In A Family Affair, Zara’s professional struggles take a personal turn when her mother starts dating her boss. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Zara works for a movie star named Chris Cole. As his assistant, Zara endures his irrational demands and tantrums.
Chris does not take Zara seriously, but she continues working for him because he has promised to train her and eventually let her take over his company.
Chris rose to fame with the franchise Icarus Rush but is unhappy with the script for the next installment. Zara agrees that the script needs rewriting.
She hires a writer, but Chris disregards Zara’s opinion and continues acting childish. Frustrated with Chris’ behavior, Zara quits her job.
Zara is the daughter of a successful writer, Brooke. She still lives with her mother and constantly feels the pressure of living up to her mother’s career.
Quitting her job makes her even more anxious about her career. Meanwhile, Chris realizes that he made a mistake by letting Zara go.
Chris goes to apologize to Zara at her house, where he meets Brooke. With Zara not home, Chris and Brooke talk and form an instant connection.
They end up sleeping together, which Zara witnesses and disapproves of. Chris placates her by telling her that he came to her house to get her to work for him again.
Zara agrees to return to work only after Chris assures her that he will not sleep with her mother again. Zara is then made the associate producer of Chris’ film.
However, Chris and Brooke go on a date and realize that they like spending time with each other, which leads to them dating behind Zara’s back.
Chris even hires Brooke to rewrite the film’s script instead of the writer Zara had recommended. Zara finds out about it when she discovers the edited script in her mother’s room.
An angry Zara then takes her best friend, Genie, to an event that Brooke and Chris are attending. She catches them together and confronts them about lying to her.
Zara does not want her mother to date Chris because she is convinced that he will break her mother’s heart like he has done with all the women he has dated before.
Brooke disagrees; she thinks that there is more to Chris than Zara knows. Since Zara’s father, Charlie, died, Brooke has not had feelings for anyone until she met Chris.
Zara is not willing to understand her mother’s perspective and threatens to leave home if her mother continues dating Chris.
Brooke tries to break up with Chris for Zara’s sake, but her feelings get in the way. Even Leila, Charlie’s mother and Brooke’s editor, encourages Brooke to be with Chris.
Leila invites Chris to spend Christmas with her, Brooke, and Zara, which Zara is not too happy about but tolerates upon her grandmother’s insistence.
When Zara sees her mother and Chris together, she starts believing that Chris might actually be serious about her mother and becomes more accepting of their relationship.
Zara also overhears her mother talking to her grandmother about how she and Zara’s father were having problems before he was diagnosed with cancer.
Zara’s father, also a writer but not as successful as Brooke, struggled with Brooke’s success and wanted to divorce her.
Zara realizes that her parents were not as happy together as she believed and that her mother has finally found happiness after years.
Ending explained:
The break up
Just when Zara starts feeling happy for her mother, she finds a pair of earrings in Chris’s bag—the earrings he gives to his girlfriends while breaking up with them.
This makes Zara believe her mother is just another fling for Chris, whom she has seen break several women’s hearts.
Zara confronts Chris in front of her mother, revealing all the petty and vain things he does to show her mother that she does not truly know Chris.
She also explains how he uses the same tricks on all his girlfriends to make them feel special, and Brooke realizes that Chris did all of those things for her as well.
Brooke breaks up with Chris, believing she was never special to him, and gets upset with Zara, who realizes that she did not handle the situation well and humiliated both Chris and Brooke.
Reflecting and reconciling
When Zara goes to Genie to complain about Chris again, Genie points out how Zara is just as self-centered as she accuses Chris of being.
Zara keeps complaining to Genie about her problems but never asks Genie about hers; Zara did not even notice that Genie and her boyfriend broke up.
Zara then takes the time to reflect on her actions and apologizes to Genie, who forgives her. Eventually, Zara and her mother’s relationship also improves.
Brooke decides to take a teaching position at Princeton, and Zara decides to quit her job after Chris finishes the film.
One day, when Chris, lonely and heartbroken, has a crisis because the people he loves and cares about do not even want to talk to him, Zara consoles him.
Chris admits to her that he did think about breaking up with Brooke because he often self-sabotages, but he decided against it because the urge to make her happy was stronger.
He also tells her that his relationship with Brooke was different because he fell in love with her. Zara then apologizes to him for the way she confronted him.
Playing cupid
After resolving her issues with Chris, Zara does the same with her mother, realizing that her mother has selflessly loved and supported her all her life.
She now wants her mother to be happy, but Brooke has no intention of dating Chris again, so Zara takes matters into her own hands.
She arranges a meeting for Chris and Brooke. She apologizes to both of them and makes it known that she does not want to stand in the way of their relationship.
This leads to Chris and Brooke getting back together. A year later, they are still together, and Brooke has published the book she had been working on.
Meanwhile, Zara is seen working at Chris’s company like she had always planned. Her relationship with Chris is much better now because they are friends.
Also Read: Trigger Warning summary and ending explained