analysis

Fackham Hall: Learn From The Stupid

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

So I recently saw Fackham Hall. It’s a movie that was advertised as sort of “Naked Gun But For Stuffy British Stuff.” I am pleased to report I enjoyed it, it was also very stupid, and there’s actually something to learn from it. Enough that I want to share.

So first of all, if you wonder “will I like it,” I’d say that Fackham Hall is actually in the vein of the 2025 Deathstalker film that was an homage to old direct-to video fantasy. There is an intended audience, and if you are in that audience, you will enjoy it. If you are not, don’t bother. This is a film for people who’ve watched a lot of Stuffy British Stuff and have a sense of humor about it.

Now when it comes to a comedy the question is are the jokes any good? Fackham Hall has a lot of jokes in it, of extremely varied quality, but you won’t be lacking jokes. Not all of them are good, I’d say that the overall humor is “OK,” there’s plenty of laughs. There’s an over-reliance on crudity for the most part that I found offputting, but there are plenty of actually good jokes.

Two things stand out from the humor. The first is that there are jokes where the setup is actually part of the humor, where you realize how far the movie went for a joke or a sudden case where one thing suddenly becomes funny due to one tiny action. The second is there are a few scenes that authentically stand out, most notable an extended dialogue joke in the vein of “Who’s on first” that had me in tears. There is effort here, albeit it makes some of the low-effort jokes more obvious.

Fackham Hall does have two larger lessons, a minor one and a major one I want to explore. These are enough that they provide lessons for other comedies.

The minor lesson is that Fackham Hall actually has a plot that drives the story forward, if erratically. The Davenport family risks losing their beloved estate unless their daughter marries the cousin due to inherit it – and the disruption of a roguish young visitor and an eventual murder add chaos to the countdown. Some characters have their own concerns and sidestories. There’s enough here to power a general movie, and that gives the film plenty of energy, even if the actual plot could have been used more in the jokes.

The major lesson is the cast and the acting. For all it’s silliness the cast acts as seriously as if they were in a dramatic film. It’s not deadpan, it’s a talented lot of actors acting as if this is a film of drama and danger and intrigue and love. Watching people do the stupidest things with great sincerity and gravitas takes the film farther and makes even lame jokes actually funnier.

Thomasin McKenzie and Ben Radcliffe take on the role of inevitable lovers, and show actual chemistry and charm together. Emma Laird, who’s character’s marriage shenanigans drive the early part of the film has a scene of emotional breakdown where she is crying and screaming while also upending the common tropes of said scene. Tim McMullan plays Cyril, the family butler with absolute seriousness while also being the butt of a movie-long joke he leans into and keeps going.

The absolute standout is Damian Lewis as the Davenport family patriarch, Humphrey. Lewis invests this somewhat befuddled and inbred character with charm and sensitivity, making him actually likeable. There’s even a scene where he expresses his fatherly love to one of his daughters that is touching. Jokes be damned, Lewis was acting and nothing stopped him, not even the script.

What made Fackham Hall work was – ironically – what makes a good movie. Give it a plot and get actors who will act. It can even elevate some poor jokes or missed opportunities. I enjoyed this enough that I actually got curious to see the actors in other works, especially Mr. Lewis.

It’s not every day you can take lessons in comedy from a film that includes J.R.R. Tolkien farting, but here you go. My kudos to the cast.

Steven Savage

It All Falls Apart In The End

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’ve all experienced a time when things fall apart. Ancient software gives up the ghost after a harmless update. A roadway collapses despite people knowing it needed work. Larger disasters, such as the pandemic, confound us as things are just falling apart.

Why is it that the infrastructure of our lives goes to hell, even when we know it’s coming? Even when we made some effort to fix them?

I have a theory because of my work in IT, my interest in infrastructure, and my career in planning. Simply, we kick problems down the road until they accumulate, and many happen all at once.

Allow me to explain.

Imagine there’s a problem – a decaying road, an aging piece of software, an outdated government policy. The best idea would be to fix it, and maybe even make it better (aka “ruggedization). That is the best thing to do- but we don’t.

What we do is we partially fix things and kick a lot of the work down the road. We patch that concrete, we tweak the database connector, we throw in a new form and that’s it. The heavy lifting, the replacement, the reorg or whatever can come later.

Of course, when it’s time to do the real work, we kick it down the road a little more. No one wants to vote for that tax increase, no one wants to tell the boss how much that new software will cost. A half-baked attempt is made, and then we wait.

Because we’re not really fixing a problem, breakdowns come faster and faster. Software crashes more and more. Delivery lines snarl and fail yearly instead of every year or two. But we keep delaying a fix.

But it gets worse, because if you’re trying to avoid fixing one problem, you’re probably avoiding others. All those problems you don’t return, and they keep coming faster as well. Eventually, a lot goes wrong at once, and everything goes to hell.

In short, if you keep delaying addressing problems – be it software or infrastructure – the problems keep coming back all the faster until things break.

You’re probably nodding at this. We’ve all worked on that project or dealt that government official or were in that building we suddenly had to leave.  

A lot of what’s wrong in the word is the bill coming due – social meltdown, economic difference, bad infrastructure, the climate. We’re going to need to buckle down and fix things if we want a decent future.

Steven Savage

A Spoonfull of Action Makes The Mythology Go Down

by

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Serdar recently wrote an excellent re-look at the seminal film The Matrix. I have nothing to say about his essay except to go read this fine piece of work. However, I do have something to say about The Matrix and how pieces of media work together.

In some ways, The Matrix seems to be two films.

One film is an exceptional action movie with a near-perfect cast. As of this writing in 2021, it still influences the styling of movies, television, and games. The film showcases the talents of various actors and actresses, each well-fit to their role. Were it just an SF action film, it would be an accomplished one.

However, the film’s heart is that another movie: the story of a not-quite Chosen one on a journey about reality and physicality, machines and humanity. One can – and many have – spilled ink and moves electrons to going over the mix of Gnosticism, Buddhism, bodily identity, and more in the film. Later revelations about the transgender experience and the film only illustrate how much is in it.

Some films may be riddles wrapped in enigmas. This is a film of a philosophy wrapped in a stylish hail of bullets and punches to the face.

Both sides of the film are enhanced by the other. The stylish action catches our attention, grabbing us by the visceral parts of our brain. The deep thoughts and many sides of it reach our hearts and mind. The Matrix creates deep engagement by having these two facets.

There are many lessons to derive from The Matrix, and certainly more to be found. One lesson that I see as I look back on the film is that seemingly unrelated concepts can enhance each other. You can have your philosophy and gun-fu at the same time and be better for it.

A creative work can have “unrelated” ideas that come together for richer results. Let no one say to you “your ideas don’t work together.”

Genres are not limited by what they are “supposed” to be but can deliver any kind of payload in the right person’s hands. There is no “wrong” genre, and sometimes the “wrong” genre may be the most right one.

A “tightly focused” work may become too limiting, whereas other ideas, even conflicting ones, may enrich it. Sometimes focus is another name for “narrowness.”

If the Matrix taught us to break free from many forms of conditioning, let it also be a reminder to break free from simple ideas of what “genre” and “themes” are for.

Steven Savage