Downton Abbey's very fond farewell

 

  There are at least two ways of looking at Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the culmination of two previous big-screen efforts to repackage the long-running TV series for multiplex audiences. Six seasons on PBS encompassing 52 episodes evidently weren't enough to sate the appetites of those who like their soap operas burnished with caustic wit and class differences as manifested in the aristocratic Crawley family and the servants who toil on their behalf.

  Never my cup of tea, Downton Abbey nonetheless accumulated legions of fans under the guidance of Julian Fellowes, a writer who developed Downton Abbey as an outgrowth of Gosford Park, another series that ran on PBS.

   The late Maggie Smith appeared in both series and in Downton movies as the beloved Dowager Countess Violet Crawley, whose wit sometimes curdled into sarcasm. Fair to say, Smith became the face of Downton Abbey.

   Although Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale leaves the door ajar for the series to continue beyond the 1930s, it serves as a farewell tour for its characters, themes, and, most importantly, grand appointments in set decoration, costumes, ladies' hats, and fine jewelry.

    About those two ways of seeing The Grand Finale: 

    First, Grand Finale can be regarded as the fondest of possible farewells for beloved characters and the actors who play them, a major helping of well-crafted fan service designed to ease devotees into a Downtonless future.

   If you’re in this group, you may wish to stop reading here because I'm about to shift gears.

    Let's pause for a bit of business, though: The roster of Downton actors includes: Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham, Elizabeth McGovern, as his countess wife, Cora, Michelle Dockery, as Lady Mary Crawley, Laura Carmichael, as Lady Edith Crawley, Charles Carson as Mr. Carter, the butler, Sophie McShera, as Daisy Mason, a kitchen worker en route to becoming head cook, and on and on and on through a teeming roster of roles.

    Paul Giamatti has been added to the latest edition as Harold Levinson, Lady Grantham's wayward American brother. Another newcomer, Arty Froushan, appears as Noel Coward. Alessandro Nivola plays Gus Sambrook, the self-proclaimed genius entrepreneur who helped Levinson squander a good deal of the family fortune.

    For the record, Dominic West reprises his role as Guy Dexter, the smiling film star who worked his way into the previous film.

    Now, about the second way of regarding The Grand Finale. Fond farewell? Yes. But this example of fondness easily and often becomes saccharine, sentimental schmaltz decked out in top hats and formal ware. 

   The movie also is marked by gently presented social conflict. Winds of social change are rocking Britain: the decline of the aristocracy, the rise of the middle class, long-standing convention abrading against modern attitudes, and the emergence of Lady Mary as an independent woman.

    No sooner does Grand Finale open than Lady Mary’s recent divorce turns her into a social pariah who eventually must be reabsorbed into the fabric of Yorkshire life.

   The family also brushes against the shady money ethos represented by Sambrook's Americanism, greed dressed up in an attempt to become part of the aristocratic wallpaper.

   All of this is accompanied be emergence of a new form of status: celebrity. Coward's reputation as a playwright and actor, trumps (you'll pardon the expression) nobility; he ignites the enthusiasms of both the rich and of their loyal servants.

    All of these conflicts are stated obviously and each is resolved without too much ruffling of anyone's ascot; i.e., the script leaves no loose ends dangling, politely closing the book on every potentially fraught page it opens. Rather than gathering force, the winds of change flutter like a soft breeze.

   The movie even borrows a line from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men. Upon confronting the London apartment that will replace the grand London house the family sells to meet expenses, Lord Grantham coos,  "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." 

   Giamatti and Nivola stand out like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw. Maybe that's the point. Americans don't easily fit into a world built for anglophiles.

   And with 49 credited roles in Grand Finale, it's a small miracle that director Simon Curtis saves Fellowes' screenplay from hopeless confusion.

     Even for those of us who aren’t enthusiasts, there are pleasures to be found in watching horses race over beautifully tended green downs or in the familiarity of the Grantham home. Anna Robins' costumes underscore the series' ongoing  commitment to pleasing the eye.

     Moreover,  Dockery gives the movie the spine it needs without making too much fuss about it.

    And, yes, the movie finds ways to honor the late Smith for her role in the series. Of course, it does.

