril (Tim McMullan).
Also in the mix is repellent, first-cousin Archibald Davenport (“Harry Potter” regular Tom Felton), a terrible shot and first in line to inherit Fackham Hall. Co-writer Jimmy Carr also appears in the film as the Vicar with the Hitler mustache, who says the strangest things from the pulpit, such as, “You may kiss the choirboys,” before correcting himself. At the nearby village’s pub, if you weren’t slugging it out with the local toughs, you might be singing along to “I Went to the Palace with My Willie Hanging Out.” It is funny that one of the guests at Poppy’s wedding to first-cousin Archibald (“We have the same grandparents.”) is J.R.R. Tolkien journal-in-hand and that Lady Davenport uses the expression, “My precious,” as he scribbles away. Tolkien also speaks in Elvish for the guests.
After the shocking demise of Lord Davenport, “Fackham, Hall” becomes a whodunnit in the style of one of those “Hercule Poirot” stories, complete with a detective named Inspector Watt (Tom Goodman Hill, “Baby Reindeer”), whose mustache has a mustache. Wouldn’t it be even funnier if his name were Inspector Who? Fackham Hall is not going to blind you with brilliance and is, at times, gratuitously vulgar. But its cast is very talented and appealing, and it is amusing enough to keep you laughing. BTW: The voice-over narration in the film’s opening is provided by British film legend Hayley Mills.
‘Fackham Hall’
Rating: R for profanity, sexual content, violence
Cast: Damian Lewis, Katherine Waterston, Thomasin McKenzie
Director: Jim O’Hanlon
Writers: Jimmy Carr, Patrick Carr, Andrew Dawson, Steve Dawson and Tim Inman.
Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: B
Boston Movie News 