At heart of every sitcom worth its salt, has been a dark and inner core, an exploration of ideas, emotions or philosophies that underpins all the froth and hilarity that encircle them.
In the case of Absolutely Fabulous, the story of PR mogul Edina “Eddy” Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and her best friend, the equally dysfunctional Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley), it’s been the sense that beneath all the delusional excess, the drinking, drug taking and lavish partying, are two scared women desperately trying to outrun their faltering sense of self-worth and their fast-fading youth.
It’s that inner core, that substantive melancholy that has always underpinned Absolutely Fabulous – more so in Eddy’s case than Patsy’s since the latter, long a habitue of the world the former longs to be a part of, blithely shrugs off any blips on the radar of her manifest champagne-soaked destiny – and which gives Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie an emotional richness that dovetails quite neatly with the predictably hilarious visual gags and pithy oneliners, all of which are abundantly represented.
The film is one of those rare instances where a TV sitcom has translated successfully to the big screen, its very essence intact, with everything from the tart, satirical social observations, the hilarity of un-self aware excess and the emotional authenticity, most often realised in the relationship between Eddy and her sensible daughter Saffy (Julie Sawalha), in place and well accounted for.
The very centre of all these constant elements is the friendship, almost familial relationship between Patsy, who is shown in the film blithely injecting her face with Botox as part of her morning ablutions and wondering where her next glass of champagne is coming from as if it’s her birthright, and Eddy, who keeps losing her grip of the drug-addled, vodka-washed brass rings but refuses to accept it isn’t hers to hold fast until the end of her days.
And so it is that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie begins with Eddy and Patsy at one of a neverending series of fashion events, drinking as if there is no tomorrow, and if Eddy can’t find a way to get some more clients (besides “Baby Spice Emma Bunton and singer Lulu, both of whom play themselves) and cashflow, there may not be, before figuratively staggering back to Eddy’s palatial home to sleep it all off before resuming it all over again the next day.
Thing is they awake to a home that bears no real resemblance to the world they think they inhabit.
Eddy’s credit cards are “broken”, the champagne fridge is mysteriously empty of Bollinger – this prompts one of the many hilarious exchanges peppering the movie where Saffy tells Patsy that food and wine aren’t free to which Patsy responds with genuine surprise “Since when?!” – Saffy is finding her daughter Lola (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) more of a handful to raise than she bargained for, and Eddy’s mother played by June Whitfield is eyeing off the abundant chaos with the keen observations of someone who knows everything’s off balance but knows there’s nothing she can do to fix it.
Much like Eddy’s on-the-surface daffy assistant Bubbles (Jane Horrocks), who appears blithely unaware of anything but is consummately in charge of everything (and sports a characteristically over-the-top line of outfits including a clunky but luridly colourful hashtag dress), Eddy’s mother is our eye into the maelstrom of humourous madness that is the entirety of Eddy’s world.
It’s a world of seemingly inexhaustible resources but as the film progresses it becomes patently obvious that its timespan is finite and that unless Eddy can land a newly PR agent-unattached Kate Moss as a client, that the Good Ship Bollinger is going down for the count.
Alas, Eddy’s over-eagerness (and yes desperation) to secure Moss’s PR patronage at a major fashion gala leads her to accidentally push Moss into the Thames, turning her into a murder suspect, a social pariah – Eddy has no idea what this is but think it’s a fish when challenged by Saffy – and a newly-minted resident of the south of France where she and Patsy flee to seek out new money and the lives they believe they were born to live.
Of course, nothing’s ever that simple, and the pair lurch from one hilarious encounter to another, their grip on reality and their dire circumstances as tenuous as ever, meaning that the humour that has underpinned Absolutely Fabulous since day one is as rich and side-splittingly funny as ever.
Saunders has channelled the very best of the TV series, which hasn’t always remained as consistently funny as its loyal audience may have liked over the last 24 years since its debut on the BBC in 1992, and distilled into a storyline that manages to avoid the lethargy and dislocation that occurs when a show let’s lose its usual locale – in this case Eddy’s home and the social hotspots of London – and sets off for farther, more exotic climes.
What drives much of the humour, and it’s there in abundance, is Eddy and Patsy’s inability to grasp that life can’t be one long party.
They’ve given it their best shot, and we have laughed along every disassociated step of the way, and continue to do so as they dash between London, the south of France and back again, all the while staring down the fact that all their best intentions may come to nought.
But hey, they’ve lasted as long as they love because as Patsy says “Because its bloody good fun” and you can help but wonder, and hope, despite their utter self-absorption, that they might once again land on their feet.
To give any indication of that’s in the offing would be to give away far too much, but suffice sweetie darling, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, is a comic gem, a film that, thanks to Saunders’ adroitly-judged screenplay, straddles the hilarious and the meaningful melancholic with elan, and grants us once again more laugh-out-loud moments that anyone without a glass of Bolly glued to their hand has any right to have.
Now pass me some of those salmony-nibbley things will you darling?