    Make of it what you will, but for me, the whole Downton business ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but, if you will, with a sigh. This lavishly appointed addendum gracefully drifts into the soft embrace of a cultural comfort zone.

 

   

   

   

What happens 'Here?' Not much

   Watching the new movie Here, I felt as if I were peering into a diorama devoted to mundane helpings of Americana. Set mostly in a single room and spanning a variety of eras, Here's narrow focus seems intended to open wide vistas of life in different eras.

   But the movie sacrifices depth for an artificial sense of breadth as it delivers a series of domestic scenes, many featuring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as husband and wife.

    Director Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks and Wright in Forrest Gump, uses AI to de-age or age many of the characters as he tires to deliver meaningful moments in the lives of successive owners of the same house.

    OK, but was it necessary to show how the site on which the movie's modest home was built looked during prehistoric times? And did Zemeckis need to acknowledge a time before the arrival of settlers?

   The movie includes segments in which a Native American couple falls in love in a wooded setting so idyllic I half expected Bambi to nuzzle up against one of them.

   The movie's parade of vignettes features a full menu of ordinary events: births, deaths, marriages, divorce, Thanksgiving dinners, and Christmas celebrations, all of which serve as signposts that, I guess, are intended to encourage a sense of unfolding lives. Add a few cultural shifts and a bit of nostalgic set decoration and you've got the idea, a tableau of American life.

  Based on a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here mostly concentrates on Wright and Hanks, who play Richard and Margaret, a couple who meet as 17-year-olds during the 1950s. Economic concerns and Margaret's unexpected pregnancy force the couple to move in with Richard's parents, a hard-drinking dad (Paul Bettany) and a devoted mom (Kelly Reilly). 

    Scenes of the house's other occupants come and go, appearing as if they were someone else's memories. During the early 1900s, we meet Pauline (Michelle Dockery), who occupies the home with her pilot husband (Gwilym Lee). She fears flying will kill him.

   During the 1920s, Leo (David Fynn) and Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) take over. They like to drink and party and remain oblivious to anything that might resemble a problem. Leo invents a recliner that catapults the twosome into the upper economic rungs.

   To show what happens once Richard and Margaret move away, we meet a Black family (Nicholas Pinnock, Nikkie Amuka-Bird, and Cache Vanderpuye) that offers a glimpse of life in the 21st century.

     Lest the proceedings be swamped with greeting-card sentiment, the movie introduces a slew of unrealized dreams. Bettany's character fails to advance on his job. Hanks' Richard abandons his artistic aspirations to sell insurance, and Wright's Margaret feels stifled by living with her in-laws. She once hoped to go to law school.

    Eric Roth's screenplay tackles serious themes but they come off as obvious signposts: Problems unfold as if on schedule, and the movie’s deep focus images draw unneeded attention to themselves, as does a stationary camera that turns the screen into a near-theatrical space.

     Even with the introduction of a case of Alzheimer's, Here proves less maudlin than I expected, but that doesn't mean Zemeckis resists all schmaltz, and some scenes  -- notably those involving Benjamin Franklin (Keith Bartlett) and his son William (Daniel Betts) -- become distractingly silly.

   Zemeckis seems to be aiming for something poignant, meaningful, and broadly appealing, but, for me, Here had about as much emotional impact as a bouquet of artificial flowers. When you sort it all out, there's too little “there” in Here.

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.

    

Cast lifts familiar British gangster movie

Director Guy Ritchie may not be breaking new ground in The Gentlemen, but his actors provide the movie with some juice.

If the year were 1999 instead of 2020, director Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen might have seemed more inventive. Ritchie, you'll recall, made his cinematic bones with 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a fresh-feeling foray into a netherworld occupied by British gangsters.

In this outing, Ritchie again goes gangster but the verve that once defined Ritchie's style now feels a little proforma, something on the order of the difference between an arranged marriage and a spontaneous love affair.

After striking out with King Arthur (2017), it’s not surprising that Ritchie sought comfortable ground — and, to be fair, The Gentlemen derives a fair measure of entertainment from a spot-on cast.

