We haven’t had a proper big-screen spoof in ages, and 2025 decided to give us two. The Naked Gun reboot arrived in summer with laughs that got the job done and made us believe in love again thanks to Liam and Pam’s brief romance. But Fackham Hall, opening at year’s end when everyone needs cheering up, aims at the Downton Abbey-style BBC dramas that dominate PBS schedules. And pound for pound, this one lands with a bit more verve because there’s a sharpness here the summer comedy never quite found.

The Davenports have owned Fackham Hall for generations, but Lord Davenport (Damian Lewis, The Radleys) has no male heir. Eric Noone (Ben Radcliffe), a thief and orphan, arrives to deliver a message, gets mistaken for a job applicant, and sticks around as hall boy. Meanwhile, headstrong youngest daughter Rose (Thomasin McKenzie, Last Night in Soho) faces pressure to marry her slimy cousin Archibald (Tom Felton, Burial) to keep the estate in family hands. Romance happens. Scandal erupts. Someone winds up dead.

The script from Jimmy Carr, Patrick Carr, Tim Inman, and The Dawson Brothers moves fast, with director Jim O’Hanlon packing in visual gags, puns, double meanings, and cascading misunderstandings. The production notes claim a rather precise number of 278 jokes within the film and I believe it. Carr pops up as a Vicar, clearly enjoying material he helped write. It’s silly, sometimes embarrassingly so, and I laughed anyway. The only minor stumble comes when the film pivots into murder mystery territory with a Poirot-type inspector (Tom Goodman-Hill, Rebecca). While it’s still on the mark, that shift feels like sequel material crammed into the third act.

What surprised me most was watching dramatic actors nail comedy. McKenzie has built an impressive resume in serious cinema, but here she’s game for anything: stone-faced delivery of absurd lines, physical bits, random asides. I hope she keeps finding projects like this. Lewis and Katherine Waterston (Alien: Covenant) play the lord and lady with perfect archness. Sue Johnston (Downton Abbey: A New Era) channels Maggie Smith energy as a sharp-tongued elder who never passes up a bawdy comment. From his years as Harry Potter’s easiest nemesis, Felton knows exactly how to be a sniveling villain.

Visually, the film looks like any Masterpiece presentation, which is the point. David Arnold‘s score hits the expected peaks and valleys of British period music, though there’s one riotous pub sequence where McKenzie and Radcliffe cut loose with lyrics I can’t print here. Fackham Hall arrived without much press and will probably find its audience on streaming. Don’t wait that long. Pay a visit to the estate. You’ll leave smiling…especially if you can figure out who the narrator is before the end of the film (don’t cheat!)