{"id":116805,"date":"2025-09-03T23:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116805\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T23:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:13:12","slug":"downton-abbey-the-grand-finale-review-a-fine-time-if-proof-that-this-franchise-simply-must-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116805\/","title":{"rendered":"Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale review \u2013 a fine time, if proof that this franchise simply must end"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Grand Finale is a farewell that\u2019s intertwined with real, palpable grief<\/a>. Last year, we lost Downton Abbey\u2019s glorious pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance, Dame Maggie Smith, whose snake-bite wit as the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley was always the series\u2019s purest pleasure<\/a>. The Dowager Countess\u2019s passing was the climactic event of the previous film<\/a> \u2013 here, her portrait hangs reverently in the hall, watching over all with that sparkling gaze of hers.<\/p>\n

Death has brought change to Downton Abbey. There\u2019s money to be moved and managed, especially with the loss of Cora\u2019s (Elizabeth McGovern) mother in America. It heralds the return of her brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) with some less than favourable news, alongside a new compatriot, the charismatic Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola).<\/p>\n

Gus is really here, it seems, for Mary (Michelle Dockery), who\u2019s been afflicted by the other major absence in this film: Matthew Goode as her second husband Henry Talbot, who delivered (and all power to him) roughly four lines of dialogue in the previous films, and has now been officially written out via divorce.<\/p>\n

Yet creator Julian Fellowes\u2019s script uses that bit of behind-the-scenes reshuffling to finally add to these films what has been desperately needed all along: genuine drama, as Mary is frantically shooed out of the home of Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), because the royal family is on their way and to share a room with a divorc\u00e9e is still an unquestionable taboo in 1930.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no escaping the fact that this film, once again, feels like two episodes of the TV series have been smashed together. For one of the hours, we deal with Sambrook and Mary\u2019s flirtations, with a trip to Ascot where everyone gets to show off their race day garb in slow motion (Anna Robbins\u2019s costume designs are as beautiful as expected, especially now Mary can swan around in the era\u2019s bias-cut gowns). Giamatti and Nivola are a kick of adrenaline, capturing the fond bemusement of Americans gallivanting through the Old World. Then Nivola departs, and you can almost feel the credits roll, before the film shifts focus to the throwing of a party for No\u00ebl Coward (Arty Froushan).<\/p>\n

\"La-di-dayLa-di-day at the races: Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery in \u2018Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale\u2019 (Focus Features)<\/p>\n

Within all that, though, Fellowes finds some surprising moments of self-reflection for the franchise. We\u2019re post-Wall Street crash but before the Second World War, and the entire film rides on the tension of a held breath. The house\u2019s staff \u2013 Mr Carson (Jim Carter), Daisy (Sophie McShera), Phyllis (Raquel Cassidy), et al \u2013 are still jubilant upholders of the upstairs\/downstairs divide, yet the word \u201csocialism\u201d is being whispered like it\u2019s a new coiffure trend, and the fact that the decline of aristocracy can\u2019t be kept locked out of Downton\u2019s gates forever seems to be slowly dawning on Robert (Hugh Bonneville).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system doesn\u2019t work if people hold on too long,\u201d Tom (Allen Leech) warns him. It\u2019s a nice bit of advice. And, considering this is now the third film to be presented as the show\u2019s definitive conclusion, I sincerely hope Downton Abbey heeds it. This is about as graceful and fitting an endnote as you could hope for.<\/p>\n

Dir: Simon Curtis. Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Paul Giamatti, Elizabeth McGovern, Penelope Wilton. Cert PG, 124 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u2018Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale\u2019 is in cinemas from 12 September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-116805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}