After 15 years, Downton Abbey’s heirs and graces say farewell | Canada Voices

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Directed by Simon Curtis

Written by Julian Fellowes

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter and Michelle Dockery

Classification PG; 123 minutes

Opens Sept. 12 in theatres

Critic’s Pick

One of the pleasures of a new instalment in any enduring cinematic universe is the moment the franchise chooses to announce itself. Waiting for the first beats of Lalo Schifrin’s Mission: Impossible theme to kick in after the elaborate opening heist is our cue to relax into the familiar trappings.

In Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, that moment comes at around the 25-minute mark. The Crawley family and servants are returning to their country seat from a whirlwind London social season. The camera follows the convoy through the village and up the winding driveway, giving us the first tinkle of John Lunn’s insistent piano signature as it swoops along the lawn, erupting into full sweeping orchestra only when the estate finally comes into full view.

Downton Abbey has always been the most important character – as with the monarchy in The Crown, this escapist class fantasy revolves around a fading institution, embodied not by a person but by the titular stately home (handsomely played by real-life Highclere Castle).

For its farewell, creator and writer Julian Fellowes wisely leans back into this, exploring the relationships between the upstairs/downstairs residents anchored to it. (Previous outing Downton Abbey: A New Era split up the harmonious ensemble and jet set them to the south of France, a glamorous but disjointed escapade.)

Picking up shortly after A New Era left off, it is now 1930. We know this because an opening tracking sequence of West End marquees lingers on the stalwart Cochran’s 1930 Revue before gliding (in a long unbroken take) into a nearby theatre. Onstage they’re singing I’ll See You Again and in the audience the Downton household is enjoying Noël Coward’s operetta Bitter Sweet. Watching from the dress circle in their evening finery, Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) look meaningfully at one another while (in the cheap seats) various staff marvel at the spectacle of it all.

The stakes are manageable (even, frankly, low). Owing to circumstances with Lady Grantham’s trust fund, the family has gone from a post-Edwardian luxury lifestyle to … slightly less luxury, faced merely with downsizing their London residence. Like the elegant towers of Downton Abbey, we can see the plot themes from a mile away – legacy, succession, retirement, the illusion of change. While wearing a red gown to a ball, the divorce of Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) triggers social scandal − a literal scarlet woman. It’s all very on-the-nose.

For all the mentions of embracing change, there are many callbacks. After the death of dowager Violet Crawley in the previous movie (and of series matriarch Maggie Smith, who passed last year), it falls to the bombastic baritone of retiring butler Carson (Jim Carter) to lace the proceedings with rueful humour about tradition. Several scenes directly reference Smith’s choicest quips. Can the snobby upper classes resist the chance to dine at Downton with divorced pariah Lady Mary and Noël Coward (a delightful Arty Froushan)? The answer suggests that being eclipsed by modern celebrity worship may be the bigger existential threat to aristocratic privilege.

We’ve spent 15 years immersed in the ongoing misadventures, minor household crises and etiquette concerns of these aristocrats and the servants who tend to them, all of whom earnestly give equal weight to momentous life decisions as to trifles (like how best to polish a candlestick – the old way is better, natch – and heated committee meetings about the handing out of village féte prizes). It’s often silly but also incredibly watchable.

I say this with sincere affection. A longtime relationship through writing weekly episode recaps of the original series, cast and crew interviews, reviews and think-pieces make me as invested in Downton’s closure as its devoted audience.

Downton Abbey’s class-based period drama was always more popular than critically celebrated, and this third and final act feels like an epilogue. Returning director Simon Curtis still doesn’t solve the television pacing and plotting problem of making a two-hour fan film that doesn’t feel like episodes tacked together, but at least gives each of the extensive beloved cast an arc and some closure. (Their victory lap roll call would chew up my word count –one could play bridge with the sheer number of Downton’s character posters.)

Rest assured that in addition to the expected set pieces (a day at Ascot Racecourse!) and costumes showcasing the era’s bias-cut fashions, all series regulars are present and accounted for, even former butler Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), who resigned his position and moved to California with film star and new romantic partner Guy Dexter (Dominic West).

“The hereditary system cannot be sentimental,” Mary at one point declares. No, but this franchise finale can. A flashback in the last scene is a corny but nonetheless oddly touching tribute. (Be sure to stay through the credits to hear Coward’s own poignant performance of I’ll See You Again, over vignettes of the characters set in the near future.)

It all makes for an emotional send-off, with the reassuring familiarity of those heart-stirring strings cuing the final glimpse of the estate in silhouette at magic hour.