4 years after this British mega-hit TV series closes off with a mega-gratifying coda through its 6-season run, DOWNTON ABBEY returns with a film sequel, continuing the storyline in 1927, for diehard fans, the actualization of watching the palatial dwelling and all its fripperies on a grand cinematic scope itself constitutes for something to lick one's lips over and they get exactly what they're bargain for.
Placing Michael Engler, the TV hack who has directed 4 episodes of the hit show, to the director chair, an ill omen which implies that innovation might not be of primary concern in writer/producer Julian Fellowes' mind and script. The movie opens with a sleek series of shots (a stock-of-trade esthetic conceit that has monotonously dominated the entire show in slithering and skulking among its large ensemble, and is stalely parlayed here) tracing the literal route of the cardinal herald of King George V's forthcoming royal visit to Downton Abbey, which duly stirs the morales of the denizens both upstairs and downstairs, plus a thinly-veiled byplay about an envisioned assassination afoot, which facilely embroils Tom Branson (Leech), the apparently inadvertent Irish social climber who has become the son -in-law of Earl Robert Crawley (Bonneville),the patriarch of the Abbey, in the mix and supposedly adds a semblance of thrill and suspense, yet its slipshod execution leaves much to be desired.
But loyal bums on seats are not paying for gunshots or last-minute scuffles, it is the soapy melodrama induces our investment in its miscellaneous dramatis personae, but there is a catch here, its parental TV series has already concluded almost all the loose ends, so apart from the kerfuffle in the wake of the King's one-night stay, the story doesn't leave much for our beloved characters to evolve and develop, the new husband of Robert's widowed firstborn Lady Mary (Dockery), Henry Talbot (Goode) only appears belatedly in the scene, which means there is no turbulence in Lady Mary's love life, which is the main leitmotif in the original series, and the pregnancy of Lady Edith (Carmichael), Robert's second daughter, is too commonplace to evoke any excitement , again, it is Tom, also widowed,whose blossoming mutual attraction with the new character Lucy Smith (Middleton), who has her own class-transgression wrinkle to surmount, allows for something to ruffle the all-too-placid status quo, although one can barely overlook the birds-of-a -feather implication.
For the downstairs, the only slightly interesting and progressive development is about the sulky gay butler Thomas Barrow (James-Collier), who is vouchsafed to see and realize there are people like him, and a coruscating romance also beckons. The servants' central coup of rebellion against the unbearably snotty royal staff is played out with knowing delicacy if not much novelty, culminated by footman Mr. Molesley's (Doyle) cringing faux pas, but if this coup is set out to restore Downton's honor, their effort is certainly oblivious among the regal visitors, not to mention Downton's honor is not in need of restoration in the first place, it is the downstair staff's wounded dignity needs a ventilation, but don't make virtue out of necessity.
After receiving munificent proceeds from its box-office front, a proof of old tricks can still work wonders, a sequel might not be an empty promise, but a sticking point emerges since the eminent star of the show, namely, Dame Maggie Smith's dowager Countess Grantham, who is fabulously and consistently effuses one-liners like nobody's business, will certainly not return for the next chapter (the camera's lingering close-up on her out-of-sorts visage near the ending bids an endearing valediction), at least not for a big part as one surmises, the lacuna left by her seems too cavernous to fill by any possible successors, one final counsel: why not, for once, just take this one-off bonanza and jump off the gravy train when everything seems rosy, buoyant and pleasantly anodyne?
referential entries: Robert Altman's GOSFORD PARK (2001, 9.1/10); Stephen Frears' VICTORIA & ABDUL (2017, 6.3/10).
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