‘The Secret Agent’

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho (R)

★★★★

“This is one of the year’s best films, and one of the most distinctive,” said Matt Zoller Seitz in RogerEbert.com. An award winner at Cannes, the sixth feature from Brazilian writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho is “a drama, a satire, an intriguingly laid-back espionage film, and a re-creation of a time and place,” yet that’s not all. Wagner Moura stars as a young widower on the run who returns to his home city to check on his young son in 1977, during Brazil’s brutal dictatorship. “Murder is everywhere,” a constant threat. But Mendonça is less focused on the violence than how people learn to adapt to it, and “if you’re willing to bend with the story, The Secret Agent will take you places movies rarely go.” Moura, whose
character goes by the alias Marcelo, “carries the film with a star turn of suave determination,” said Richard Brody in The New Yorker.

Netflix shares dipped Monday after Paramount announced a hostile takeover bid, fueling worries on Wall Street that the streaming giant may not be able to pull off its audacious acquisition.

Netflix stock closed down nearly 3.5% to $96.79 a share after Paramount moved to take its case directly to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders, offering $30 a share in a deal valued at $78 billion for the whole company. Last week, Netflix said it reached an agreement with WBD to buy its film and TV studios, Burbank lot, HBO and HBO Max for $27.75 a share, a $72-billion offer. Netflix would also take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt, for a deal value of $82.7 billion.

On Monday, analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak, CEO of Pivotal Research Group, downgraded his rating on Netflix stock from buy to hold, citing concerns that Paramount’s bid could increase the price Netflix could pay for the WBD assets. Regulatory issues may also change the terms of the deal, such as Netflix giving up HBO to a rival, Wlodarczak said. “The question is, what modifications might they have to make?” he said.

Wlodarczak also questioned Netflix’s engagement levels with customers, which is key to retaining subscribers on the platform. He said that “this very expensive deal” highlights Netflix’s concern that short-form entertainment on platforms like TikTok and YouTube are attracting younger consumers.

YouTube — once known as a place for amateur user-generated videos — has become an entertainment powerhouse, encapsulating the largest percentage of streaming on U.S. TVs, according to Nielsen. In October, YouTube represented 12.9% of U.S. TV viewing time, compared to Netflix’s 8%.

Netflix said its customer engagement “remains healthy,” noting in a shareholder letter in October that it grew its engagement in the U.S. and U.K. by 15% and 22%, from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2025, citing data from Nielsen and Barb, which tracks viewership.

Equity research publisher MoffettNathanson analysts said questions have been building about Netflix’s engagement growth, adding that even though Netflix’s share of total TV time started to grow in the second half of the year, “YouTube’s share gains have overshadowed most of the other streaming platforms.”

“There’s issues with Netflix engagement, sort of flatlining,” Wlodarczak said. “You get a lot better content, it should help with your engagement. … Is this a signal they’re really starting to get worried about engagement, and they’re out doing this deal because younger people are just spending increasing amounts of time not sitting there watching hour-long shows?”

Netflix declined to comment on Wlodarczak’s report.

On Friday in a call with investors, Netflix executives emphasized that their business is healthy and growing. They pointed out how sci-fi hit show “Stranger Things” was very popular with younger audiences, as well as series like the drama “Outer Banks” and movies including “KPop Demon Hunters.”

“We had record engagement previous quarter,” said Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos on the Friday call. “We’re happy with our outlook for the ongoing organic growth and engagement … Our core fundamentals are strong. This gives us a very unique opportunity to accelerate an already very successful model.”

Whether the deal will go through remains an open question, as Netflix would not make the acquisition until 12 to 18 months from now, after Warner Bros. Discovery separates its company, spinning off its cable channels into a new publicly traded company.

Wedbush Securities analysts, who have an outperform rating on the stock, said in a note on Monday that they are skeptical that the deal will pass regulatory scrutiny.

“Ultimately, we think the DOJ will reject a deal without concessions on pricing and industry standards,” the analysts wrote.

On Monday, Netflix executives said they were confident the deal would go through. Co-Chief Executive Greg Peters pointed out that Netflix still represents a smaller share of U.S. TV viewing in the U.S. compared to YouTube, even if it were to combine with Warner Bros. Discover, citing Nielsen data.

“We think there’s a strong fundamental case here for why regulators should approve this deal,” he said at a UBS conference.

