‘A Family Affair’ Review: Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman’s Hollywood-Set Rom-Com Has No Heat
variety.comTomris Laffly Among the perennial reasons we go to the movies is the onscreen heat between impossibly charismatic stars. The summer of 2024 has delivered the goods in that department so far: Consider the sweltering Anne Hathaway-Nicholas Galitzine romance “The Idea Of You,” the disarming, post-Barbenheimer pairing of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in “The Fall Guy,” Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist’s scorching triangle in “Challengers,” or “Hit Man” turning Glen Powell and Adria Arjona into eager bedfellows.
On paper, Richard LaGravenese’s “A Family Affair” has every ingredient to join this elite list. Sadly, the film plays more like an artless quickie than a fully fleshed-out romance.
It’s a mystery how little chemistry there is to be found here between Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron, two of Hollywood’s most magnetic stars.
In fact, their courtship and attraction unfold so ineptly throughout LaGravenese’s contemporary romantic comedy that one can’t help but miss the duo’s previous collaboration, Lee Daniels’ 2012 campfest “The Paperboy,” which packed more steam even in its throwaway moments than “A Family Affair” manages in its key intimate scenes.
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