Sweetie darling: Can we talk? Was it really such a good idea to inflate the brilliant British comedy of bad manners Absolutely Fabulous into a feature-length film? On the telly, the hopelessly unchic Edina Monsoon (Saunders) and the haplessly chic Patsy Stone (Lumley) seemed larger than life (no fat jokes, please!), two Champagne-swilling, pill-popping, coke-snorting, chain-smoking, name-dropping women of a certain age (no specific numbers, please!) who never met a designer label they shouldn’t wear (Lacroix!) or a current fad they shouldn’t try (Botox!) in a hilariously futile effort to become members of a club that won’t have them. (Naomi Campbell! Minnie Driver! Stella McCartney!) They were living proof that living well is not the best revenge.
But in this 90-minute movie, which runs twice the length of one of the Ab Fab episodes airing stateside since the mid-Nineties, this deliciously bad behavior is diminished by a silly plot in which a cash-strapped Edina finagles to boost her floundering PR firm by signing Kate Moss as a client at a happening fashion magazine event. With her typical lack of physical and social grace, she accidentally knocks the supermodel into the Thames (who’s presumed drowned) and finally becomes the celebrity (the wrong kind, of course) she’s always aspired to be, fleeing with Patsy to the south of France to begin a new life. Admittedly, the series’ strength was its utterly fearless social commentary and never its storytelling qualities. But the movie is so big and bloated that something crucial feels missing. The dead air in service of the slight narrative seeps out like a slowly deflating party balloon, draining the film of the potential for more rowdy humor from these wickedly funny ladies.
If the movie isn’t so fabulous, should die-hard fans who can quote the show by heart see it? Absolutely. (The gays are sure to love it.) There are enough obligatory references to the series to tickle them and, while Edina’s navel-gazing in the film softens her outrageousness a bit, Patsy continues at full throttle, an inspiration to unrepentantly inappropriate conduct everywhere. In a scene near the end of the film, the two sit in a motorized cart slowly sinking to the bottom of a swimming pool, with Edina’s admissions of self-realization matched by Patsy’s ever-present cigarette dangling from her mouth. It says everything about why some people love these characters so dearly. For those of you who are one of those people, lower your expectations a bit, pop a bottle of Bolly (or whatever your movie cineplex serves), and prepare to get reacquainted with the absolutely fabulous.
This article appears in July 22 • 2016.
