A Family Affair

Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman star in Netflix romance drama A Family Affair. Directed by Richard LaGravenese and penned by Carrie Solomon, the film sees Efron play ultra-famous Hollywood A-lister Chris Cole. His assistant is 24-year-old Zara (Joey King), who works a thankless job running after his every whim while being continuously denied the promotion that she’s been promised. After she quits, Chris heads to her home to speak to her but instead finds her widowed mother, Brooke (Kidman). The pair quickly strike up a romance, with all three finding it difficult to navigate the new situation they find themselves in.

At its core, A Family Affair is a mother-daughter drama that sees the pair trying to find a way to move on with their lives after the death of Zara’s father. Kidman and King do a solid job of conveying the emotional baggage that’s been stored up between the characters over the years, with the movie being at its best whenever these two talk things out onscreen. Unfortunately, all potential to tell a compelling family drama is diluted by an influx of ideas that dilute the familial tale at the heart of this feature.

Despite its interesting twist on the rom-com genre, the plot’s heavy reliance on the traditional three-act structure means that this flick feels as uninspired as any of the other handful of romance films on the streaming service’s platform. This problem is only amplified by the abundance of plot points that serve more as window dressing rather than developing the characters’ situations in any meaningful way. Things just happen until the movie ends in the way that viewers expect them to.

In addition to a turn from Kathy Bates as Brooke’s mother-in-law, the central cast give committed and charming performances. The characters are likeable and easy to root for, but without much in the way of humour and romance, it’s difficult to fall in love with what this feature is trying to do.

Although Efron, Kidman and King work well onscreen together, A Family Affair attempts to be a serious family drama and light-hearted rom-com simultaneously without succeeding well at being either.

Andrew Murray

A Family Affair is released on Netflix on 28^th June 2024.

Watch the trailer for A Family Affair here: