Movie Review – Absolutely Fabulous The Movie

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2016 – Spoiler alerts Absolutely Fabulous was a British TV comedy that sold amazingly well in the US and made international stars of its cast, especially Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley as aging PR agents who were living off booze and drugs to the point of being utterly divorced from reality. Edina (Saunders) found herself being brought back to Earth by her level headed, rather conservative and world weary cynical daughter, Saffron (Julia Sawalha), and her dotty mother, (June Whitfield). Later episodes introduced Bubble (Jane Horrocks) who has the worst fashion sense possible and who is clearly too clueless to perform any duty expected of her, but she keeps getting positions of responsibility. The series followed a set formula. Edina would try to emulate Patsy (Lumley) in drug and drink hedonism but end up messed up, with her family struggling to sort the mess out. Saffron would try to convince herself that she hated her mum, but found that she really loved her and even envied her outrageous life-style too. The series began increasingly drawing in guest star celebs who Edina was trying to act as PR for and the movie takes this to excessive extremes with over sixty celeb cameos shoehorned in, often of people playing themselves. The plot is simply that Edina accidentally pushes supermodel Kate Moss into the River Thames while trying to get her to sign her up as her publicity agent, and ends up on the run for suspected murder as the model has not been found. Edina does later deliberately throw Bubbles in the river too to recreate the event and that justifiably adds to her crime sheet. The rest of the movie is a European chase by everyone to either save or arrest Edina and Patsy who hide out among the glitterati, including Jeremy Paxman, Jean-Paul Gautier, Lulu, Emma Bunton, Barry Humphries and his alter-ego Dame Edna Everage and many more. Star spotting takes over for laughs and as both Kate Moss and Bubble conveniently survive and don’t press charges there is really no plot left anyway. The whole problem is simply dismissed in a few sentences. There are funny moments and performances. Kathy Burke is great as a nasty rival PR woman, and there is a superb dig at budget airlines with a flight hospitality crew who make no effort to disguise their contempt for passengers they treat like cattle. Overall though, it’s a self-indulgent home movie look at the friends of Jennifer Saunders, with many cameos that will mean nothing to international fans of the series. Least convincing is Robert Webb as the cop pursuing Edina while also trying to seduce saffron who is clearly too young for him. A film that isn’t anywhere near as Ab-Fab as it likes to think – more absolutely mediocre. Arthur Chappell