You’d be hard pressed to find anything in this third and final Downton outing that lives up to the ‘Grand’ of its title. The stakes could scarcely be lower – ‘How are you getting on with Mary’s plan to plumb the cottages?’ – while a third act village fate never really feels like the culmination of fifteen years of storytelling. Certainly, its direct predecessor found more pathos in the departure of the late Dame Maggie Smith. Such is not to say that fans of the long-running, period soap will want for more. Downton’s Grand Finale makes for an outstandingly tepid watch but not without charm.
Richard Osman’s “The Thursday Murder Club” screams – or, rather, ahems – Sunday night on the BBC. It’s so obvious that a character in the erroneous, Netflix-funded, Chris Columbus movie that has actually been produced even jokes about the consanguinity. This is not to demean the quality of Osman’s, deservedly popular, storytelling but to acknowledge the extreme particularity of his prose. Hollywood cannot hope to tap into Osman’s very British niche and so Columbus’ film is fine watch but bland and transparently softened for international sensibilities.
There’s a generation out there for whom a sequel to 2003 body swap comedy Freaky Friday enjoys the same nostalgia premium as did the return of Star Wars in 2015’s The Force Awakens to most of the then adult population. That shouldn’t be too surprising. The force is with few in Hollywood as it is with Jamie Lee Curtis. It was, as word has it, only pressure from Curtis that saved Freakier Friday from the same disservice of a streaming debut as befell 2022’s Disenchanted. And why should such sequels be relegated so? Throwing back to the sort of comedy froth that ruled the noughties’ multiplex, Freaky Friday belongs on the big screen. There’s an audience for it and you can bet they’ll show.
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