‘Downton Abbey’ makes for some upbeat entertainment
I’d never seen even a moment of the multiaward-winning (Golden Globes, Emmys, Screen Actors Guild) series “Downton Abbey,” and as the screening date for the movie approached, I seriously considered binge-watching all 53 hours of it. Would there be any other way to appreciate and understand the soap-operatic complexities of all those characters and all that previous storytelling?
Turns out there was no need to worry. I did take proactive glances at some brief character bios that are easily found online, but I really didn’t have to, as screenwriter Julian Fellowes, who singlehandedly wrote all but two episodes of the series, makes everyone and everything in the film clear enough for latecomers like myself to comfortably jump right in. Although there are references to events from the series in the film, this is a standalone story. If something went over my head, I didn’t know it and I didn’t miss it.
The best news, though, is for fans of the show, who will get those references, and will most likely revel in this new incarnation of it, or at least get that comfy feeling of being home again. Three Stooges fans will also be pleased.
The series, I was informed, covered a lot of ground, looking in on the aristocratic Crawley family and the servants who worked for them in Downton Abbey, the huge Edwardian mansion in Yorkshire, during the timespan of 1912 to 1924.
The film is set in 1927, and is put into motion with aerial shots of the lush North Yorkshire countryside as a train passes through it, carrying the mail, within which is a special letter for the Crawleys, announcing that the King and Queen of England will be spending one night at their home during their tour of Yorkshire.
And they’ll be there in two weeks! Unfolded over the next couple of hours are the impending visit’s repercussions - some of them serious, some of them funny - on and reactions from just about every person in the house, as well as a few other visitors.
Among those reactions, the servants consider it an annoyance, while Robert Crawley and Lady Mary Crawley (Hugh Bonneville and Michelle Dockery), when they know that no one else is around, confess to each other that they’re quite excited.
Soon, outspoken family matriarch Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) starts complaining of concerns about her royally connected cousin Maude (Imelda Staunton) possibly giving away the family fortune and Downton Abbey! - to someone who is not in the family.
But American viewers will get a bigger kick out of what’s going on “downstairs” among the help when, for instance, the rude “royal butler” Mr. Wilson (David Haig) swoops in with his own royal staff, telling the Downton crew to “stay out of our way!”
What’s here for those Three Stooges fans? During the grand ball at the film’s climax, the orchestra plays Johann Strauss II’s “Voices of Spring,” which was lipsynced by Curley, in drag, in the 1945 Stooges short “Micro-Phonies.”