As for the Audiences, Just ‘Fackham Hall’

Fackham Hall, the Downton Abbey parody film from British comedian Jimmy Carr, vanished from theaters almost the instant it came out in December. Now it’s parked itself on HBO Max, where it’s once again retreated into obscurity. But that’s a shame, because Fackham Hall is the best movie of its type in decades.

Drawing stylistic inspiration from the classic comedies of the Zucker Brothers and Mel Brooks, Fackham Hall packs more gags into a single scene than most comedies feature in an hour. That’s one reason why it’s the funniest movie you’ll watch this year. The other is that it’s a pitch-perfect genre satire. Last year’s Naked Gun reboot was quite funny, but it also was more of a tribute to old Naked Gun movies than an actual satire of any modern cultural form. I enjoyed History of the World Part 2 more than the average cat, but it whiffed way more than it hit, and suffered from being too long and scattershot. Fackham Hall, on the other hand, feels almost exactly like Airplane! but set at a British country manor.

The plot, set at the titular house, which you must say in a Cockney accent to properly get across its true meaning, concerns the Davenport family. Lord Davenport, played by Damian Lewis, now streaming on Netflix in a stylistically similar but utterly humorless Masterpiece adaptation of The Forsyte saga, and Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston), are looking for an heir after the death of their four sons, John, Paul, George, and “little Ringo.” They try to arrange marriages for their daughters, Rose (Thomasin McKenzie) and Poppy (Emma Laird), to their “caddish” cousin, Archibald Davenport (Tom Felton). “At last,” Lord Davenport says when Poppy and Archibald become engaged, “she’s found the right cousin to marry,” a tradition they cheekily call “Incestuous ad Infinitum.”

The situation complicates with the arrival of a grown orphan named Eric Noone (No One), who has some papers to deliver from his orphanage that may or may not reveal his heritage. Instead, he accidentally enters service in the house. He and Rose quickly fall in lust after he catches her reading a “tale of forbidden love” called “One Shade of Gray.” When her sister Poppy flees Archibald at the altar to marry a local manure salesman, Lord and Lady Davenport attempt to marry him off Rose instead.

Well, that’s the story, stupid as it is, but it mirrors ridiculous Downton Abbey plotlines so accurately, it almost feels like you’re watching an actual episode. But Fackham Hall’s real pleasures lie in the side jokes. There are characters called The Bechdel Sisters who only talk about men. A butler introduces a guest at a party as “Lady Gaga.” An American character carries around a baseball bat. The servant lads have a Trainspotting poster in their dormitory. The butler is named Cyril, but everyone calls him “Cyrie,” (again, best said out loud) and he provides detailed weather reports when prompted. When Eric asks Cyrie where he sleeps, Cyrie says, “I don’t sleep. It would interfere with my duties.”

And, as you would expect from Carr — the fastest joke writer in English — there’s more. A local business is named “Tailor Swift,” advertised as the fastest gentlemen’s tailor in Fackham. A pub called the “Dog and Drake” sells “Gin and Juice.” Not scared of smut, one of the servant summoning bells in the kitchen is labeled “Masturbatorium” and is seen ringing at a frantically rhythmic pace. There are turds and boners galore. A vicar, played by Carr, has a habit of pausing his sentences in inappropriate places, leading to lines like “marrying these two arseholes” (meant to be “our souls”). JRR Tolkien is a character and, in my personal favorite joke, he meets a man named Bill Bobaggins, whose name he immediately writes down in a notebook. There are several hilarious songs, including a desperately raunchy Noel Coward parody, a “rude little ditty” called “I Went to the Palace with My Willy Hanging Out.”

Fackham Hall’s final third is a locked-room mystery that perfectly channels Agatha Christie dramas, and seamlessly attaches itself to the Downton satire that’s come before. It may not quite be at the level of Young Frankenstein, Airplane!, Blazing Saddles, Top Secret!, and The Naked Gun, the masterpieces of this genre. But Fackham Hall is close enough to at least be in the conversation. And, for those of you in possession of one, you can even watch it with your willy hanging out. It would be appropriate.