Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
The final chapter in the cinematic Downton trilogy feels more like a farewell soiree than a film in its own right but still boasts its many pleasures.
The Ascot Gavotte: Laura Carmichael, Harry Hadden-Paton, Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Devotees of the 15-year-old cultural phenomenon will not be disappointed, and probably even choked up a little. There is certainly a wistful, elegiac air about what is being touted as the final episode in the cinematic trilogy, and as such it may well baffle newcomers to this densely plotted, starry ensemble. Most of the original characters have returned to Downton, even if for just a line or two, while the scriptwriter Julian Fellowes has found the time to introduce fresh faces. As packaged with accomplished respect by that fine director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Goodbye Christopher Robin), the film has its many pleasures, even when it repeatedly glances sideways in the mirror (or glass, as the Dowager Countess of Grantham would have us say). In-between such self-reverence, The Grand Finale brings us up to 1930 and change is reverberating around the buttresses of the Crawley estate.
With echoes of the Wall Street crash ringing across the Atlantic, and a modern world forever asserting itself, Lady Edith Crawley observes, “we’re living in the age of Noël Coward”. It’s hard to appreciate what a cultural force Coward was a century ago, like a merger today of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alan Bennett and Stephen Fry. In a film replete with unexpected delights, and a filigree of sparkling social observation, Arty Froushan’s depiction of Coward really doesn’t cut the Dijon. It is always a danger to introduce such a well-known figure into an ensemble of already well-loved faces. Thus, when Coward regales the Crawley gang with his ditty ‘Poor Little Rich Girl,’ it fails to sing. In a similar cinematic set-up, Jeremy Northam proved far more successful as Ivor Novello in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001). That aside, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) now takes centre stage as a scarlet woman and thorn in the side of the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) by daring to divorce her husband, Henry Talbot (“a feckless playboy”). She is now a social pariah, is dislodged from one London ball by Lady Petersfield (Joely Richardson), while the Royal Enclosure at Ascot is a no-go area.
Of course, the great joy of Downton is Julian Fellowe’s priceless dialogue and his finger on the social pulse of the time. Lady Mary is gently rebuked by her father for inserting such a modern word as “weekend” into the conversation, while the Americans get the drubbing they deserve. It should be noted that all this happened before King Edward VIII not only ran off with a divorcee, but an American ex-wife at that. The Earl of Grantham is finding it hard to contain his horror at the modern modifications, while his wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), attempts to pour balm on troubled waters (“convention makes cowards of us all”). Worse is to come, when Cora’s brother (Paul Giamatti) appears to have made a calamitous investment.
For lovers of Downton, revisiting all the old faces, both upstairs and downstairs, is like pulling on one’s favourite old tweed waistcoat and sheepskin slippers. If much of it feels like a somewhat valedictory affair, like someone else’s farewell party one might have stumbled into by accident, it is rich enough in its meticulous detail to engage the casual viewer.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Paul Copley, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle, Michael Fox, Joanne Froggatt, Harry Hadden-Paton, Robert James-Collier, Allen Leech, Phyllis Logan, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Penelope Wilton, Simon Russell Beale, Paul Giamatti, Alessandro Nivola, Joely Richardson, Dominic West, Paul Copley, Douglas Reith, Lucy Black, Sarah Crowden, Lisa Dillon, Arty Froushan, Lucy Briers.
Dir Simon Curtis, Pro Gareth Neame, Julian Fellowes and Liz Trubridge, Screenplay Julian Fellowes, Ph Ben Smithard, Pro Des Donal Woods, Ed Adam Recht, Music John Lunn, Costumes Anna Robbins.
Carnival Films-Universal Pictures.
123 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 12 September 2025. Cert. PG.
