There’s a strange love-hate relationship with the rich, especially when it comes to the past. Perhaps it’s escapism, perhaps it’s a desire to live in presumably more affluent times, but the notion that one could live and live well — magnificent multi-room homes, well-dressed servants, well-stocked bank accounts, and the luxury of having one’s minor inconveniences feel like massive difficulties to overcome — does make one fantasize. In this year, 2025, as audiences say goodbye to Julian Fellowes’s British historical drama Downton Abbey and the Crawley family with its concluding film The Grand Finale, filmmaker Jim O’Hanlon (Your Christmas or Mine?) invites audiences to meet the Davenport family in his comedic parody Fackham Hall. Inspired by the likes of Monty Python and infused with a modern sensibility, O’Hanlon’s Fackham Hall offers continuous laughter regardless of whether you can see the jokes coming or predict the narrative, resulting in a delightful time from start to finish. In other words, Fackham Hall is rich in laughter, devoid of sense.
L-R: Thomasin McKenzie as Rose Davenport, Katherine Waterston as Lady Davenport, Damian Lewis as Lord Davenport, and Emma Laird as Poppy Davenport in Bleecker Street’s FACKHAM HALL. Photo Credit: Bleecker Street.
It’s Post-World War I 1930s England and the members of the Davenport family are bustling about preparing for the upcoming marriage of eldest daughter Poppy (Emma Laird). This marriage not only ensures the continued sovereignty of their family line by marrying cousin Archibald (Tom Felton), but, most importantly, it means that Lord Davenport (Damien Lewis), Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston), and youngest daughter Rose (Thomasin McKenzie) are allowed to continue residing in their beloved Fackham Hall. However, not all is flowers and candied tarts in the hallowed halls of Fackham as the question of marrying for love or continued prestige bothers young Rose, who is personally pestered all the more by the arrival of Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe), an orphan with a mysterious past and sticky fingers. But when tragedy strikes and suspects are made of everyone, marriage becomes both the most and least important thing in Fackham Hall.
L-R: Ben Radcliffe as Eric Noone and Thomasin McKenzie as Rose Davenport in Bleecker Street’s FACKHAM HALL. Photo Credit: Bleecker Street.
From a script written by Andrew Dawson (Who Shot Simon Cowell?), Steve Dawson (Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas), Tim Inman (Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas), Jimmy Carr (Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material), and Patrick Carr (Brotherhood), from a story idea from the Carr brothers, Fackham Hall can mostly closely be compared to recent release The Naked Gun (2025) in terms of parody, though that film is more of an action comedy whereas Fackham leans into scruples and situational comedy. Impressively, whereas The Naked Gun doesn’t address the inherent problems of an investigator like Frank Drebin or Junior as they relate to the inherent issues of law enforcement, Fackham not only finds humor in the expected places (class warfare), but does so while punching up at the systems which generate the need for parody in order to address their ridiculousness. Sometimes this takes the form more pronounced items like the name of the estate, Fackham Hall, which, when said with some speed, produces a crude turn of phrase that aptly describes the view of the obscene rich by comparison to their struggling lower classes or the Latin phrase adorning the estate title, “Incestus Ad Infinitum,” a motto that sounds fancy (because Latin) while humorously expressing the significant problem with monarchistic thinking. Sometimes the parody is more subtle, finding humor in the social constructs that presume value in men as heads of a household who could do as they please and in women as little more than incubators to preserve the sovereignty of the bloodline (Read? Own property? Next you’ll want them to vote!). The script itself doesn’t lean politically so much as it uses the social constructions of 1930s England as commentary for today, using something as small as the absurdity of a lord who uses a valet to do everything from feed him food to pick his nose as a means of asking, “just how much wealth is too much.” This may not be the intent of the script from the group of five, but that’s really what they’re asking even as the characters do something as simple as go on a quail hunt, a sporting event seen as a measure of one’s stature and entirely used here to point out outdated views on gender and how the rich are daft, yet idolized all the same.
L-R: Tom Felton as Archibald, Ramon Tikaram as Darvesh Khalid, Thomasin McKenzie as Rose Davenport, Damian Lewis as Lord Davenport, and Nathan McMullen as Alexander in Bleecker Street’s FACKHAM HALL. Photo Credit: Bleecker Street.
Being an exploration of financial waste is boring, so let’s get to the reason why anyone should watch this film: the cast’s ability to play it straight amid the chaos. Each of them, from major characters played by Lewis (Life), Waterston (Logan Lucky), McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit), Felton (Altered), and Radcliffe (Cuban Fury), to supporting characters significant to the plot played by Anna Maxwell Martin (Philomena), Tim McMullan (The Fifth Element; Shakespeare in Love), Sue Johnston (Downton Abbey), and Tom Goodman-Hill (The War Below) all understand the sort of film they’re in. Their collective ability to play everything straight is paramount to the success of the comedy. Like Monty Python (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and ZAZ (Airplane!) projects, the humor comes from the perpetual subversion of expectation. Some of that comes through the script as it skewers presumed high society with visual gags such as a line of bells by which the porters will know which room requires service from the Davenports all as-expected but one, but the majority comes from the ways in which this cast delivers lines of pure absurdity as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. McKenzie, in particular, shines with her physical comedy, channeling the likes of Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy) and Carol Burnett (Mama’s Family) whether it’s a prat fall or slamming down several drinks in succession (including water from a vase of flowers). By making everything appear natural and in keeping with the tone of the narrative universe, the cast repeatedly finds space to make a meal out of the simplest things.
L-R: Thomasin McKenzie as Rose Davenport, Katherine Waterston as Lady Davenport, Damian Lewis as Lord Davenport, and Tom Felton as Archibald in Bleecker Street’s FACKHAM HALL. Photo Credit: Bleecker Street.
Unfortunately, for all the good and entertaining within the film, it does have its limits. Some jokes are spectacular for the way that they come naturally and unexpectedly while others are executed so well as to charm. There are far too many, however, that are predictable or that over-stay their welcome, making it so that not only can we predict the joke, we can predict the conclusion of the film well before the halfway point — and for a 97-minute comedy, this can be its Achilles Heel. Part of this is in the overuse of Jimmy Carr’s vicar who repeatedly misreads his service material, making it sound like he’s constantly saying something inappropriate. Carr’s delivery is on-point, but, especially by being featured in the trailer, it offers little provocation to the humors as to be worth spending so much time on. Or the joke design around Goodman-Hill’s Inspector Watt’s name that’s more eye-rollingly obvious when there are so many other great gags used in his introduction. Or a prison break that goes about as expected from the moment the setup starts. One can forgive the film’s narrative predictability as that’s more of an issue with the story style of the subgenre being parodied than of the script itself, which is merely keeping in line with that style; however, with so much cleverness elsewhere and a cast so able to make even the crudest gag palatable, a frustration arises at such abandonment of subversion in favor of obvious joke structure.
One doesn’t need to understand the historical or social constructs of 1930s England to have a good time with Fackham Hall or to possess any kind of knowledge whatsoever of the comedic influences that abound within. It’ll help, sure, but it’s unnecessary, and that’s a good thing as comedy doesn’t always have to involve a completed background checklist. Instead, one can just enjoy copious crude jokes told at the expense of high society by a cast not only believable in their interpretation of the material, but delightfully repugnant. Truly, when all is said and done, audiences will gladly proclaim, Fackhamhall.
In theaters December 5th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Bleecker Street Fackham Hall webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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