The past is a more comfortable place, notes a character in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and that’s as close as we’ve ever gotten to a thesis statement on Julian Fellowes’ popular film-and-TV franchise about the most generous, class-conscious aristocrats who ever lived and their adored, well-taken-care of household staff. Screenwriter Fellowes already gave this cavalcade of characters their catharses and happy endings in 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era, so this Finale is basically one giant victory lap that takes the Crawley family and their employees into 1930 and beyond — as Cole Porter once wrote, “it’s fun/it’s fresh/it’s post-/depresh.”
Porter himself doesn’t show up in this one, but his peer Noël Coward does, played rakishly by Arty Froushan (Daredevil: Born Again). The bon vivant weaves himself through the plot: the film opens with Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) attending a West End production of Coward’s Bitter Sweet that stars Guy Dexter (Dominic West) who, in the previous film, starred in a talkie shot at the Abbey and fell in love with Lord Grantham’s former valet Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), who now serves as Guy’s manager, dresser, and all-around confidante.
Love has not turned out nearly so well for Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), whose divorce has just come through; when the news comes out, Mary is ejected from a party thrown by Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), lest her guests from the royal family should have to suffer the indignity of being in the same room with a fallen woman. (And if “divorcée must deal with being shunned by polite society” puts you of a mind of the most recent season of Fellowes’ HBO show The Gilded Age, there’s more than one plot point in Grand Finale that offers déjà vu.)
With more than 20 characters carrying over from the original series, there are Love Actually levels of intersecting plots here, including Lady Grantham’s brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) showing up with a mysterious financial consultant (Alessandro Nivola) in tow, and Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton) shocking the local gentry by giving Downton servants Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) and Daisy (Sophie McShera) a say in the planning of the annual county fair.
If anything, Grand Finale is ultimately a paean to moving on — Lord Grantham has to trust that Mary is ready to take over his duties as mistress of Downton and its farms, a retired Mr. Carson must yield control of Downton’s downstairs to new butler Andy (Michael Fox), and the Crawleys must make difficult financial choices that will keep their family afloat in troubled times. Story-wise, Fellowes has placed a definitive, full-stop period on his post-script, but there’s always the chance that the next generation (a squadron of tow-heads who get barely any dialogue here) will get to come of age in a WWII-era Downton: The Next Generation.
Director Simon Curtis periodically flexes his we’re-not-on-TV-anymore muscles with some flashy set pieces: in addition to that West End performance and the county fair, there’s a whole sequence set at the races at Ascot, which means horses, flowers, and hats as far as the eye can see. Cinematographer Ben Smithard (The Father) finds the coziness in his locations, from the most posh London boutique to the vintage carnival rides at the fair, and costumer Anna Robbins clearly had an army at her disposal to deliver all those gowns, tuxes and tweeds.
The third movie that follows six seasons of luxury television is simply not built to capture the attention of newcomers, nor is it going to derail its own crush on this battalion of adorable old-money unemployeds and their attendants, so for the fans who’ve stuck around for 15 years there’s plenty here to keep loving, guilt-free: the pleasure of seeing Mr. Carson and Mrs. Pattmore (Lesley Nicol) pass the reins; the sight of an empowered Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), who has blossomed over the course of the franchise from her sister Mary’s mealy-mouthed rival to her fierce protector and friend; Lord Grantham’s endless succession of lookalike dogs that never seem to die… the list is long.
It’s all quite without necessity, but Downton fans know that, and like the ultra-wealthy the film worships, they just don’t care.
Director: Simon Curtis
Screenwriters: Julian Fellowes
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Paul Copley, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle, Michael Fox, Joanne Froggatt, Paul Giamatti, Harry Hadden-Paton, Robert James-Collier, Allen Leech, Phyllis Logan, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Douglas Reith, Penelope Wilton, Arty Froushan, Alessandro Nivola, Joely Richardson, Dominic West
Producers: Gareth Neame, Julian Fellowes, Liz Trubridge
Executive producer: Nigel Marchant
Cinematographer: Ben Smithard
Production design: Donal Woods
Editing: Adam Recht
Music: John Lunn
Sound design: Nigel Heath, re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor
Production companies: Focus Features, Carnival
In English
123 minutes
