DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA – Review

The saga of the aristocratic Crawley family continues with DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA, the second movie inspired by the hit British historical drama TV series by Julian Fellowes and featuring the same beloved cast. One does not have to have seen the first movie, or even the series, to follow along with the movie’s plot but you will missing out on a lot of the background details and meanings if you haven’t.

The TV show Julian Fellowes (GOSFORD PARK) created mixes history, drama and soap, as a family of English country aristocrats in Yorkshire, and their servants, face the changes of the early twentieth century, a time of major social and economic shifts for the class system and British society. That Downton Abbey’s story line followed both the upstairs and downstairs characters, their lives and loves, as the new century brings big changes, was, and remains, a key part of the series’ success, along with its fine mostly British cast that includes the venerable Maggie Smith as the wisecracking Dowager Countess, Penelope Wilton as her verbal sparring partner Isobel, Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham and Elizabeth McGovern as his American-born wife Cora. Lady Grantham. The series also offers up glorious manor houses, vintage cars, and fabulous 1920s costumes, along with plenty of period charm.

This new Downton film finds the Crawley household celebrating another wedding, of former chauffeur Tom Branson (Allen Leech) and newly-minted heiress Lucy (Tuppence Middleton). But attention quickly shifts away from the newly-weds, as the family learn of another development: the surprise inheritance of a country estate in the south of France by the Dowager (Maggie Smith), sparking lots of questions about her past – again. While the Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) and Lady Grantham, Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) and some family members prepare to visit the new estate in France, at the invitation of the Marquis de Montmirail (Jonathan Zaccai), the son of the man leaving the bequest, a movie company has offered a handsome fee for the use of the manor house for a film shoot, for a silent movie period drama starring matinee idol Guy Dexter (Dominic West), an offer too tempting for Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) to refuse.

The second film delivers all the period gorgeousness fans expect and progresses all the characters’ stories nicely, tying up a few more romantic threads along the way. All the favorite characters are back except one, Matthew Goode as Lady Mary’s husband Henry Talbot. In the film, Henry is off doing car stuff, since Goode was not available because he was filming the Godfather mini-series “The Offer.” The characters look little changed from the last film, although Bonneville looks slimmer and more tanned than usual.

While either the movie crew story or the South of France story could have presented plentiful opportunities, doing both feels at first a bit like a misstep. The divided story lines send parts of the family and staff to different directions, to differing corners and split our focus. Yet Julian Fellowes brings them, and the family. back together nicely.

The scenes in France are particularly beautiful, providing a new lavish setting for posh partying, while the movie production story offers a bit of fun, with star-struck servants encountering the reality of stars they idolized on screen plus playful glimpses of silent and early sound film-making. The movie making story makes a nice little reference to Fellowes’ GOSFORD PARK, his film that was a kind of precursor to Downton. New romances and new life possibilities bloom under the lights at home and under the stars abroad, while the family also faces other, less happy changes.

This second movie ties up a lot of stories nicely, and could be a fitting final chapter, but Fellowes also leaves the door open a crack for a third movie, following some new threads or even spin offs of some character’s story lines. Either way, it provides an enjoyable, satisfying experience for fans of the series.

DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA opens in theaters on Friday, May 20.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars