What: “Downton Abbey”
Who: Directed by Michael Engler. Stars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Laura Carmichael, Henry Talbot, and Rob James Collier.
When: Opens Sept. 20.
Where: Area theaters.
Running time: 123 minutes.
Rated: PG.
Grade: A.
The royals are coming! The royals are coming!
“Downton Abbey” had a six-season PBS run which began in 2015. The public screening I attended had about a dozen women who came in full costume. The screening was sponsored by a local tea room. Who knew there were fanatic Abbey-Heads?
For those not familiar, “Downton Abbey” is the turn of the century British soap opera which revolves around the Crawley family, Lord and Lady Grantham, (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) the matriarchal Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) their daughters Lady Mary and Lady Edith (Michelle Dockery and Laura Carmichael) and the butlers, maids and kitchen staff headed up by Mr. Carson (Jim Carter).
The year is 1927 and the big news in the British countryside is that King George V and Queen Mary are touring the hinterlands and will stay one night at Downton Abbey. The entire house, both upstairs and down a military parade and gala dinner are painstakingly and exhaustively arranged. The manor and everyone in it are in a tizzy. As the movie opens a menacing stranger is making his way by train to the village just outside Downton Abbey. His appearance there and the ensuing drama will not disappoint.
Traveling with the royals is Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Stanton). She is the arch enemy of the Dowager Countess as she is threatening to leave her nephew, Lord Grantham, out of the will.
Meanwhile the royals have also brought a traveling team of servants of their own. They intend to usurp the service of the Downton footmen, maids, cooks and butlers. They are in for a real surprise. The battle of Dunkirk was less dramatic.
This big screen version of the drama created and written by Julian Fellowes, pumps everything up accordingly. The aerial shots of the mansion, the period costumes and even the orchestral score are all visually and audibly stunning.
And while the drama and dialogue are properly tight-lipped and jaw-clenched, the Dowager Countess gets in her hilarious zingers. When Lord Grantham asks her to pray for them, her haughty response is: “I’ll put in a word.”
That Fellowes can make this unegalitarian and loathesome British caste system palatable and even fascinating to a modern American audience is a real testament to his powers as a dramatist.
“Downton Abbey” the movie is a great sprawling entertainment worthy of its predecessors-and then some.
