5 seasons of running a beautiful British estate was not enough. Downton Abbey is back for its feature presentation, bringing back all the series characters and giving them another round of send offs, just on a bigger screeen. As far as reboots go, Downton Abbey is one of the better ones, using a solid central conceit to give its expansive cast moments to shine, while also looking great and bickering and telling secrets like nobody’s business.
Downton’s greatest moment is about to arrive: King George (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) are to spend one full day and night at the castle. This puts everyone in Downton in a tizzy. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) oversees the entire event, planning a parade at the same time, and bringing back Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) out of retirement to oversee the day to day for the King and Queen. The Dowager (Maggie Smith) and Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton) hope to settle an inheritance issue with cousin Maud (Imelda Staunton) and her maid Lucy Smith (Tuppeance Middleton). Cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) hope to get a chance to show how good they are at their craft to the King and Queen. And finally, Tom Branson (Allen Leech), Irish in-law, is followed around by what he believes to be a Royal inquisitor, making sure he doesn’t stir up a fuss.
The problem with reboots and fan service of TV Shows as movies is that you only have a short amount of time to tell the story, which is why most reboots are unsuccessful if they try to recreate the show. Downton Abbey succeeds by actually thinking out its story to service its characters: it’s gotta be a short window of time, and it should feel like an event. That means either a wedding (but most of the characters are married already, and to set up a new one would be foolhardy). So instead, the big event for a castle like this would be if the king and queen visited. Perfect! That means we get a 2 day window into everyone at Downtown doing their jobs at a high level. That covers most of the royal folk, who can trade secrets and snipe with other rich people. What about the working class folk? This is where the writing staff deserves the most props. What if the royals brought their own butlers, footman, cooks, etc, freezing out these good people from their big moment? This allows the directors to essentially create two throughlines of story, which they can then fray off with some big character moments. Much like the Royal visit, the success of Downtown Abbey lies in the preparation and groundwork storywise to deliver for the audience.
And deliver it does! There’s somewhere between 30 and 90 tracking shots of the castle in all its beautiful rich glory: daytime, nighttime, sunset, sunrise, in the rain. Doesn’t matter: it looks gorgeous. The outfits are all stunning: gowns, suits, military uniforms, trench coats, you name it. Characters have large group discussions, hidden emotional revelations, acerbically witty verbal spats. The conversations reflect the show’s themes: the British class and political system, inheritance and succession, the power of family, and progress vs tradition. There’s all sort of vapid problems to solve, like seating arrangements, while people like Tom are taking care of the REAL issues. Tom gets the most moments to shine, but everyone has at least one great moment, except for Hugh Bonneville and Matthew Goode, who seem pretty happy to just be at the party. Did I mention the movie is basically a day long party? What’s more fun that attending a party!
Downton Abbey is a nice reminder that not all fan service is soulless crap. Seems like the creators Michael Engler and Julian Fellowes really know what fans will love about the show and how to translate it to the big screen in a pretty satisfying way. And coming from a family of hard working Irish people, thanks for making the Irish workingman the major hero of the movie!