Notable among a large ensemble is Hugh Grant, playing a sleazy, gay private detective with traces of cockney in his accent. Colin Farrell adds more color as Coach, a character who trains boxers and occasionally dips into the dark arts required to settle matters in the criminal world.

Add an unflappable Charlie Hunnam to the mix. Hunnam rides shotgun to Matthew McConaughey, who plays Mickey, a pot czar who pays off fading aristocrats for the privilege of building vast underground grow houses on their property.

Now another American (Jeremy Strong) wants to buy Mickey's vast empire so that he can reap illegal gains and be ready to capitalize when marijuana goes legit. Tired of life in the fast lane, Mickey may be willing to sell.

A Chinese gangster named Dry Eye (Henry Golding) also would like to purchase Mickey’s business, an ambition that sets off fireworks, notably a raid on one of Mickey’s mammoth facilities.

To add structural pizazz, Ritchie frames the story by having Grant’s character try to extort money from Hunnam’s character, using a screenplay to convince Ray to pay up. The screenplay gambit proves a bit much, even in a movie that's not afraid to display its cinematic self-consciousness.

True to its title, The Gentlemen is mostly an all-guys affair, although the dashing Mickey has a greyhound sleek wife (Michelle Dockery) who runs a garage staffed by many female mechanics. Mickey, we're told, relies on her judgment.

It takes time to get all the characters straight and to fully appreciate The Gentlemen, you need a taste for a narrative that hopscotches through the proceedings, sometimes creating confusion. You also may find yourself wondering whether any of these characters possibly could exist outside a Guy Ritchie movie.

Still, there’s pleasure in watching actors sink into juicy roles as we wait to see who among these felons will emerge as the king of the gangster jungle. In January, that may as good as we get.

'Downton Abbey,' a royal serving for fans

The popular series results in a big-screen effort that doesn’t make for a great movie but gives fans their money's worth.

In its final going, Downton Abbey —- the big-screen version of a six-season PBS smash-- began to feel like a six-season feature, at least it did for me. I'm saying the movie felt long. But, and it’s a major "but," Downton Abbey wasn't made for me. I'm a series slacker who only recently caught up with the first season in preparation for seeing the new movie. I owe my wife, an avid Downton enthusiast, for filling me in on the major plot points of ensuing seasons.

So, if you have a severe case of Downtonitis — stop here. Go see the movie. You will happily reacquaint yourself with most of the series’ characters and you’ll be able to indulge in the luxuriance of the fabled estate that imposes itself on the Yorkshire countryside.

If you love period-piece pleasures, Downton Abbey provides the season's most reliable overdose.

As you probably know, Downton Abbey also provides a home for bickering, scheming aristocrats who employ a cadre of bickering, scheming servants — almost all of whom are deeply committed to maintaining the estate and everything for which it stands.

Best not to think too deeply about what that estate stands for, notably class division and political stagnation that even the show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, can't present without showing a few cracks.

On TV, characters married downward or upward. The movie includes an assassination attempt and a bit of talk about British/Irish tensions. Mostly, though, characters ponder whether it's worth sacrificing personal fulfillment on the altar of propriety. Most vote for the propriety of the prevailing order.

Now because the movie is a mere 122 minutes long, not all the characters are given the kind of attention they received during six seasons. For some, it must have taken longer to don their costumes —- corsets for women, starched fronts for men — than to learn their lines.

Still, it can be rewarding simply to immerse in the carefully appointed aristocratic theme park that director Michael Engler and his production team create and, let’s be honest, celebrate. And, to be even fairer, I’ll say that Downton Abbey arrives on the big screen without too many visible signs of strain for having made the transition.

So what’s new about any of this? Well, there’s an episode in which a slightly more agreeable Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), the gay footman promoted to the post of chief butler, openly and almost disastrously explores his gayness.

A fresh battle over inherited wealth breaks out, allowing cousin Maud Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton) and her maid Lucy (Tuppence Middleton) to arrive at Downton. Did I mention that the whole business centers on a visit from the King and Queen (Simon Jones and Geraldine James) that throws the entire Crawley household into a tizzy?

