The original was just too too ‘Fabulous’ to re-create

Based on the British sitcom that became a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s, the movie stars its writer-creator, Jennifer Saunders, as Edina, who has a public relations business, and Joanna Lumley as her best friend, Patsy, who works for a fashion magazine.

The women are gloriously irresponsible, spending their days drinking Champagne and their nights doing drugs and going to parties.

All the principals are back for the movie version, including Julia Sawalha as Saffron, Edina’s sober, disapproving daughter; Jane Horrocks as Bubble, Edina’s personal assistant; and 90-year-old June Whitfield as Edina’s mother.

The best thing about “Ab Fab” has always been its outrageous shamelessness, and we do get some of that, as when we see Patsy putting herself together in front of the mirror by injecting her lips with collagen and using a hose to give herself liposuction.

In an episodic TV show, in which the basic situation stays essentially permanent from season to season, this doesn’t matter.

[...] movies are all about forward motion or the audience falls asleep, and so Saunders, in her screenplay, tries to split the difference between stasis and movement.

If you present the outside world as normal, then you invite the possibility for self-reflection, which runs counter to the comedy and to the characters’ natures.

[...] most of the film involves Edina running from the authorities after an unfortunate incident in which she accidentally pushes the famous model Kate Moss off a balcony.

Once Edina is a fugitive, “Absolutely Fabulous” becomes tiresome, even if you really like Saunders and Lumley, and even if you sometimes find yourself smiling in advance, as if willing the jokes to be funny.