There’s a fast-food side to these romantic comedies where everything is sewn with white thread and where we understand from the first ten minutes what turn things are going to take. Not bad, but bland. “The Family Secret”, which comes out this Friday, June 28 on Netflix, with Nicole Kidman, Joey King and Zac Efron, is completely in this vein. A light and easy romance.
Zara is the assistant of Chris Cole, the most prominent actor in Hollywood, who plays crazy superhero roles. Megalomaniac and self-centered, he mistreats her and she slams the door. It is while trying to convince her to come back that the star comes across the mother of his employee, a novelist with a solitary soul, who has not known love since the death of her husband eleven years earlier. Almost immediate love at first sight, on both sides. The start of a passionate romance that Zara will have difficulty accepting.
Get out the violins! All the ingredients are there. The characters, white and beautiful, live in sumptuous and opulent Hollywood villas, embrace each other while watching the waves of the Pacific crash on the cliffs or at night in the middle of deserted film studios. A dream in spades? Except that in 2024, the cursor of what once made us fantasize has now moved. The codes have evolved. And even lightness has the right not to be lazy.
We smile heartily at some of Zara’s funny gags and lines, revolted as a teenager can be by this improbable couple. If Nicole Kidman is rather insipid in this undersized role, Zoey King, who plays the young woman, does not take herself seriously and it is pleasant. The dialogues are desperately flat (Special mention to “Enough about me. You, have you always known that you wanted to be an actor?” or the particularly sought-after “Can we still be friends?”) and all of it has no interest other than to pass the time.
on Netflix, a comedy by Richard LaGravenese with Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Joey King (1h51).
