In ‘Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,’ Julian Fellowes ties up threads in a farewell full of grace, wit, and the faintest whiff of scandal.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
And the sun sets on Downton Abbey. The film “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” is suitably full of closures and new beginnings. What it lacks in drama, it almost makes up for by presenting Noel Coward (Arty Froushan) to the film series as a friend of the West End actor Guy Dexter (Dominic West). It is the Julian Fellowes-scripted conclusion to a phenomenon created by Fellowes (“The Gilded Age”) in 2010, and had its beginning on television when we first met the Crawley family, heirs to the Downton Abbey estate and the title Earl of Grantham, and their many servants and estate workers. In many ways, “Downton Abbey” was 1971’s “Upstairs/Downstairs” all over again.
The story began in pre-World War I England, where the Crawley family lived in a grand manor house with a large retinue, including workers who lived in the village of Downton and the Crawley servants, who lodged in the manor house with the Crawleys. The servants have a sort of butler king named Mr. Carson (the inimitable Jim Carter), who, if anything, is more formal than his employers and whose voice provided all the iterations of “Downton Abbey” with bassoon-like accompaniment.
Since the beginning, the Crawley family has been tormented by the subject of inheritance. Because Lord Grantham (a spritely, if also a bit portly Hugh Bonneville), who scandalously wed American heiress Cora Levinson (Elizabeth McGovern), had three daughters, Lady Mary (Michele Dockery), Lady Edith (a delightful Laura Carmichael) and the late Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay), unfair British law decrees that his only heir was a distant male cousin Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens),
At the start of “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” Matthew has long since died, and the title will go to his and Lady Mary’s little son, George. But the real problem is that Lady Mary has gotten a divorce, something that is scandalous in 1930s England, and the British newspapers, scandal sheets-in-the-making, have fiendishly reported about it. Many of the aristocracy and the nouveau riche will not accept Mary into their homes or at their events. As a divorcee, she is persona non grata. To make matters worse, at the start of this somewhat bland but also amusing valedictorian tale, Lady Mary gets drunk with American Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola), the friend of her visiting American uncle Harold Levinson (Paul Giamatti). She ends up in bed with this perfect stranger. Sambrook is supposedly helping Uncle Harold save some of the family fortune that he has lost in the market crash.
Meanwhile, below stairs, both Mr. Carson and Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), the family’s redoubtable cook, are retiring. Carson has a hard time passing the mantle. Mrs. Patmore is eager to let her protege Daisy Parker (Sophie McShera, a standout) take over the kitchen and uneasy about moving in with her new man (Archer Robbins). For her part, Lady Mary’s loyal maid and confidante Anna Bates (Joanne Froggatt) and her husband, the butler Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle), are expecting a second child.
In addition to letting us play “detect the hairpiece,” “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” boasts several social divisions being breached by the winds of change. Lady Merton (a wonderfully defiant Penelope Wilton) invites Carson and Daisy to join the committee overseeing an event previously overseen by cleaver-tongued Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (the late Maggie Smith, who hovers over the proceedings in a cerulean portrait hanging in the abbey). Backstage after a West End show, Lord Grantham notices a bit of gay interaction between actors, disapprovingly clears his throat, and briskly exits. Dexter and Coward are both relatively open about being gay, which is a crime in 1930s England. Money problems may force Lord Grantham to sell Grantham House, the family’s grand London residence. Lady Mary gives her father a tour of (oh, the horrors) a swanky London flat. He observes that the place has no upstairs or downstairs (ergo, “flat”). Where will the servants sleep? Someone felicitously asks Coward about prying into people’s “private lives.” Director Simon Curtis of the previous “Downton” film returns and keeps all the fine, shiny objects spinning. Simon Russell Beale seethes so furiously as a reactionary member of the gentry that you expect his mustache to burst into flame. Lord and Countess of Grantham plan to move into “Granny’s house.” A final scene allows the blithe spirits of Grantham to take a bow. We hear the Coward ditty, “I’ll See You Again.” Curtain closes.
‘Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale’
Rating: PG for suggestive material, smoking and some thematic elements.
Cast: Michelle Dockery, Joanne Froggatt, Elizabeth McGovern
Director: Simon Curtis
Writer: Julian Fellowes
Running time: 123 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: B+
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