This certainly is the epitome of “comfort cinema.”
As this ensemble cast has expanded since the series 2010 debut, writer/creator Julian Fellowes has done an impressive job of granting every new character ample individuality, exposure and melodramatic plot points. We’ve lost only two major players, over time — Matthew and Sybil Crawley (Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay) — while adding several dozen more.
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| After sound engineer Stubbins (Alex McQueen, in headphones) orders total silence from everybody else, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) tries hard to match her spoken dialogue to the silent images being projected on a screen. |
Not that this is any sort of problem. Fellowes knows his audience, just as all the players have grown comfortable with their roles. Spending another two hours with these characters is like enjoying an evening with beloved friends and relatives.
This film’s subtitle — “A New Era” — is both apt and a bit misleading. On the one hand, it does signify both a pop-culture shift (about which, more in a moment) and a change in fortune for both the Crawley family and a few of their “downstairs” servants. Yet the rise of such working-class individuals, and the accelerating decline of the aristocracy — which played such a key role in the TV series’ final season — is largely ignored here, even though we’ve moved forward another year, to 1928.
Indeed, this film concludes on a note that suggests nothing has changed in this respect, as if the real-world’s socio-political clock had ceased to move forward. Granted, that prompts a cheerful, audience-pleasing tableau, if this is to be our final glimpse of these characters — assuming Fellowes isn’t persuaded to do yet another film — but it’s a bit of a cheat.
Not that fans will care a whit.
The story begins as Tom Branson (Allen Leech), the Earl of Grantham’s widowed son-in-law, marries Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton): a celebration that makes good on the previous film’s swooningly romantic finale. This is the “upstairs” answer to the earlier, humbler but equally romantic wedding of adorably impertinent assistant cook Daisy (Sophie McShera) and footman Andy (Michael Fox), now living in the tenancy home of her father-in-law, Mr. Mason (Paul Copley).
Two unexpected events land simultaneously. The British Lion Film Studio expresses interest in shooting its next silent costume drama, The Gambler, at Downton Abbey — a notion that horrifies the Earl, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville), and retired butler Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) — and the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) learns that she has been bequeathed a villa in the south of France, in the will of the recently deceased Marquis de Montmirail.
The latter prompts all manner of raised eyebrows, but Violet refuses to provide any explanation; she tartly refers only to her “mysterious past” (a line delivered with Smith’s typically arch smugness).
Robert’s distaste notwithstanding, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) — his eldest daughter and estate manager — points out that Downton could use the film studio’s “location fee” for desperately needed repairs. Besides which, this would be an excellent opportunity for her father and mother (Elizabeth McGovern, as Cora) to accept the new Marquis’ invitation to visit the villa.
Oh, and please do bring Carson along, Lady Mary adds, so he won’t be around to glare at the movie folks.
The traveling ensemble turns into quite an entourage. Robert and Cora are joined by their daughter Edith (Laura Carmichael) and her husband Bertie (Harry Hadden-Paton), Tom and Lucy, and Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton). Carson, in turn, is accompanied by valet Bates (Brendan Coyle) and lady’s maid Baxter (Raquel Cassidy).
They’re all welcomed warmly by the new Marquis (Jonathan Zaccaï), but not by his brusquely condescending mother, Madame Montmirail (Nathalie Baye), who announces her intention to contest the will.
Downton, meanwhile, has been invaded by the hustle and bustle of a film crew — scores of production personnel, extras, wardrobe and makeup people — much to the delight of Daisy, head cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), lady’s maid Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) and footman-turned-local school teacher Molesley (Kevin Doyle), all of them various degrees of star-struck.
The film folks are dominated by director Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy) and stars Guy Dexter (Dominic West) and Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock). Barber and Dexter couldn’t be more congenial; the former takes a shine to Lady Mary, despite her married status, while Dexter expresses an unusual amount of interest in Downton’s closeted butler, Barrow (Robert James-Collier).
Myrna, alas, is rude, uncouth, demanding, narcissistic and a general pain in the tush (which Haddock handles with cringe-worthy persuasiveness).
So … have you got all of this?
It sounds like a massive information dump, but Fellowes and director Simon Curtis deliver the various melodramatic sub-plots in easily digestible chunks; the result is easy to follow.
The “villa delegation” becomes absorbed by the mystery of the Dowager Countess’ brief visit with the original Marquis, way back in 1864, and the potential implications of a possible tryst. Daisy chafes over how lonely Mr. Mason has become; Barrow wonders if he’s assuming too much about Guy Dexter’s behavior; Lady Mary, clearly unhappy about her husband Henry’s extended absence, can’t help noticing Barber’s interest in her.
Then, crisis: British Lion abruptly orders Barber to shut down production, because “talkies” are fast becoming the rage. That seems rashly foolish, Lady Mary points out; can’t you simply add audio dialogue to the existing footage?
(Lady Mary always seems to know a lot about a lot, doesn’t she?)
Enter fussy, finicky soundman Stubbins — a marvelously droll performance by Alex McQueen — and all manner of ancient audio tech, fascinating for its period clumsiness.
Longtime film fans will immediately recognize that Fellowes cheekily borrows a key plot point from 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, which works just as well here.
(Barber, Lady Mary and several others frequently reference 1927’s The Jazz Singer as the catalyst for change, because they couldn’t yet have known that their own home-grown Alfred Hitchcock, busily working on his next film Blackmail, made exactly that shift by transforming it into a talkie. Fellowes, in the film’s press notes, makes a point of acknowledging the Hitchcockian inspiration.)
Although Maggie Smith invariably steals the show — the Dowager Countess has no shortage of sharp one-liners — she gets plenty of competition from Doyle’s Molesley. Forever flustered and prone to foolish missteps, seemingly oblivious to the silent torch Baxter has long carried for him, Molesley isn’t quite a hopeless twit … but he comes darn close.
That’s actually what makes him so endearing, because his good intentions surmount any impulse to dismiss him as a boob. It’s extremely satisfying to see Molesley shine this time, and Doyle makes ample use of the opportunity.
Andrew Dunn’s sumptuous cinematography gives an equally warm glow to lush estate landscapes and the opulent Downton and villa rooms, all exquisitely appointed by production designer Donal Woods and set decorator Linda Wilson. The period authenticity is impeccable.
Maja Meschede and Anna Robbins’ costume designs dazzle, as always, and (of course!) the film wouldn’t be complete without composer John Lunn’s iconic themes.
This film is pretty much everything a longtime Downton fan could desire (and Doyle’s pre-opening credits recap of the previous film’s key events, in his street clothes, is a clever touch).
What more could we ask for?
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