It has been a while now and I can’t remember if it was in late July or early August but yeah, I did the thing and saw Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (AbFab) at my local theater.
Of course I am dating myself by saying I have been with this show since the early-mid 1990s. Mind you I was probably a bit young and should not have been watching it back then, but none the less it became an essential part of my televisual life. So much so, that the AbFab box set holds a pride of place, alongside other TV gems as Fawlty Towers and Battlestar Galactica, in the television section of my video library.
For years, there had been chatter about there being cinematic offering for their fans, but for many (legit) reasons, nothing seemed to come of it. So when I got wind that they would be finally making a film lo these many years later (20 and counting), I knew that the theater had my dollars.
So the time has come any gone and I have had many, many hours to reflect upon watching the film …
My overall impressions are that it is just what I expected it to be. While not as funny and ‘fresh’ as the original television series, there were enough laughs to keep me engaged and interested until the credits rolled. I do accept that the sense of nostalgia associated with seeing old friends after a few years probably made me more forgiving than I might be with a similarly produced film. But I make no apologies – we all have that ‘thing’ that makes us happy and brings us a certain level of joy when watching it. And for me, AbFab in any form is one such thing, even if it is a lesser version of its original self. Besides, they look like they had a blast making it.
The plot for what it’s worth is pretty thin and only serves to drive our principles Patsy (Joanna Lumley) and Edina (Jennifer Saunders) into more outrageous adventures through London and the French Riviera. If you really want to know what’s what, the plot is laid out pretty bare in the trailer.
In fact, the gang’s all here – including Saffy (Julia Sawalha), Bubble (Jane Horrocks) and Gran (June Whitfield). Even many of the supporting players from the original show do their ‘pass throughs’ at some point or another.
And, as any fan of the series knows, an episode of AbFab is not complete without the requisite cameo(s). If this is what go for, you are in for a treat. While many are not the heavy-hitting A-lister type, most faces are recognizable from the series, with a few ‘new’ faces added in for good measure.
So there you have it, my quick and dirty impressions of a film that really felt like a fun trip down memory lane with some dear and dysfunctional friends.
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