Downton Abbey: A New Era — A carefully calculated crowd-pleaser

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

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.

 

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.

Goodness, it takes several minutes, during this sequel’s title credits montage, just to run through the entire cast list.

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).

Downton Abbey: A joyous reunion

Downton Abbey (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

Goodness. What more could one desire?

Despite having settled everybody quite pleasingly, when Downton Abbey concluded its television run on Christmas Day 2015, creator/writer Julian Fellowes once again has worked his magic: ingeniously concocting fresh upstairs/downstairs dramas that unite the aristocratic Crawley family and its voluminous house staff.

When cascading events at Downton prove too overwhelming for the comparatively
untrained head butler, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery, center) asks Mr. Carson (Jim Carter)
to return, much to the amusement of Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan).

Mind you — as always was the case, during six enthralling television seasons — the Crawleys remain more progressive than most of their stuffy peers, and the staff manages far more impertinence and independent thinking, than ever would have been allowed, back in the day. Such is the shrewdness of Fellowes, who layers these one-century-removed escapades with enough modern attitude to reference contemporary issues, without damaging the period authenticity.

All the while making us smile, occasionally giggle and — yes, even this — shed a tear or two.

Very little has changed here, aside from the slight march of time. Fellowes managed to assemble just about the entire cast: a frankly stunning achievement, given that several of these talented actors have moved on with their individual careers. The only notable absence is Lily James’ Lady Rose MacClare, and I do miss the warmth of her sparkling smile; she always was a breath of effervescence, alongside the far more severe Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael).

This big-screen adventure unfolds like an even better Christmas special; the enhanced budget’s only noticeable impact is a broader location backdrop for production designer Donal Woods to fill — which he does splendidly — and cinematographer Ben Smithard’s spectacular swooping shots of Downton and a few of its equally majestic neighbors.

Indeed, the film opens on an extremely clever sequence, as Smithard’s camera follows the posting of a Most Important Letter, while it crosses England by train and — finally — reaches its destination by individual carrier. That would be Downtown, of course, and our first glimpse of its familiar grounds is accompanied by the equally familiar swell of composer John Lunn’s iconic theme. 

Theater patrons breathed an audible sigh of happy satisfaction, at that moment.

The year is 1927. Some children have grown a bit older; a few new moppets have arrived. The aforementioned letter announces the impending arrival of their Majesties King George V and Queen Mary, who will stay at Downton for a full day, during a tour of Grantham and the surrounding countryside. This news naturally causes all manner of consternation, given the precise dictates of custom, tradition and regard. 

The Earl (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) — Mary and Edith’s parents — have all manner of details to coordinate, not the least of which is the royal parade scheduled for the same afternoon: an event eagerly anticipated by all the local townsfolk. Downstairs, Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle), Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and all the other servants are just as excited about this opportunity to attend to the most prestigious guests in the land.

The Imitation Game: What price genius?

The Imitation Game (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for mature content and occasional sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Mankind has an unfortunate tendency to devour its champions. Always has, likely always will.

We’re also not very tolerant of those who are different, whether in appearance or behavior. During times of crisis, such eccentricities are regarded even more suspiciously.

Despite indifference and outright hostility from some of his Bletchley Park colleagues,
Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) proceeds doggedly with the creation and
construction of a massive "thinking machine" that he hopes will break the German
"Enigma code" that has frustrated Allied efforts for so long.

Norwegian-born director Morten Tyldum’s handling of The Imitation Game employs shaming and ostracization as dramatic plot points: issues every bit as significant as the WWII-era predicament that brings young mathematician Alan Turing to the unusual code-breaking operation at Buckinghamshire’s Bletchley Park.

As scripted by Graham Moore and depicted by star Benedict Cumberbatch, Turing is a social outcast by virtue of his utter obliviousness to decorum and protocol. He affects a level of bland arrogance that infuriates everybody, yet remains utterly bewildered by how he is perceived by others.

This characterization places Turing squarely “on the spectrum,” to acknowledge the phrase du jour ... and I can’t help feeling that this artistic decision may have been propelled more by our current fascination with such characters — think Hugh Laurie’s Dr. Gregory House, or Cumberbatch’s own modern spin on Sherlock Holmes — than by authenticity.

This film’s opening credits are a bit deceptive, implying that Moore concocted this screenplay on his own. Only when we hit the closing credits can sharp-eyed viewers spot, in tiny print, a reference to Moore’s script being adapted from Andrew Hodges’ 1983 biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma. And while Hodges drew upon ample sources to confirm Turing’s impatience with bureaucracy and the grinding sluggishness of the military chain of command, Moore’s decision to re-cast this as full-blown autism is ... well ... historically suspect.

That said, it allows Cumberbatch to inhabit another of his fascinating, eccentricity-laden characters: a fresh performance that never ceases to be both fascinating and entertaining. Tyldum clearly recognizes this, choosing to open his film with Turing’s initial interview in the office of Bletchley Park Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance). It’s a hilarious, impeccably timed display of rat-a-tat dialogue between an increasingly annoyed Denniston and the calmly indifferent Turing.

Indeed, such unruffled disdain later leads to the film’s funniest line, when one of Turing’s colleagues comments, in the aftermath of a particularly blunt display, “Popular in school, were you?”

Likely not, but that’s hardly the point; Turing’s unlikely presence at Bletchley Park, juxtaposed against the increasingly importance of his work, is what makes this film so engaging.