Downton Abbey: Film Review

Downton Abbey: Film Review

Cast: Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Joanne Froggett, Jim Carter
Director: Michael Engler

Nigh on impenetrable for those with only a passing knowledge of the Crawley family, the Downton Abbey movie meshes social mores with a kind of Carry on Downstairs flimsy plot to relatively middling effect.

Set in 1927, the Crawley household is honoured to hear that the King and Queen will be sojourning with them as they tour the north of England.

But the downstairs staff are riled when they hear the royal butlers and staff will be taking over their premises, and rendering their desire to serve King and country redundant during the visit...

To be honest, unless you're a fan of this, there's little to pull you back into their world. It's one that's not exactly unwelcoming of strangers, but more one that's got no time to provide you with backstory and the nuances of the show which ran from 2010 to 2015.

To fans of Julian Fellowes' soapy period piece, there's more than enough service, and the thrill of seeing the characters back on the screen will suffice. Which is a good thing, because with the cast as large as it is, most are rendered redundant by a script that has little time to do anything except tick its stereotyped characters' motivation boxes - quips from Maggie Smith's Dowager, tick; haughtiness from Hugh Bonneville's Lord Grantham, tick. It's a nostalgia trip tried and true.

Yet, in the film's pacing, the script falters.

It zips along, dismissing its various attempts at "drama" in relative TV bitesize chunks. In fact, in parts it could be accused of wrapping elements up before a prescribed TV ad break would be slotted in.

But yet in among the unchallenging story, unshakeable feel of a series of vignettes alien to newcomers and period prestige sheen, there are some elements that hint at a little more below - Republicanism is thrown in, the reality of repressed homosexuality, the weight of carrying on a dynasty is ruminated on, and the class wars manifest themselves in breaches of protocol (which admittedly seem slight, but in this world, are earth-shattering).

Downton Abbey is a salute to England that was, and the film retains that nostalgia - but as a standalone aimed at enticing future episodes or growing its fan base beyond that it already has, it's a consummate but polite failure.