REVIEW: ‘A Family Affair’ Is Netflix’s Best In Ages

Netflix has stooped to some seriously upsetting lows, releasing truly cringe-worthy romances and rom-coms. But A Family Affair, directed by Richard LaGravenese and written by Carrie Solomon, finally turns Netflix’s tides. Zara (Joey King) has been working as the personal assistant to movie star Chris Cole (Zac Efron) for a few years now. He’s not the nicest person or the greatest boss, but they both have soft spots for each other. Chris promised when he took Zara on that he’d take her under his wing and train her to become a producer in his company eventually. It’s been two years though, and early twenty-something Zara is starting to feel like Chris is never going to take her seriously enough.

Neither will her mother, the talented and successful writer Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman). Like any good mother, especially a good single mother, Brooker dotes on Zara. Zara still lives at home while she’s figuring her life out. Brooke would drop truly anything to support her daughter. But to Zara, that love is, expectedly, overbearing. It’s laden with guilt trips and judgment. Just when Zara has finally mustered the strength to quit her job with Chris, the absolute least expected happens. Chris and Brooke just so happen to meet and are instantly smitten with one another. Which, of course, completely freaks Zara out.

It would have been really easy, and rather typical for Netflix romances, for the entirety of A Family Affair to proceed as some kind of nauseating and overdone comedy of errors. Chris and Brooke could be getting into shenanigans, sneaking around to hide their relationship from Zara. They could be making constant jokes about their nearly 20-year age gap. The unfortunate version of A Family Affair could have been about Chris being unable to decide whether to flirt with his assistant or her mother. There could have been all manner of plotlines about Chis’s immaturity, or that forced Brooke into some kind of disappointing juvenility.

A Family Affair doesn’t do any of that. A Family Affair is a thoughtful and complicated movie about a young adult needing to learn to think about people besides herself, a movie star learning who he actually is, and a mother learning to think about herself for a change. It has its shortcomings, with some cheesy dialogue here and there or chemistry that doesn’t feel quite as robust as it deserves to be. But overall, A Family Affair is quite lovable.

The movie’s structure accentuates Zara’s journey in particular. She’s the initial point of view character and, if there had to be one, the movie’s main character. When the film starts, we see her struggling to put up with Chris, who is depicted as the jerk she mostly sees him as. Then we see her struggling to talk to her mom, who’s depicted as the loving but nagging parent who won’t listen to her. We’re partly turned off by both characters right away. But we also get plenty of scenes where Brooke is the point of view character. We learn who she really is and why, perhaps, Zara looks at her like she does.

The movie also works so well because Brooke and Chris seem so natural to their actors. Chris tells Brooke about some insecurities that mirror some of what we know about Zac Effron himself. Brooke isn’t an overstated character and feels like a mother keeping herself calm for her daughter even though she has a lot of feelings bubbling beneath the surface. The two of them don’t feel iconic together or anything. Neither character ultimately sells how deep their affection is for the other. Most of their intimacy is holding each other and one clotheless scene.

But their long conversations sell you on them nonetheless. Most of Brooke and Chris’s relationship is built through prolonged, intimate conversations. They talk about basically everything. The dialogue isn’t always superb, but the energy of their discussions is the perfect mix of intimate, mature, and flirty. It’s not necessarily exciting through and through, but it is a satisfying way to depict adults forming a romance. Plus, the new awkward family dynamic does make for a couple of funny situations, especially in a pediatrician’s office.

Each character’s lessons might be familiar ideas on their own, but putting them together feels novel. It’s especially impressive that Zara, Brooke, and Chris really feel like co-equals in how much A Family Affair is about each of them. All three have the same amount of growth. Zara gets a bit of extra shine but Chris and Brooke’s individual stories are just as prominent. Each of the three relationship pairings also feel like they’re given as much attention as one another so that the end feels completely satisfying. Not to mention that the whole movie is supported by a sweet grandmother performance by Kathy Bates.

While A Family Affair lacks the extra layer of chemistry that would launch it into all-timer status, it is nonetheless one of Netflix’s very best romance movies in a long time. The characters all feel like real people going through real emotions. The movie doesn’t rely on cheap writing shortcuts or overplayed comedy tropes. Instead, the focus is on watching two stars have a good time with each other. It’s wholesome and satisfying.

A Family Affair is streaming on Netflix June 28.