Now, why would a movie go to the trouble to cast Dame Edna Everage and then not let her say anything? She pops up, momentarily but gloriously, midway through "Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie," so quickly you wonder if you dreamed it. Then you see what Bubble (Jane Horrocks) is wearing (is that a crocheted animal on her back?), and watch Patsy (Joanna Lumley) do her patented sneer that looks like a curtain pulling up on her teeth, and Edina (Jennifer Saunders) wearing an outfit apparently caught in a tragic paintball accident, and you know: This is no dream. This is "AbFab."
Fans of the British television comedy may well be delighted with this long-delayed movie, which reunites a cast that's been working together since the early '90s: Lumley and Saunders playing the ever-drinking, fashion-victimized best pals, Horrocks as spacey assistant Bubble and Julia Sadwalha as Edina's long-suffering, humorless daughter Saffron. And there's a very funny idea at this movie's screechy heart. Eddy, determined to sign Kate Moss as a client for her struggling PR firm, elbows her way near the supermodel at Patsy's fabulous party_and manages to shove her into the Thames. Is she dead? Will Britain be engulfed in very chic mourning?
But, like so many small-screen-to-big-screen efforts, "Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie" isn't really a movie, just a stretched-out TV episode with a parade of cameos and boatloads of Champagne. (When the liquor cabinet's empty, the resourceful Pats chugs Chanel No. 5.) For me_never a fan of the show_it felt like a strange funhouse version of "The Devil Wears Prada"; shrieky and repetitive and only sporadically funny.
But that's just me, darlings. Maybe it's better with Champagne.
