Grand finale? Oh please. Let’s get real; there is no reason why this particular brand of gibbering, wittering, blithering and surreally enjoyable nonsense shouldn’t go on for ever, like Frank Sinatra’s farewell tour or shortbread manufacture in the Scottish Highlands. Both of the previous Downton films had a sentimental last-hurrah message that didn’t preclude another one dropping off the production line. We could make the next film Downton Abbey: The Royal Finale and the one after that Downton Abbey: The Imperial Finale.
The last but one film finished on a funereal drone shot of Downton Abbey at sunset and the one after that was subtitled “A New Era” – but this one, it seems, has taken us back to the very end of the old era, inviting us to swoon loyally at the passing of something special and yet also at the same time doff our caps at the bluebloods’ insouciant gift for survival. There is something entertainingly outrageous in the pure tongue-in-cheek craziness of this new film’s opening sequence; it could almost count as a dadaist dream sequence. I don’t think anything in the TV show or the movies had anything as mickey-takingly bizarre.
The scene is London in 1930 and Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) is at a grand society occasion with her parents, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) and the Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern), when the rumour runs round the assembled company that – gasp! – Lady Mary is technically a divorced woman and so has to be expelled from the party before the royals turn up. The shock of Lady Mary being divorced is presented with impeccable seriousness, like news of a terrorist bomb. Julian Fellowes is, of course, sporting with us, and yet you can’t help smiling along. Fellowes also once again cheekily recycles an idea from his country-house screenplay Gosford Park from 2001, directed by Robert Altman; in that film he had Ivor Novello turning up as a guest, now it’s Noël Coward (Arty Froushan), whose celebrity presence at Downton convinces all the local nobility to accept Lady Mary’s status as a divorcee.
Life at Downton is as eventful as ever, with Lord G brooding on whether to accept Lady Mary’s succession as the mistress of the house, and graciously retreat with his wife to the “Dower House” occupied by his late mother. A rather gruesome Hammer horror portrait of the late Maggie Smith now dominates the building. Lady Grantham’s sheepish American brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) comes to stay with his smoothie financial adviser Gus Sambrook (Alessandro Nivola); the latter gives Lady Mary the eye. And below stairs, housekeeper Elsie Hughes (Phyllis Logan) calms the premarital nerves of Mrs Patmore (Lesley Nicol), assuring her that conjugal responsibilities are in fact “terrific fun!” (The film should get an 18 certificate for this line alone.)
The film is very silly and always watchable in its weird way, with those eccentrically emphasised shots of characters thanking each other for their thoughtfulness. The next Downton Abbey film will surely have to make these characters absorb the rise of fascism and the stormclouds of war. It promises to be a diverting spectacle.
• Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is out on 11 September in Australia, and on 12 September in the UK and US.
