This is a weird family!

A FAMILY AFFAIR is An Idea of You meets Basantagi Nongalamdai and features Nicole Kidman, who portrays a widow battling a mid-life crisis. The versatile and usually classy Kidman shows her age and doesn’t stand out. She looks ordinary, even pedestrian, and the feminine power she commands in most of her films is absent. Zac Efron, the current real-life heartthrob of Hollywood, plays her love interest. Nothing unusual, as you might envision, till this point. The plot thickens when the widow encounters a serial womaniser, Efron, who is lightyears younger than her. Before this chance encounter, we learn that Kidman is a reclusive writer and a single mother who avoids any committed relationship after her husband’s demise and is focused on raising her only daughter, Joey King. King is a lifesaver who brings all her talents to the table and rescues the movie from falling flat on its ill-conceived story of a middle-aged woman searching for validation and a little love from a man-child who portrays a famous actor in the film.
On the other hand, Efron faces his inner demons, unable to escape insecurity and fear of abandonment from his troubled childhood. To cut the story short, the two lovebirds clicked and literally rolled with each other, and when the daughter discovered the romantic trysts between the two, she felt a mixture of surprise, anxiety and disgust. It is a story of the complex interplay of emotions, rediscovery of womanhood, mother-daughter relationships, coming into age and self-acceptance all playing out within a family as the protective daughter tries to fend her mother from disappointment, given that King is privy to the reckless escapades of Efron, who happens to be her boss at work. However, a happy ending transpires at last.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU? The film won’t fry your brain. It’s easy to watch, understand, and pass your moral judgment with impunity, and you will be entertained enough for it.
WHAT WILL YOU MISS IF YOU SKIP? You will never see Joey King maturing as an actor who effortlessly makes her acting statement and upgrades her portfolio.
TO WATCH OR NOT? Good news. It’s on Netflix in your pocket. Watch it if there are no voyeuristic viral videos on a slow, drama-free day.
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