★★★
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.
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★★★
Like one of Mrs Patmore’s proverbial soufflés, Downton Abbey in film format is light, fluffy and permanently – perilously – on the verge of total collapse. It is not, as some have suggested, merely akin to an overlong episode of the television series that took the world by storm between 2010 and 2015. No. What has been created here is a whole series, truncated to singular feature length; a full box set lacking only advert breaks and next time teasers. One can almost hear the twee inflections in John Lunn’s divine score that ought to herald commercials, and will one day soon with ease. Despite sleeker visuals and an afternoon spent filming long shots in a helicopter, this budgetary upgraded Downton won’t win new fans for the franchise but should prove to be the icing on the hard core’s cake.
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