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.

 

   

   

   

This dog tells the story of 'his' humans

Based on a best-selling novel 2008 novel by Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain qualifies as one of those less-than-stellar big-screen entertainments that still has some appeal, mostly because so many of us are dog lovers. Now, I have to say that I've never imagined that if any of the dogs I've known could have talked, they'd have sounded like Kevin Costner. But that's what happens in The Art of Racing in the Rain. Race car driver Milo Ventimiglia acquires a golden retriever puppy and names the dog Enzo (voice by Costner). The twist here involves telling the story from Enzo's perspective as Ventimiglia's character tries to make it big in racing circles, finds a wife (Amanda Seyfried) and adds a daughter to his family. Enzo narrates all of this, sometimes with humor, sometimes with feelings of dejection. It takes Enzo time to adjust to new arrivals in "his'' family because he regards his relationship with Ventimiglia's Denny as special and exclusive. Directed by Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn and The Woman in Gold), Racing in the Rain eventually moves from cuteness to tears -- at least that seems to be the intent. Kathy Baker and Martin Donovan show up as Denny's in-laws, a couple with whom he eventually finds himself in conflict. I was a bit surprised to learn that Enzo -- after watching a documentary on television about Mongolia -- starts to give his thoughts a New Age twist. He believes that really good dogs will be reincarnated as people in their next lives. You might have some fun trying to figure out who your dog might return as should he or she reincarnate through another lifetime. Your speculations probably will say more about you than your beloved pet. There's not much else to offer about this family-oriented, lump-in-the-throat story, aside from saying that I haven't read the book and the movie didn't make me feel as if I should. The movie was enough.

'Woman in Gold' fails to mine rich ore

Helen Mirren headlines a story about the quest to recover art looted by the Nazis.

The story of how a persistent woman and her inexperienced young attorney manage to reclaim five Nazi-looted paintings by artist Gustav Klimt suggests a powerful drama dealing with the continuing reverberations of the Holocaust.

Woman in Gold builds its story around one of those paintings, Klimt's 1907 painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. But if Klimt's gold-leafed portrait deserves masterpiece status, the movie about efforts to restore it to its rightful feels like by-the-numbers, Middlebrow fare.

Helen Mirren brings the expected amount of wit and bite to the role of Maria Altmann, one of the few surviving members of a wealthy, cultured Viennese Jewish family.

After the Anschluss, Maria and her husband escaped to the U.S. Most of the rest of Maria's family was killed by the Nazis, who also looted the Altmann art collection, including the portrait of Maria's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer.

Years later, the Austrians have come to regard the Bloch-Bauer portrait as a national treasure. Referred to as "Austria's Mona Lisa," the painting carries a price tag of more than $100 million.

Early on, Maria -- already in her 80s and living in Los Angeles -- hires attorney Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) to help her retrieve the art, perhaps as a way of keeping her family heritage alive.

The grandson of composer Arnold Schoenberg, Randy predictably resists -- at least initially. Just as predictably, he becomes absorbed by the case, which slowly takes over his life.

Bland to the point of blankness, Reynolds adds little to the proceedings. In another performance that hardly registers, Katie Holmes plays the attorney's wife.

Working from a screenplay by Alexi Kaye Campbell, director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) adopts an overly familiar structure, juxtaposing action in the present with war-time flashbacks in which Nazis move toward annihilating Vienna's Jewish population.

The best of these flashbacks show the lavish pre-war lives of a well-assimilated Jewish family that sees itself as a part of the city's fabric.

Max Irons portrays Maria's husband, an opera singer, and Allan Corduner appears as Maria's father, a man who can't quite believe that his secure position in Vienna could crumble so quickly.

As Aunt Adele, Antje Traue brings vibrant sophistication to the role of the woman whose portrait is at the movie's heart, and as a young Maria, Tatiana Maslany embodies the tension and fear that's being inflicted upon Jewish families.

Though well-shot, the movie's flashbacks tend to be overused and telegraphed.

An example: To pursue the case, Maria reluctantly agrees to return to Austria. After a meeting with Austrian officials, she tells Schoenberg she wants to walk back to her hotel alone. It almost seems as if she's excusing herself so that she can have another flashback.

Curtis does a reasonably good job of guiding us through the legal tangles surrounding attempts at restitution, battles that involve Austrian committees and art bureaucrats, as well as a 2004 appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court. An Austrian arbitration panel finally brought the case to its conclusion in 2006.

In Vienna, an Austrian journalist (Daniel Bruhl) helps Maria and Randy in their battle, but this character also could have used more fleshing out.

The issues involved in Altmann's story are rich enough: Maria's understandable resistance to setting foot on Austrian soil and unresolved questions about how much Holocaust awareness depends on a vanishing generation of survivors.

Rather than allowing these issues to open up for us, Curtis keeps them encased in a drama in which they don't fully resonate.

Woman in Gold isn't a bad movie, and its story is interesting enough to keep us engaged, but it needed more than dogged competence to give startling new life to the horror and injustice that are so much a part of this tale.