Review: Downton Abbey is a well-polished sequel to the TV show
Images: courtesy Focus Features
In a cinema landscape crowded with superhero smack-downs and CG apocalypses, it’s sometimes nice just to watch a film that wants you to worry about the whereabouts of some vegetables. That film is Downton Abbey, a big old comfort blanket of a movie stitched together from vignettes involving missing paper knives, a problematic ball gown and an unfortunate outbreak of rain. Fans of the much-loved TV show will love it.
Video: via QQ
The film’s strictly notional plot has King George V and Queen Mary planning a visit to the giant stately pile of the Crawley family during their 1927 tour of Yorkshire. This news has the amiable lord of the manor, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville), his American wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and their modern-minded daughter Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) in a spin: nothing less than the house’s reputation is at stake. Worryingly, his old chauffeur and now de facto family member Tom Branson (Allen Leech) is Irish. Could there be – good heavens – a Republican in their midst? ‘I do hope he’s not building a bomb,’ says someone, mildly.
Anyone unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Downton may get a little lost in its small army of characters and their already-halfstarted plot lines. But prior knowledge of the show isn’t essential. And besides, this is a movie that knows what its core audience wants and provides it in spades. Yes, it’s basically an episode of the TV show stretched out to two hours but like the Crawley family silver, it’s so polished you can practically see your face in it.
📍On general release.
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