A new rom-com was recently released as part of Netflix’s 2024 schedule, with A Family Affair featuring not one but two Academy Award winners in Nicole Kidman and Kathy Bates. Zac Efron also stars, showing off his comedy chops again after Ricky Stanicky. However, it was not any of those veteran actors, but rather 24-year-old Joey King who did the most with her physical comedy. In fact, as King performed a particularly hilarious stunt, Kidman and Efron’s reactions were caught on camera, and they were perfect.
The premise of A Family Affair is that Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman) becomes involved with movie star Chris Cole (Zac Efron), whose assistant is her daughter Zara (Joey King). Very minor spoiler here, but near the beginning of the movie, Zara walks in on her mom and her boss in the middle of a tequila-fueled intimate moment, and she has a pretty extreme reaction. Check out the scene below, which Efron shared to Instagram, as well as his and Kidman’s A+ reactions:
Joey King, ladies and gentlemen! The actress, who portrayed Gypsy-Rose Blanchard in 2019’s The Act and is also known for The Kissing Booth movies (which, like A Family Affair, can be streamed with a Netflix subscription) really gave it her all for this all-important moment. That scream is everything, and even without the thud that would have accompanied her actually slamming into the door frame, I fully bought it as she clumsily fell to the ground.
Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron were also thoroughly impressed and amused. Joey King’s co-stars can be heard trying to stifle their laughter, with The Iron Claw star turning the camera to show his amusement as he gave her an enthused:
Let’s go!
A giggling Nicole Kidman leaned into the frame to show her approval with a thumbs-up and a proud:
That’s my girl.
The young actress herself is then shown walking toward them, joining their laughter as Zac Efron continues to praise her performance by saying it was “so good.” Joey King also got props in the comment section from Liza Koshy, who plays Zara’s best friend Eugenie in the movie. Koshy wrote:
No floor pad, NOTHIN. Raw dawg
You’ve got to love the support of a true friend. A Family Affair has stayed at the top of Netflix’s top movies since its release on Friday, but the response to the age-gap rom-com hasn’t been great. A formulaic plot as well as trying to find the balance between Brooke and Zara’s perspectives were listed as dings against the movie, which holds a 42% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an even-worse 33% audience score. (I personally thought the movie was quite amusing, but I am but one woman.) Perhaps the audience would connect with it more if they’d chosen to go with what was apparently the original NSFW title, or if Zac Efron had done a musical number.
If you want to see Joey King’s physical comedy in action, you can stream A Family Affair now on Netflix, one of the best streaming services to subscribe to.