Another trip to 'Downton Abbey'

 

 As a beloved TV series, Downton Abbey sustained six seasons worth of interest by allowing characters to develop as they faced new challenges, a socially unacceptable romance or the waning of rigid class distinctions. 

  Then there were the costumes and luxurious trappings of Britain in the 1920s, not to mention the contrast between the servants and those who dwelled above them.

   As a movie franchise, Downton Abbey is another matter, often reducing its appeal to costumes, previously developed affection for some of the major characters, plush settings, and, most reliably, Maggie Smith’s bite as the indomitable Violet Crawley.

   Downton Abbey: A New Era arrives in theaters as another helping of British comfort food; the movie ties up more loose ends and introduces two new elements. A journey to France (Lady Crawley inherits a villa in Southern France from a long-ago admirer) and a film crew descends on hallowed Downton Abbey grounds.

   The film's director (Hugh Dancy) deems the estate a great location to make a silent film about a gambler and the woman who loves him. Actors at Downton Abbey? Scandalous. 

   As the actors playing the stars of the film within the film, Dominic West and Laura Haddock stake a claim for a movie of their own, even if a joke involving the difficulty of transferring  Haddock’s character's lower-class accent to talkies isn’t entirely fresh.

   The trip to France adds a question that torments Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) but struck me as a heavily underlined reminder of Robert’s intractable Englishness.

    By now, Mary (Michelle Dockery) has taken over the estate. She agrees to allow the film crew to trample through the great house because she needs money to repair the leaky roof, an obvious sign that the rudiments of the old order are falling prey to wear.

   It doesn’t help the film that Robert Crawley, Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) the butler who defends the old ways, and others are shipped off to France, leaving the movie to seesaw between countries and making room for an appearance by Nathalie Baye as the irritated widow of the man who left Lady Crawley his villa.

    Predictable and committed to swaddling fans in Downton trappings, this helping of the series seems to have lost touch with the need for sharply honed conflict. Even Smith's barbs seem to have lost some of their sting.

   Any movie with legions of devotees presents a challenge for reviewers. For some, another encounter with familiar characters from the servant and upper-crust crowds will be sufficient. 

   Though frayed around the edges, the plush Downton environment still offers undeniable voyeuristic pleasures.

    And, of course, the actors know how to sell this material, even in the smaller roles. Kevin Doyle, for example, has a brief but sharp turn as Mr. Mosley a teacher who discovers his true calling as a screenwriter after the silent production loses its funding and must convert to a talkie. 

    The movie’s biggest development can’t be discussed without spoilers but it passes like a sigh, more a self-reflexive tribute to the heart of Downton than an emotional peak. 

     No point quibbling. If you're not a fan, you needn't bother. If you are, nothing I say likely will deter you.

     Writer Julian Fellowes, the creative force behind the Downton series, and director Simon Curtis give A New Era the feel of a well-upholstered chair into which even the less-than-enthusiastic among us (that would be me) gracefully can sink while being lulled into untroubled acceptance.

    

Intermittent amusement in ‘Late Night’

Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson team in a comedy about women in the world of late-night network TV.

In the new comedy Late Night, Emma Thompson portrays Katherine Newbury, the only woman host of a long-running late-night show that airs on network TV. Icy of temperament and cruel to her staff, Katherine is supposed to be a stand-up comic with a cutting delivery. Jokes aside, she tends to prefer serious guests to refugees from reality TV.

Katherine presides over a stable of male writers whom she believes may be letting her down. Her once-popular show is on its way to becoming an afterthought. The station's new head (Amy Ryan) already has made arrangements to replace Katherine with a comic (Ike Barinholtz) who happily wallows in the sort of crude material Katherine abhors.

What to do? The screenplay by Mindy Kaling (of TV's The Office and The Mindy Project) brings fresh blood to the rescue. Kaling portrays Molly Patel, a woman who works in a chemical plant but secretly dreams of becoming a comedy writer.

As part of a desperate attempt to diversify her staff, Katherine insists on hiring a female. Molly fills the bill and, even better, qualifies as a low-expectation hire. Molly's male counterparts believe the inexperienced wannabe will vanish quickly.

Of course, Molly won't be so easily dispatched. Turns out she has fresh ideas and isn't afraid to talk about them at writers' meetings over which Katherine presides without calling any of the contributors by name. She assigns them numbers.

Two strains of assertion drive the story. Can the old dog (Katherine) learn a few new tricks and can the newbie (Molly) become a legitimate presence in helping to engineer the transformation?

Underlying both of these questions is another imperative, the one that says, it's best to be yourself and allow the chips to fall where they may.

Katherine, who's supposed to be too smart for an era of dumbed-down TV, also qualifies as too unpleasant to win many off-camera fans. Her devoted and nearly invisible husband (John Lithgow) remains a loyal supporter. Thompson's performance doesn’t skimp on scorn for Katherine’s supposed inferiors while also suggesting that she knows her fastball has lost some of its zing.

Both likable and amusing, Kaling gives a performance that helps soften Katherine's sharp edges.

Among the writers, Reid Scott (Veep), Max Casella (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Hugh Dancy (of TV's Hannibal) make some impact. Dennis O'Hare portrays the show's besieged producer, a fellow with the unenviable job of soothing Katherine's ego and keeping the staff from withering under the glare of her imperious gaze.

All of this might have worked well enough save for a couple of problems -- not the least of which is that Thompson, a brilliant comic actress, never seems like someone who'd find her place on a stand-up stage. It's a crucial distinction: Comic acting and stand-up don't draw on the same skills.

Laughs are a matter of taste, I suppose. For me, Late Night provided intermittent amusement until it reaches its predictably affirming conclusion. So, another movie in which promise exceeds fulfillment? For me, yes.

'Hysteria': The vibe isn't good

Hysteria tries to take a breezy approach to a 19th Century story about the dawn of a new consciousness in female sexuality. Put more succinctly, Hysteria is a comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Director Tanya Wexler pokes fun at the Victorian propensity to put a mask of acceptability on physical pleasure. To make the point, the movie includes a variety of brief scenes in which a strait-laced physician brings various women to climax by providing manual stimulation. As it turns out, such physicians, who perform their work with detached precision, experience an unfortunate occupational hazard. Call it hand fatigue. For them, the vibrator is a godsend. Hugh Dancy plays Mortimer Granville, a doctor who lands a job working for Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), a physician who specializes in the aforementioned hand therapy. Dalrymple introduces electricity into the proceedings after he discerns another use for an electric feather duster his roommate (Rupert Everett) has invented. No story can run on vibrators alone, so Pryce's character has been given two daughters (Felciity Jones and Maggie Gyllenhaal). As it turns out, Gyllenhaal's cheerfully independent character operates a settlement house for impoverished women. The screenplay introduces a bit of romantic rivalry involving Dancy and the two daughters, but it doesn't amount to much. I read somewhere -- can't remember where or I'd happily credit the source -- that Hysteria is supposed to play like Masterpiece Theater with vibrators. It's a nice description -- and I wish it actually were true. Such a movie might have been funner, cheekier and more satirically relevant.