Cheesier than a wheel of Stilton and about as edgy, Downton Abbey bows out with a cosy but loveable final instalment that will leave few dry eyes among long-time fans of Julian Fellowes’ British TV thoroughbred.
It’s a third big-screen instalment that’s one long ending: to the characters, to the house, to the certainties of Edwardian England. No movie has had this many goodbyes since The Return of the King.
It’s mostly soirées and teas and trips to the theatre, though there is a vague gesture at a plot. A handsome American (Alessandro Nivola) with Wall Street airs arrives in Blighty to stir things up; a prospective visit from Noël Coward gets everyone in a flap; and a prize or two needs giving out at the county fair – a task newcomer Simon Russell Beale’s harrumphing country type isn’t making any easier. The headline news is that Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is now divorced from her feckless husband, which gets her rudely booted out of polite society. Things have changed in 1930s England, but they’re still basically nightmarish if you don’t have a moustache.
Money is in short supply at the grand old pile, too, thanks to dopey Uncle Harold’s (Paul Giamatti) bad investments and the post-Depression squeeze, and there’s no Violet Crawley to provide snarky reassurances (the formidable old dame gazes down from a portrait, like Vigo the Carpathian). Maggie Smith’s presence always brought a sharp note to Fellowes’ melodious rhythms and it’s missing here.
No movie has had this many goodbyes since The Return of the King
Striving to fill the gap is Dockery’s Lady Mary, a refreshingly steely and more outspoken character, post-divorce. Fellowes and returning Downton Abbey: A New Era director Simon Curtis give her and Edith (Laura Carmichael) space to come into their own as women embracing modernity – one, painfully; the other, with confidence. The semi-closeted relationship between Dominic West’s thesp and ex-footman Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier) is tackled with a lack of coyness too.
The resistance to bolting movie-sized dramatics onto the old Downton formula is oddly charming. The stakes are Sunday-evening-telly-sized at best – can the Crawleys afford to finish redecorating? However will Lord Grantham survive downsizing to a massive flat overlooking The Royal Albert Hall? – but it’s always performed with a twinkle. Hugh Bonneville, in particular, was born to play a quizzical aristocrat striving to understand the concept of sharing a building with other people. Albeit, Elizabeth McGovern could use more to do as dutiful wife Cora Crawley.
And with everyone getting their moment – Mrs Patmore’s is surprisingly raunchy – it’s a touching but low-key ending that gathers all your faves together for a last supper. In true Downton style, it goes out not with a bang but with a duck.
In cinemas worldwide Sep 12.