Finale? Promises, promises. The tiresome third movie wrung from the hit TV show Downton Abbey sends the titled Crawleys off to the races. For diehard fans of the franchise, that may be enough. For everyone else, this curtain call feels like midseason filler.
It’s 1930, and Hugh Bonneville’s Lord Grantham is struggling to relinquish power to his striving daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). The servants, similarly, fudge all efforts to stop polishing the silver, even in retirement.
There is talk of buying a “flat” in London. Other modern innovations include “divorce”, an act so shocking that it causes Joely Richardson’s scandalised dowager to boot the maritally challenged Lady Mary out of a society shindig.
Back at the big house, Lady Grantham’s shifty brother, Harold (Paul Giamatti), arrives with an even shadier financial adviser (Alessandro Nivola) in tow.
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The already overcrowded script by Julian Fellowes, the series’ creator, makes room for lingering shots of a portrait depicting the late Maggie Smith’s departed dame and a celebrity visit from Noël Coward (Arty Froushan). In a groaning retcon, the playwright is inspired by Lady Mary’s disgrace. “Private lives,” he cries, shoehorning in the title of his best-known work.
Anne Robbins’s costumes are dazzling. The production designer Donal Woods makes a dull country-fair storyline look magical. But for all the nostalgic gibberish about passing the baton, this latest instalment stalls and curdles.
The fawning, folksy staff remain entirely unmoved by contemporaneous labour struggles. Thomas the Tank Engine trains are written with more subtlety than Simon Russell Beale’s flummoxed aristocrat, Sir Hector Moreland. Pointless subplots are explained and re-explained by actors who are never on screen long enough to make an impression.
Downton once possessed the charm to transform Allen Leech’s republican rebel into a lord of the manor. It dwindling appeal could now turn an ardent monarchist into a Kneecap fan.
In cinemas from Friday, September 12th
