Way back at the beginning of this year, we reported that Jennifer Saunders had finally finished a draft of the screenplay for an Absolutely Fabulous movie, and was determined to actually make the damn thing in 2015. (This despite the fact that such plans have literally been rolling around for years.) Presumably, the BBC sitcom about aging, hard-partying boozers was simply having trouble rolling its aging, hard-partying script out of bed in the mornings. But now, Variety reports that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie has woken up, popped some ibuprofen, and is going forward, starting to shoot on location in England and the south of France for the next seven weeks. And lest you think this is yet another promise that will get waylaid in hilariously outlandish fashion through a series of impetuous decisions resulting from two women’s perpetual arrested development, we’ve got that picture up above to prove that it’s real. Or, at least, to prove that Saunders and Lumley think they’re shooting an Absolutely Fabulous movie.
The two are again playing Patsy and Edina, the clueless wannabe sophisticates who shop, drink, and stumble through life in a series of efforts to be cool. The movie’s plot revolves around the two being “blamed for a major incident at an uber-fashionable launch party,” at which point “they become entangled in a media storm, and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent, and live a life of luxury forever.” Along with Saunders and Lumley, the film will bring back cast members Julia Sawalha as long-suffering daughter Saffy, Jane Horrocks as Bubble, and June Whitfield as Mother. And, much like the characters they’ve been portraying for more than 20 years now, Saunders and Lumley will likely claim this is the end of the road, only to be dragged back into the spotlight again a few years from now when Saunders gets a funny idea about how Edina would behave on Tinder, or whatever.