Wlodarczak said he believes there are benefits to Netflix acquiring the Warner Bros. Discovery assets. The Los Gatos, Calif., streamer would gain access to characters including Batman and Harry Potter.

It also prevents rivals like Paramount from getting bigger.

“They’re starting to get large enough to build a credible threat to Netflix,” Wlodarczak said. “So by buying this thing … it’s going to be really difficult to get as large and have as much scale as Netflix.”

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

You’d think it would be easy to parody beloved period British dramas because they have so many guilty pleasure repeated tropes: huge historic houses, romances within and between upper classes and their servants, swooningly fabulous clothes, luscious meals, fabulous furnishings, and dialogue that sounds witty even when it isn’t because it is delivered in heavenly aristocratic accents with exquisite, RADA-trained diction. But the secret to the really great parody is truly loving whatever it is you’re making fun of. Thus, on a scale from the top (by Grabthar’s hammer, that would be “Galaxy Quest”) to the sloppy (I love you, Wayanses, but noticing something is not the same as being funny about it), “Fackham Hall” comes in around the middle.

Its watchability comes from the very elements it is trying to undermine: the fairy-tale setting of a huge country house, antique furniture, and beautiful people wearing gorgeous period clothes, speaking in accents ranging from elegant upper-class to cute commoner. Most of its jokes are based less on observing what makes these works so popular than on what is silliest or most outrageous. But what’s funny in the writers’ room does not always work on screen. An example of the tone is the title, the name of the characters’ residence, which a character says aloud to make sure we know it sounds like a crude insult to everyone involved.

The story is set in 1931, or, to put it in context, after the end of “Downton Abbey” and around the third of the ensuing films. We are informed, in case you have no exposure of any kind to this genre, in which case, why are you even watching this, that “England was a nation divided by class.” The country is suffering through a depression, but the Davenport family, who have occupied their ancestral home for 400 years, have no such concerns. (The 2,500-acre estate of Knowsley Hall, also featured in “Peaky Blinders,” plays the part of the ancestral home.) 

“The sheer grandeur of Fackham Hall was a testament to splendor and an enduring family legacy,” we are told by a narrator whose identity we will not discover until the end. “They led a decadent life and barely had to lift a finger.” Indeed, Lord Davenport (Damian Lewis) is sipping a cocktail from a glass held to his lips by a servant. He and Lady Davenport (Katherine Waterston) are congratulating themselves on the upcoming wedding of their daughter, Poppy (Emma Laird), to the presumptive heir to the property, Archibald (Tom Felton). “I’m just delighted she’s finally found the right cousin,” Lord Davenport smiles. As anyone who knows this genre understands, only males can inherit the land. Since the Davenports’ four sons, John, Paul, George, and Ringo, all died, this marriage is the only way they will be able to stay in their home. Thus, the motto on the family crest is “Incestuous ad Infinitum.”

The Davenports’ other daughter, considered too old and independent-minded at 23 to be likely to find a husband, is Rose (Thomasin McKenzie). She will soon meet a plucky orphan lad and kind-hearted pickpocket named Eric Noone (as in “no one”), played by Ben Radcliffe, handsome and charming enough to play the lead in any period romantic drama, and wisely calibrates his performance as though he is doing just that.

Noone is sent to deliver a message to Fackham Hall just as Poppy and Archibald are about to get married, except they don’t, because Poppy makes a dramatic race from the church to the arms of her low-born beloved. This puts the pressure on Rose to take over as Archibald’s fiancée and save the family home.

This is one of those “throw everything at the screen and by the time you realize that one wasn’t funny, four more will have come at you” movies. These include running jokes, anachronisms, sight gags, potty humor (in one case, chamber pot-y humor), slapstick, an extended dick joke, an extended “who’s on first”-type joke involving a character named Watt, sight gags, and verbal misunderstandings, e.g., “You fought [in WWI] with my father.” “No, we were on the same side.” And a tailor shop called “Tailor Swift.”

One element of this film that works well is that the actors understand the assignment, no winking at the audience, except for British comedian/presenter and co-writer of the screenplay, Jimmy Carr, playing a vicar who cannot help running the liturgy texts together to make them sound dirty. The score by Oli Julian and the costumes by Rosalind Ebbutt are also perfectly suitable for the kinds of movies this one spoofs. It’s just the jokes that, like British cocktails, are to American taste lukewarm.