Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Downton Abbey is nothing if not consistent. All three of these movies exist as little more than feature length episodes of the British historical drama series that aired on ITV in the UK between 2010 and 2015, and on PBS in the U.S. between 2011 and 2016. It is arguably writer Julian Fellowes’s crowning achievement, at least in terms of success and durability, though it was clearly an idea expanded from his own 2001 film Gosford Park, his best work thanks to direction in that case by Robert Altman. Fellowes is now 76 and still plenty busy, with his work on HBO’s The Gilded Age, an inferior series that owes its life to Downton Abbey and is nevertheless still addictive in its passive-aggressive cattiness in period grandeur.

It’s all fundamentally the same, really: soapy stories of ensemble casts of characters whose lives intersect between the upstairs and the downstairs of grand houses. And what is there to say about how good it is otherwise, really? If you’re into this sort of thing then you’re into it for the long haul, and if you’r not into it, you have no reason to care. Why would you watch The Grand Finale if you haven’t been watching the show for 15 years, or at the very least have seen the previous two films?

And these films, as a trilogy, serve a dual purpose. All of them exist as a nostalgic revisitation to the world a beloved TV series, and also to provide grand closure that only the cinema can provide: when the first film was released in 2019, it was a means of giving all these many characters a chance to shine on the silver screen. That was the only thing that was different, really, as it otherwise felt like simply stepping into the cozy comfort of a world fans had loved so much. It was more of the same with Downton Abbey: A New Age in 2022, except that it also served as a more definitive goodbye to one of its more iconic characters The Grand Finale now rolls in to be the definitive goodbye to every one of them. Mind you, this was already after the series killed off so many beloved main characters it was like Game of Thrones without the blood and gore—spoiler alert, we get flashes of each one of them in the closing scene of this new movie.

And here I am, a sucker for it all, every time. Downton Abbey is not now, nor has it ever been, great. What it has always been was fun, with its constant stream of pleasantly polite banter. The stakes are never very high, and the closest thing to a villain in this latest iteration is basically dispatched hardly more than halfway through the movie. Of greatest concern, always, is how these deeply traditional Brits reckon with changing social and moral attitudes of the 1920s—or, in this case, the first year of the thirties. It’s ironic how Downton Abbey is always ostensibly about cresting waves of the future while simultaneously being a period piece told in always the comfortably same way.

In this final story about the Crawley family and their array of service workers, the biggest deal is Lady Mary’s (Michelle Dockery) divorce—from a man never actually seen in this movie. This makes Mary a social pariah, and naturally the Crawleys band together to support her, and ultimately change local attitudes about divorced women in the process. Lady Mary’s other struggle is with her father, Robert (Hugh Bonneville), who has stated Lady is ready to take over control of Downton but is having difficulty letting go. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other subplots as always, including a visit from Noël Coward (Arty Froushan), who arrives with his friend Guy Dexter (Dominic West), who is in a secret romance with Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier). A scene in which Barrow, no longer working as a servant at Downton, is invited to join the group upstairs in front of the rest of the workers downstairs is particularly delightful.

There are other sendoffs: Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) is retiring as the family’s butler, also having difficulty letting go; Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) is shortly after doing the same as the longtime cook of the house. There isn’t even time to get to all the other characters, but I will mention Paul Giamatti as Harold, brother to Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and brother-in-law to Robert, who has been hoodwinked out of most of his and Cora’s family’s wealth. This all leads to inevitable discussions of tightening budgets and figuring out ways to move on—including Robert and Cora moving out of the main Downtown house, which makes no sense to me. The house is gargantuan, why can’t Lady Mary take control of the house and still allow them to live there? (Cue some English aristocrat gasping and dropping their tea at such a preposterous idea.)

I have to admit, a runtime of 123 minutes is impressively tight given these countless narrative threads—as was the case with both the first and second movies (122 minutes and 124 minutes, respectively). Just as it had as a TV series, Downton Abbey runs like clockwork as a film series. Should we even believe that this is truly the end? Will this be the historical drama version of the Friday the 13th movies? If Julian Fellowes comes back with a fourth film the subtitle should be Violet Lives. Except they’d have to re-cast Maggie Smith, who sadly passed away just last year. So never mind on that. Maybe this really is the end.

The Grand Finale is admittedly a little misleading, in that it’s just as “grand” as it’s ever been but not particularly exciting. There’s no “going out with a bang” with Downton, and at one point Robert even utters the quote “So this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.” I wouldn’t exactly call The Grand Finale a “whimper” either, but it is pretty stolid. It does effectively tug at the heartstrings in the end, and I am not above admitting I got misty-eyed in the closing scene. Downton Abbey was never long on thrills, but it was dependable, in both its writing and its performances. It gave you reasons to love its many characters, and never gave you any reason to stop. In the end, this movie serves as a two-hour cinematic hug goodbye.

*Now let’s all gather round and hear basically the same story yet again. Because we love it!*

Overall: B