Lto the one person we watched six seasons of Downton Abbey – Lady Violet Crawley (need to write Maggie Smith?) – that’s it too who has never ever seen an episode. We, intended as the public, have not only consumed the dvd box and gig of internet connection once the series has been streamed, we even went to the cinema for the first film.
Now that the second chapter has arrived that inaugurates A new era, going back is almost prescriptive. The regalone that Julian Fellowes has done to fans is in fact a double episode with a tearful ending. Although in the typical way of the narration of Downton Abbeymuffled by carpeted walls and corridors, by double doors and demeanor. And from above and below, since the company of the English villain is divided between nobles and servants – separation without backbiting or subterfuge, however. For the field invasion of Stranger Things a century will have to pass.
With the exception by Sybil – the youngest daughter of Robert and Cora – who marries the house driver Tom Branson.
Downton Abbey: cinema and the French Riviera
Even the rich have roofs from which it rains inside. And they need to be repaired. Only that people with miles of estatebetween two hundred waiters and valets, never has a penny for maintenance, which he sends back with buckets and pots to empty. But two things happen: a request comes from a film company to make a silent film in Downton; Violet reunites the family to communicate that such Marquis of Montmirail he left her a villa in the south of France.
The crude filmmakers pay a ridiculous fortune, then green light to lights and actors for a month in Downton, the Crawleys will hold their noses for the good of the house. Great excitement instead in the basement, where Daisy and Anna can’t wait to meet the two stars Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock) and Guy Dexter (Dominic West).
While for the French question it is decided to join the Marquis’s son and his motherwhich does not really want to sell the villa to Sybbie, the daughter of Sybil and Tom, as per the will of the Countess mother. She would rather, Madame Montmirailget rid of these English usurpers quickly, nosy who want too investigate the relationship between the Marquis and Violetespecially Robert.
But everything gets right, like roof leaks. The crises on the set of The Gamblerdue to the sudden turn to sound, are resolved by Lady Mary Talbot’s ability. The question brought back home from the Côte d’Azur is more difficult, to which the great old woman, alas increasingly fragile, must give an answer.
Penelope Wilton (Isobel Merton) Maggie Smith (Violet Grantham). (Focus Features)
A sweet innocent rebound
In the fabulous world created by Fellowesshowrunner of the series and screenwriter of the two films, everything has always been reassuring. And impressive. The architecture of the house, which reflects the internal society; the vertigo of the variegated cast; the many relationships and rank relationships. A vast universe and yet, once the dynasty has been grasped, within reach. With precise vertices.
A long time series that has polished a soap opera charm, Downton Abbey closes the broadcasts with a film that is a dance on the corpse that everyone sees and that no one points to.
Pleasant, calm and harmonious dance. In which there is not even time to think about the inconsistency of some dialogues that have already been thrown into subsequent ones. In a vision that results in a long smile of placid satisfaction. As always accompanied by sets, costumes and the novelty of this Abbey 2: the 1920s exoticism of the French Riviera. Nothing is ever too serious or ever too funny. Or scandalous. Or even just too colorful or too gray. It is the state of the medium. Holiday posters full of promise.
Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) almost falls dead in the arms of the director of the film, he is pleased, but it does not yield. The servitude is demoralized by the Myrna’s snobbish behaviorBut then it helps her to regain security and purpose in life, remaining pleased to serve the rich. The poor Thomas Barrowfresh from the bad adventure with the royal waiter, finds the ultimate happiness in a relationship that smacks of sadomasochism, yet good manners and kindness make it seem like bargaining a courtship between gauntlets.
If the stop in France is a long agreement between the parties, the best is the gimmick of the film in the film. The problem is that 70 years later Singing in the raina beautiful but unpleasant movie star with a croaking voice to dub, coincidentally from a Crawley who gets the lip right the first time, it is a fairly worn graft. But Downton is not avant-garde, it is what has already been said, seen and heard with very good actors. Soothing like a mild barbituratefrom which to regain strength with a lash from Lady Violet.
Maggie Smith, yes. To that of the “what is the weekend?“Who has never seen an episode of the series, 88 years old, Downton Abbey 2 still reserves a few cartridges, difficult to say if memorable. “I would eat stones rather than go to the cinemaDoes not seem the most ruthless of his famous jokes. But the beloved granny, subjected to questioning and faced with the evidence of evidence, now weakened, reveals an unprecedented part of himself. Which tightens the family circle even more.
Lady Violet new Rose DeWitt Bukater
The comparison with the heroine of Titanic it’s not far-fetched. At a considerable age, but only behind Rose, an object forces Violet to return to the circumstances that prompted her to choose her mind for love. An object that the son brings them back from the Riviera: a cameo on which his face is painted, and which the Marquis kept in a reliquary as a relic.
Allen Leech (Tom Branson), Nathalie Baye (Madame Montmirail), Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Grantham), Hugh Bonneville (Robert Grantham), Tuppence Middleton (Lucy Branson), Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith), Jonathan Zaccäi (Marquis of Montmirail), Jim Carter (Mr. Carson), Imelda Staunton (Lady Bagshaw) and Harry Hadden-Paton (Bertie Pelham). (Focus Features)
Violet throws it nowhere, it has no ocean to contend with. However she who has always been a rock, formal desecrating rigid contemptuous, she is now explaining to her friend Penelope what went wrong, feelings that it is difficult to associate with his figure. The last toad, the last remnant of energy.
It’s a closure of films – and series – that is a small stroke to the miserable certainties of the monster audiovisual universe. Within the decent limits of what the staging of Abbey allows, which cuts when it could push on the epic register, it softens and movesbut it is still the cinematic farewell of a giant. Like James Bond, like Ian Solo.
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