The three Downton Abbey films—now capped off, with a flourish, by Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale—are an anomaly, a movie-franchise spinoff of a popular television show that’s rich and entertaining enough to get people out of their living rooms. This is a case where people who have already gotten to know these characters and their travails on a small screen (the show ran for six seasons) are happy to spend extra money to bask in their further joys, sorrows, and anxieties writ large, on a big screen. There’s so much to look at in The Grand Finale that I suspect you could go in cold, without having seen a single episode of the show or one of the other two movies, and still find pleasure in it. You don’t have to worry much about the plot; just show up and gawp.
And it’s true that if you’ve seen the previous two films—Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)—The Grand Finale is in many ways more of the same: it’s the same bunch of rich people, served by a bunch of not-so-rich people, dismayed at the way time marches on and changes everything. But it’s comforting, and humbling, to remember that we’re not the first generation to find ourselves bewildered by how fast the world moves, and by how we sometimes need to run a bit to keep up with it. It’s 1930, and the family at the heart of the great Yorkshire manor known as Downton Abbey, headed by Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), AKA Lord and Lady Grantham, are trying to carry on as usual. But then, as the 20th century barrels on, there is no “as usual.” They’re trying to enjoy the fall social season in London, but one major problem looms: The long-simmering divorce of their daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), has at last been finalized, and she finds herself shunned by society. She tries to brush it off, but it threatens to rattle every aspect of her life.
And the estate’s money troubles persist. Lady Mary, having taken over the running of Downton Abbey after the death of Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith, who appears briefly in flashback), has begun some much-needed but very expensive renovations. There’s hope that her uncle, Cora’s brother Harold (Paul Giamatti), who’s due to visit from America, will bring some good news on that front, in the form of an inheritance from his and Cora’s mother, who has recently died. Harold shows up with a friend and financial adviser in tow, the dashing, flirty Guy Samson (Alessandro Nivola), who wastes no time in mixing up a tray full of strong cocktails. Lady Mary, feeling the need to let loose, helps herself to one, or two, too many. Later her sister, Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), will be shocked—but not really—to find out what happened that night.
Meanwhile, the servants’ lives are also in flux: Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), having trained Andy Parker (Michael Fox) as Butler, ought to be ready to retire from service at Downton Abbey, but he just can’t stay away. And Lady Mary’s maid Anna Bates (Joann Froggatt), pregnant with her second child, is preparing for a leave of absence—though before that happens, she’ll be instrumental in helping to solve one of Lady Mary’s most troubling problems.
Somewhere in there, Noel Coward shows up—he’s played, with suitable louche savoir faire, by Arty Froushan. And even though there are stretches of stagey-sounding expository dialogue, the story manages to wheel along at a clip. (The script is by Julian Fellowes, the TV show’s creator; the director is Simon Curtis, who also directed A New Era.) Cinematographer Ben Smithard gives the proceedings a creamy, old-money sheen. And costume designer Anna Robbins—a veteran from both the show and the previous two movies—outdoes herself, if that’s at all possible. When Dockery’s Mary heads out to a ball, she’s wearing a bias-cut column of rippling scarlet silk charmeuse, with a single tastefully sexy diamond clip perched at the small of her back. All the women swan about in delicate ropes of tiny cut glass beads; for dinner parties, they don trim little tiaras that are somehow both discreet and wowza. Even the men’s draped suits, done up in supple woolens, are enough to induce heavy sighs. Oh, to be rich and English and have the sorrows of World War I behind you! Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale transports you to a time and place that seems so much more glamorous than our own, and to see it all splashed out on the big screen is almost overwhelming. It’s a genteel fantasy worth leaving the couch for.
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