{"id":44798,"date":"2019-09-23T09:11:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=44798"},"modified":"2019-09-23T09:11:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:11:20","slug":"downton-abbey-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/09\/downton-abbey-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Downton Abbey Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I\nam writing this review during the 2019 Emmy Awards, which is appropriate since\nthe \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d TV series won quite a few Emmys back in the day. But I\nnever watched an episode of the show, so this review is not coming from a place\nof nostalgia. In fact, I came into the film with a decided disadvantage,\nbecause the world of \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d is clearly lush with characters with\nhighly-developed backstories, and while the movie isn\u2019t exactly devoid of a\nconvenient entry point, it doesn\u2019t waste a lot of time with introductions\neither. I must confess that I spent much of this movie lost, not knowing who\nthe characters were, where they stood with one another, or even if\nsimilar-looking people from different scenes were the same person or not. If\nyou\u2019re a longtime follower and don\u2019t have time for someone left in the dust to\nplay catch-up, I completely understand. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll like this movie, I\ncan\u2019t imagine it betrays the integrity of the franchise in any way, go see it. I\ncan only provide a novice\u2019s perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\nfilm centers around the Downton Abbey estate, circa 1927, getting a visit from\nthe King and Queen of England. I suppose if ever there was an occasion to give\nthese people a movie, this would be it. The royal visit calls for a reunion of\nthe aristocratic Crawley family, including father Robert (Hugh Bonneville),\nmother Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), oldest daughter Mary (Michelle Dockery), middle\ndaughter Edith (Laura Carmichael), Edith\u2019s husband Bertie (Harry Hadden-Paton),\nson-in-law Tom (Allen Leech), and grandmother Violet (Maggie Smith). Storylines\ninclude Mary considering moving away from the estate, Edith worrying that the\nKing will send Bertie to Africa, where he will miss the birth of their child,\nTom being privy to a plot to assassinate the King, and Violet wanting to\nresolve an inheritance dispute with her cousin (Imelda Staunton), the\nlady-in-waiting of the Queen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            But\nit\u2019s not all about stuffy aristocrats. There are stuffy servants with stories\nof their own. The occasion calls for the return of retired former butler Carson\n(Jim Carter), much to the dismay of current butler Barrow (Robert\nJames-Collier), who skulks off to contend with injustices of the day. The King\nand Queen are bringing their own servants, which upsets the Downton staff, as\nserving royals would be a high point of their lives. They\u2019re ordered to stay\nout of the way, but some sleeping pills and locked doors may say otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Apologies\nto the seemingly dozens of characters and storylines that I\u2019ve left out, but\nthis is a very crowded movie. Fortunately, the dialogue is snappy and concise,\nwith the stories mostly progressing at a pleasing pace. That is, until the\nfinal act of the film, where the setting changes from Downton Abbey itself to a\nroyal ball at another location. The film becomes awkward and inefficient during\nthis sequence, as if the unfamiliar venue is somehow affecting its creative\nprocess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            To\nbe sure, this movie is everything one could want in a big-screen version of\n\u201cDownton Abbey.\u201d The costumes, hair, sets, and music are all impeccable. The performances\nare engaging, the dialogue is witty, and the atmosphere, though necessarily\ndramatic in parts, is generally so pleasant that it\u2019s hard to not find the film\nincredibly agreeable. That said, I never achieved the familiarity with the\ncharacters that I suspect I was supposed to. I definitely came out with a\nbetter understanding of the world of \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d than when I came in, but I\ncan\u2019t imagine getting more than mild enjoyment out of this film without doing time-consuming\nresearch first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDownton Abbey\u201d is rated PG for\nthematic elements, some suggestive material, and language. Its running time is\n122 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             I am writing this review during the 2019 Emmy Awards, which is appropriate since the \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d TV series won quite a few Emmys back in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":44799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}