MOVIES REVIEWS

Turin Film Festival 2016 Movie Review: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

ByChiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Nov 22, 2016

Title: Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

Director: Mandie Fletcher

Starring: Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield, Jane Horrocks, Claudia Bing, Gwendoline Christie and Chris Colfer

The witticism of ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ is not up to the standards of British humour. Director Mandie Fletcher opts for a coarse slapstick entertainment, as she condenses in a film the U.K. television show ‘Absolutely Fabulous.’

The comedy’s screenplay was written by Jennifer Saunders, based on her eponymous sitcom, where she plays the character of Edina Monsoon, the owner of a barely successful metropolitan PR company. Her best friend and partner in crime Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) relishes in the high life. Eddy and Pat ooze in glitz and glamour: whatever they desire is just a credit card swipe away. Sipping champagne, from morning till night, and hanging around in London’s trendiest hotspots is what the two elderly socialites love the most. However things take an unexpected twist when Eddy accidentally pushes Kate Moss in the river Thames, during an uber fashionable launch party. A media storm surrounding the supermodel’s untimely demise will  have the paparazzi chasing Edina all over the City. As a last resort the two wacky ladies flee to the French Riviera, where more adventures await them.

The movie is undoubtably amusing and flaunts a variety of prestigious cameos of celebrities playing themselves, including Kate Moss, Lily Cole, Emma Bunton, Stella McCartney, Joan Collins, Poppy Delavigne, Lulu, Suki Waterhouse, Jon Hamm and many more.

The premise is incredibly humorous, but the jokes and pranks, that keep the action going, aren’t that funny after all. Furthermore, the film seems to address solely an English audience, who is acquainted with the show that aired on BBC. ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ ends up being “exclusive,” in the sense that it does not adopt a style that welcomes spectators who approach these characters as a tabula rasa.

Technical: B-

Acting: B-

Story: C+

Overall: B-

Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi, is a film critic, culture and foreign affairs reporter, screenwriter, film-maker and visual artist. She studied in a British school in Milan, graduated in Political Sciences, got her Masters in screenwriting and film production and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and Los Angeles. Chiara’s “Material Puns” use wordplay to weld the title of the painting with the materials placed on canvas, through an ironic reinterpretation of Pop-Art, Dadaism and Ready Made. She exhibited her artwork in Milan, Rome, Venice, London, Oxford, Paris and Manhattan. Chiara works as a reporter for online, print, radio and television and also as a film festival PR/publicist. As a bi-lingual journalist (English and Italian), who is also fluent in French and Spanish, she is a member of the Foreign Press Association in New York, the Women Film Critics Circle in New York, the Italian Association of Journalists in Milan and the Federation of Film Critics of Europe and the Mediterranean. Chiara is also a Professor of Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts at IED University in Milan.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *