Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale 

(dir. Simon Curtis)

By: Adam Freed

Love and Time are twin blessings that when fate should allow, may fall in harmonious league one with the other. To experience love, even if ever so fleeting, is to permanently imprint on the soul an awareness of the fullest capability of the human experience.  When coupled with longevity, a great love affair is left with no alternative than to meet the bitter winds of time’s end.  This is the painstaking predicament that faces millions of Downton Abbey loyalists as they brace for the impact of realization that the beloved series, and its subsequent trilogy of films marks the end of their British period-piece love affair.  Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is, in many ways, a distant funeral bagpipe whose skyward song accompanies the beloved property and its remarkable collection of unforgettable characters into the great beyond.  

Since 2010 the sprawling gardens and immaculate facade of Downton Abbey has been a time capsule, a bastion of safety, and a peaceful escape for its loyal enthusiasts. Director Simon Curtis (The Art of Racing in the Rain) guides Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale as a warm and wistful farewell to the story of Lord and Lady Grantham, an English aristocrat and his virtuous American bride.  With a story that spans the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, World War I and the dawn of The Great Depression, there are few moments in English, or global history left unexplored by what was originally a PBS distributed production.  What has been so consistently attractive about the long running story of a British hereditary family and their lovable staff of cooks, maids, footmen, and butlers is its ability to establish a throughline of humanity in all of its characters, regardless of the nobility of their birthright.  No characters have better captured the necessary humanity of the service staff than the steadfastly loyal Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) and Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol).  Both of whom are honored within The Grand Finale by the eventuality of their character arcs, and by the warmth of the performances by Carter and Nicol.   Likewise, the stories of Lord Robert and Lady Cora Grantham are given a noble humanity by Hugh Bonneville (Paddington 2, Notting Hill) and Elizabeth McGovern (The Wife).

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is, like its predecessors, a story of wealth and social class disparity. However, more so than ever, Curtis’ final stanza manages to brace itself for the coming of the middle 20th century.  Just as the Grantham family lineage is passed from the immovable Violet Crawley, captured with savage grace by the late Dame Maggie Smith, down to her son, The Grand Finale sees the torch passed one final time to Grantham heiress Lady Mary.  The cool and lovable performance of Michelle Dockery as Mary in the trilogy’s final chapter is where the film chooses to anchor its dramatic flag.  Although Downton Abbey has never been revered for hard-hitting controversiality, Mary’s struggle against the social conventions of the British upper-crust, a product of her recent divorce, offers to take Downton in a powerful new thematic direction.  If Lady Mary is to lead the sprawling estate into Britain’s second Elizabethan era, how may she do so as a second-class citizen on the basis of her gender and marital status?

The Grand Finale hardly acts as a standalone picture, offering a secondary plot that targets the appearance of Mary’s uncle, Harold Levinson, embodied by an underused Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers, Sideways). In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, the American Levinson has come to England in hopes of financial respite by convincing his sister Cora, and the rest of the Downton clan to provide him an escape from his financial shortsightedness.  Nothing about Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale feels remotely dangerous, and that is the secret of its appeal. People have turned to the Grantham family for decades to imbibe in the sprawling gardens and historic beauty of the castle-like home, partially to experience for at least a few breaths at a time, what it must be like to have been nobility in a period of history long reduced to faded photographs and words on pages.

Simon Curtis accomplishes the very difficult task of honoring the stories that have come before his final entry, while managing to leave open the possibility that the Grantham family lineage will move on into the 20th century with the class and dignity befitting the stature of their namesake. No single image better captures the spirit of Downton Abbey than that of a portrait of Dowager Countess Crawley, who now oversees the grand entry of the estate as oil on canvas as her granddaughter Mary now firmly holds the reins to its future.  But for fans, Crawley’s portrait offers a far more resonant message.  Honoring the passing of Dame Maggie Smith is a tear-inducing reminder that her fate, like the entirety of Downton Abbey, is transitioning into the realm of a memory blessed by longevity.  Let fans not mourn the shuttering of Downton, but rather celebrate the incredible warmth, comfort and companionship that it provided over the course of its unforgettable fifteen year run.

Target Score 7.5/10 -  There is a pronounced lack of peril in Simon Curtis’ third film in the Downton trilogy.  Yet, like the feature length stories that have come before, spending a few hours in the bustling kitchens and noble chambers of Downton Abbey has never felt like time better spent.