Fackham Hall

Grade: B+

In any given January, one’s moviegoing is bound to involve at least one carryover from the previous year. Fackham Hall, a December 2025 release, was one that I couldn’t fit in last year, but it’s a perfect bookend to 2025’s The Naked Gun. I liked Fackham Hall even better. My laughs were loud, consistent, and frequent. As I read reviews and the IMDb trivia, I smiled with delight all over again as I was reminded of those bits.

Fackham Hall can best be described as a Downton Abbey/Gosford Park/elegant British period drama parodied in Airplane/Naked Gun style. Director Jim O’Hanlon’s credits consist mostly of a few individual episodes of a myriad of series. The 5-person writing team never takes the humor that far into graphic gross-out territory. Though there are some poop/fart/genitalia jokes, it’s more about slapstick sight gags and groan-inducing wordplay, in dialogue like “How did you sleep?” “By laying in bed and closing my eyes.”

The plot is a standard one for the kind of thing it’s sending up. The movie’s namesake (say it out loud with a Cockney accent, and you’ll get the joke) is a sprawling estate with a rich history. A young woman is set to marry a man she doesn’t love, or even like. She runs away at the altar, so the man sets his sights on his now-ex-fiancé’s sister. She shares a mutual affection with the newly-hired hall boy. They’d rather marry each other, but he is not in the bloodline, so whattayagonnado?

The direction is clear. Camera angles are situated in a way that we always know when to look off to the side, or in the background, for an upcoming sight gag. Individual lines create setups we can see coming a mile away. “Nothing would get in his way.” “I promise I’ll pay more attention to where I’m going.” “I’ll be watching you all very closely, and if there’s anything out of the ordinary, anything at all, you can be damned sure I’ll notice it.” No points for guessing that something gets in his way, she doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going, and an out-of-the-ordinary thing will soon be seen by us, but not them.

The butler’s name is Cyril, which provides an opportunity for characters to say “Hey Cyril, what’s the weather today?” – to which he responds with a mechanical, specific, inhuman answer. They worry that Cyril might be listening in on their conversations. They had the same suspicions with Alexa, a previous housemaid.

The cast includes Hayley Mills, Katherine Waterston (Afraid, Asphalt City, Babylon), and the wonderful Thomasin McKenzie (Eileen, The Power of the Dog, Old, Jojo Rabbit). This is a difficult movie to review. It’s the kind that might reduce a lazy critic to quote some favorite bits. Bottom line: if you enjoy the Naked Gun humor, you will have a ball with Fackham Hall. The comedy is alive and well.

Grade: B+