The pending arrival of royalty prompts Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) to bring retired head butler, a.k.a., Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), back to Downton so that he can enforce the standards to which he has dedicated his life.

The royal visit seems more important to the servants than those who dwell upstairs. They help is gravely offended when told that the royal party travels with its own staff and that the services of the locals will not be required or, worse, desired. What? Miss an opportunity to grovel at the feet of monarchs? Disasters don’t get much bigger, do they?

To heighten the snootiness brought by a team of royal servants, a traveling French chef (Philippe Spall) has been added, much to the dismay of down-to-earth Downton chef (Lesley Nicol).

The royal visit also provides a reason to introduce Princess Mary (Kate Phillips), daughter of the King and Queen. She's having marital difficulties and provides a reason for the story to take a brief side trip.

Written by Fellowes, the movie employs a farcical twist to deal with tensions between dueling groups of servants. It might be said that on-screen, Downton Abbey is more reliant on plot twists than on the kind of character issues the series more freely could explore.

I know. You’ve been waiting for me to say something about Maggie Smith. She's onboard of course as the imperious Violet Crawley, self-described as the old lady who frightens everyone, a role that she relishes. Smith fires a fair number of caustic darts and, in this telling, becomes part of a comic duo in which Isobel Merton (Penelope Wilton) plays counterpoint by insisting on empathy over insult.

I was a little disappointed that Lady Mary didn’t have more to do, that her sister, Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) has lost some of her edginess, having settled into something approximating happiness and that Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern), the American-born mistress of the manor, had no crucial scenes.

You'll notice that I've omitted some characters but going any further risks turning this review into a scorecard -- if I haven't done that already.

If you have Downtonitis and you’ve read this far, you’ll be happy to know that I’m nearly finished.

Part reunion and part lovefest, Downton Abbey's reliance on the affection its audience brings to the theater struck me as near-total. I'd guess that Fellowes and his cohorts have done nothing that's likely to diminish the devotion of Downton fans. I wonder, though, whether those who've never seen a Downton episode will feel quite so welcome in the Crawley household -- or whether they'll even feel as if they've been invited.

'Non-stop' trades action for sense

Liam Neeson reunites with director Jaume Collet-Serra (The Unknown) for Non-Stop, a thriller set almost entirely on a jetliner that's facing a terrorist threat.

In addition to exploiting current fears about flying, Non-Stop proves laughably improbable and only moderately suspenseful.

With action-oriented movies such as Taken and to a lesser extent The Grey, Neeson seems to be on the verge of turning himself into a cliche.

Here, he's playing another depressed hero: He's Bill Marks, a Federal Air Marshal who's mired in guilt and prone to heavy drinking. We can guess from the outset that Marks is stricken by a terrible event from his past, probably something involving a daughter.

Despite his personal baggage, Bill gets a better deal than the audience. He's riding comfortably in business class on a flight to London. Once on board, he finds himself seated next to a friendly passenger (Julianne Moore) who also likes to tipple.

The plot arrives almost before the passengers can fasten their seat belts: Bill begins receiving text messages over a secure network. It seems that one of the passengers is a terrorist who plans to kill one passenger every 20 minutes unless $150 million is deposited in an off-shore bank account.

To add a further level of complication, TSA folks on the ground believe that Bill is the hijacker, a rogue agent out for a big pay day.

Bill must find the real hijacker even as he argues with authorities about his right to do so. Like most heroes, he's on his own.

Joining Moore in supporting roles are Michelle Dockery and best supporting actress nominee Lupita Nyong'o (as flight attendants).

Nyong'o is entirely wasted, which may be just as well because this rising star hasn't much to gain from a mediocre thriller that throws around red herrings before we learn what's motivating the hidden terrorist.

Let's just say the explanation left me groaning in disbelief. It's brazen, contrived and about as likely as finding an empty middle seat in the center aisle of a trans-Atlantic flight.

Collet-Serra stages an explosive finale which I won't reveal here, but which probably should be avoided by travelers who tend toward white-knuckle flying.

Look, Neeson has plenty of presence, and he's become particularly adept at adding gravitas to these kinds of roles, but I look forward to the day when he finds a bigger challenge -- for him and for us.