(Image via Fox Searchlight/BBC Films)
If you want to support women-anchored movies, the better way to do it than white-knuckling your way through Ghostbusters while insisting IT'S FUNNY! is to to go see Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. It actually is consistently funny, and the women are doing something far more feminist than fighting ghosts—they're mocking other women and all the rest of us for the shallow self-involvement that consumes our culture.
If you haven't seen the '90s series that inspired the long-awaited movie version, Ab Fab is about hapless British publicist Edina Monsoon (writer and star Jennifer Saunders) and her embalmed-Ivana-Trump fashion editrix sidekick Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley). The women have for decades bumbled and stumbled their way through various see-and-be-seen events and get-famous-quick schemes, racking up mortal enemies like Edina's eternally disappointed client Lulu and arm's-length critic Stella McCartney, and disgracing themselves...all the while clad in the most ridiculous faible couture imaginable.
In the film, Eddy is at the end of her rope, about to lose her cash flow from first ex-hubby Marshall (Christopher Ryan) and in possession of a proposal for a memoir that's nothing but gibberish, thanks to stenographer-unextraordinaire Bubble (Jane Horrocks). While attempting to secure Kate Moss (as herself) as a client before arch-rival Claudia Bing (Celia Imrie) can, Eddy accidentally pushes the supermodel into the Thames, resulting in an international incident that leads the world to await word on whether the icon has perished or somehow survived.
Either way, Eddy is public enemy #1.
Like a better-than-average ep of the series, not everything in the film quite works. Broad comedy is one thing, but implausible and lazy developments can be hobbling. Still, the entire original cast (especially the leads and the underused Horrocks) are spot-on in their delivery and the movie has way more pointed insight, unexpected guffaws and charming cameos than it has a right.
The funniest thing about the film, about the central characters, is the full-stop lack of self-awareness. As Eddy bawls about how she realized everything is “always about me,” Patsy interjects without a sense of irony, “And me.” It's a testament to the actors' comedic and dramatic skills that they're always able to make such horrendous women so damn funny and, ultimately, somehow lovable.
More, please.
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