Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie
Edina and Patsy don’t want to cave in to the aging process. Thank God for champagne and cigarettes.
The rollicking R rated Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie could really be entitled “Really, really Bad Moms”. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley recreate their legendary TV series as two boozing British women whose massive egos masked their racy ineptitude.
With the passage of time, Edina (Ms. Saunders) has lost most of her public relations clients. As she and her friend Patsy (Ms. Lumley) confront their sorrows with booze and a smoke, they realize that their only hope is to find a way to entice the supermodel Kate Moss to become a client.
They subsequently appear at a lavish fashion show attended by Ms. Moss, and disaster follows when Moss is accidentally knocked off a railing into the Thames river where it appears she has drowned. Our girls are in trouble when the media assumes that they have killed her. Jailed and then temporarily freed, they escape to the French Riviera to try to find fame and fortune. These ladies will try nearly anything in pursuit of a possible nest egg, and wait until you see Patsy pose as a man as she seeks to marry an incredibly wealthy aging widow.
The plot of the film really doesn’t make much sense, but neither do Edina and Patsy. That is the secret of the laughter flowing from their idiotic adventures. The crazed exchanges between our two stars is similar to the hysterical, raunchy performance of Kathryn Hahn in Bad Moms. Additionally, Edina’s relationship with her disgusted daughter (Julia Sawalha) provides the film with some depth that you wouldn’t anticipate.
There are some splendid cameos from various well known individuals ranging from Stella McCartney to Joan Collins , but wait until you see the outrageous exchange between Patsy and Jon Hamm at the party resulting in criminal accusations. Part of it is in the previews, and it captures the heart and soul of this film.
The only criticism I have of “Ab Fab” goes back to the TV series, namely that the film would benefit from the use of subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Sure the movie is in English, but the accents are so thick that I couldn’t pick up all of the quick dialogue. I love these two women, and I hated to miss out on anything.
