A One Mann’s Movies review of “Downton Abbey: A New Era” (2022).
The second big screen ‘adventure’ for the Crawley’s – “Downton Abbey: A New Era” – finally does what every British TV-to-movie adaptation resorts to in the end…. takes the bunch of well-known characters and sends them abroad!
Bob the Movie Man Rating(s):
Plot Summary:
The elderly and unwell Dowager Crawley (Maggie Smith) advises Robert (Hugh Bonneville) and Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) that she has been bequeathed a villa in the South of France by a mysterious man from her distant past. As a party heads to the Riviera to get to the bottom of the story, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is left in charge of Downton as a movie crew decends to film a motion picture. This is much to the excitement of all of the cinephiles who live below stairs.
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Joanne Froggatt, Jim Carter, Robert James-Collier, Tuppence Middleton, Laura Haddock, Hugh Dancy, Dominic West, Allen Leech, Imelda Staunton, Penelope Wilton, Kevin Doyle, Sophie McShera, Phyllis Logan.
Directed by: Simon Curtis.
Written by: Julian Fellowes.
Twitter Handles: #DowntonAbbey.
“Downton Abbey: A New Era” Review:
Positives:
- As you watch the film, you appreciate just what an ENORMOUS ensemble cast the production has. And it really is pretty impressive how they have managed to gather together again almost everyone involved in the original TV show and the first film. As such, for Downton fans, it’s like being enveloped in a warm, snuggly, familiar blanket of nostalgia. The only obvious omission from the cast is Matthew Goode as Mary’s husband Henry. He made little more than a cameo at the end of the first “Downton Abbey” movie. But in this one he is absent entirely (a fact incorporated into the story).
- The film-making plot is quite fun, demonstrating the excitement of the Downton staff in seeing their favourite stars on set. Here they are nicely represented by Dominic West as Guy Dexter and Laura Haddock as the ‘up herself’ Cockney starlet Myrna Dalgleish.
- Maggie Smith is a national treasure, and her Violet Crawley is a truly wonderful thing to watch.
- There are a few knowing lines in the script that made me laugh. My favourite was Lady Mary describing her first husband as being “as handsome as a prince in a fairy tale”! (He was, of course, played by Dan Stevens – the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast“).
Negatives:
- I thought the screenplay, by Downton-writer Julian Fellowes, was pretty poor. Some of the dialogue is toe-curlingly dreadful. But worse than that, there’s just no depth or substance to the story. The villa sub-plot gives us luscious locations in the South of France (nicely shot by cinematographer Andrew Dunn). But the story has no arc to it and the ‘mystery’ surrounding it develops little in the way of tension. It all plays out as a bit of a damp squib. And although the film-making plot is fun (especially via a scene-chewing performance by Dominic West) it is all lifted – boom, mike and clapperboard – from 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain”. As in the first film, Fellowes scatters the movie with a number of other romance-fuelled sub-plots. But none of these amount to a very much.
- There’s something disconcerting about the way the movie cuts backwards and forwards so rapidly between the two stories. Sometimes a character in the Downton mansion barely gets to spout a single line and then WHOOOOSH, we’re back on the Riviera again. The whole movie feels like a young child, desperately wanting the loo and hopping from foot to foot!
- Those in the cast who are really good actors impress on the screen. (Other than Maggie Smith, it was Joanne Frogatt as Anna Bates, Sophie McShera as Daisy and Robert James-Collier as “just Barrow” that shone out for me). But elsewhere, in some of the more dramatic scenes, I found the range of some of the cast to be a bit wanting. Surprisingly, I felt that the normally excellent Penelope Wilton seemed to be in cruise-control-mode here.
- As always with such a huge cast, some of the regulars are little more than window-dressing. Brendan Coyle as Mr Bates is, as in the last film, given virtually nothing to do. He needs to speak to his agent before Downton 3!
Summary Thoughts on “Downton Abbey: A New Era”:
I don’t think this is a good film. But it’s a piece of harmless escapism: two hours of glossy and uncontentious cinema. In these desperately sad, disruptive and tumultuous times, it fills the same need for an undemanding audience as the recent “Death on the Nile“.
The illustrious Mrs Movie Man summed up her thoughts on the film in the car on the way home: “Dreadful film. Loved it”. I’ve a feeling that might be the view of a large proportion of this demographic.
Trailer for “Downton Abbey: A New Era”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN0Spmq610Q. (Note that after seeing the trailer, you barely need to see the film!)
