Is it a new trend in Hollywood for 'middle-aged single mom' characters to date young male stars? Otherwise, I can't understand why "A Family Affair" followed hard on the heels of "The Idea of You," when both films have almost the exact same plot. Compared to Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, the chemistry between Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron is far more terrible. To put it bluntly, they are the worst on-screen couple I've seen in 2024.
Generally speaking, the female lead in a movie is someone that female audiences can project themselves onto. She must have some similarities with them, such as age and life circumstances. At the same time, she should possess some superior features that allow her to outshine the average female viewer. For instance, she may be more beautiful and wealthier or encounter more exciting opportunities in life. Hathaway's character in "The Idea of You", Celine, is exactly such a woman. She is a middle-aged single mom with a teenage daughter, who still yearns for love—this is a run-of-the-mill design that shares commonality with the general audience. But her stunning appearance and successful career as a gallery manager are traits the average audience does not possess.
In "A Family Affair," Kidman's role, Brooke, shares a nearly identical age, marital status, and attitude toward love. Similarly, she is an extremely successful writer; she lives a tasteful life and has a wardrobe full of designer clothes from fashion magazines; she can choose to teach at Princeton University when she feels like changing her lifestyle. Like Hathaway, Kidman endows Brooke with an unignorable beauty.
Such a setting makes it hard to understand how Brooke, after being single for 15 years, suddenly falls passionately in love at first sight with a young man, of whom she doesn't have a deep understanding.
This brings us to an even less compelling character in "A Family Affair," Chris, played by Efron. In the film, he is an arrogant, womanizing superstar, who lacks empathy and likes to torment his staff. But his performance is unconvincing. Chris should have been a narcissistic and carefree character, but Zac portrays him as insecure and sensitive. When he appears with Kidman, she looks more like the dazzling superstar.
Moreover, for a rom-com to resonate with the audience, it must depict the atmosphere of situationship. "The Idea of You" spends over half an hour on the ambiguities between the two leads. But in "A Family Affair," there is almost no emotional buildup between the two, which can be well vindicated by the kiss they share 10 minutes after their first meeting. Furthermore, out of the blue, they suddenly want to sleep together—in a completely unromantic place (Brooke's home) and at a completely unromantic moment (when her daughter, Zara, is about to come home). Although they are interrupted by Zara's sudden return (which is entirely predictable), they continue where they left off afterward.
Brooke and Chris' romance unfolds silently. The audience doesn't know what they say to each other and only sees scene transitions instead. In these transitions, the duo drinks, chats, and hugs while on vacation in different places. When their voices are heard again, they are already deeply confessing their love for each other.
I know the essence of a rom-com is the love story between a handsome man and a beautiful woman, but it's not just about showing them hugging and kissing on screen. When watching a rom-com, the audience has a voyeuristic desire. They hope to enter the couple's exclusive private space and experience the details of their relationship. Through these details, the audience can feel the chemistry between the two lovers. Therefore, an inadequate depiction of the development of a romantic relationship is fatal for a rom-com. Why are Brooke and Chris attracted to each other? What secrets do they reveal to each other? The audience has no clues to these questions when watching "A Family Affair." They only see an empty love story, where a single mom falls in love with a superstar, and they face obstacles in their relationship, including being misunderstood by the former's daughter, but eventually end up together.
What is even more bizarre about "A Family Affair" is that the female lead is not entirely Kidman. The shared screen time between Brooke and Zara causes the audience's focus to alternate between them. But neither of their stories is complete or touching. Instead, they seem hollow and uninteresting. While having a clear structure, their stories are not substantiated with details for both mother and daughter.
This movie is so bad that it can't even qualify as a good guilty pleasure. But more importantly, I think it's worth pondering why we are seeing so many bad movies. The scripts of these movies seem AI-written, and the actors are nonchalant about their roles. As such, the end result is a barely passable production, which only aims to satisfy the fantasies of middle-aged female viewers of being an extremely successful writer living alone comfortably in a luxurious mansion. As a wife, Brooke's late husband has never betrayed her; as a mother, she has a close relationship with Zara, and she is a wise and loving figure to her. In her middle age, she meets a superstar 16 years younger and dates him. Despite being a womanizer and suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, Chris falls in love with her at first sight and remains devoted to her throughout.
Unfortunately, even such shallow fantasies need careful construction. A shoddy production like "A Family Affair" is far from satisfactory. A romantic love story that no one believes is like a poor-quality dessert—no matter how good it looks, people will give up on it eventually.
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