Downton Abbey 2: Une nouvelle ère

The plot interweaves two stories - one is an intriguing surprise about Lady Violet's past, the other is a more standard "new things happening at Downton", but at least it's better than the visit of the King and Queen that passed for a plot in the first movie.

Several characters have a fitting closure - Molesley's was a bit of a surprise, but not too forced; ditto for Barrow.

Acting is good as usual, and the new characters fit in nicely with the tried-and-tested cast. Scenography is top notch.

I'd definitely recommend it for fans of the TV series, and for those who were disappointed by the first movie.

High-class soap-opera-like Downton Abbey: A New Era should be called what it really is: high-class melodrama. Here is a rambling story with too many characters, but who cares? Because it's told so well with each character clearly defined and loveable.

After the binge-worthy six-sessions TV series in the early 2010's, the 2019 film, with its visit from royalty, held up well enough to spawn this sequel, Downton Abbey: A New Era, in which the aristocratic Crawley family is crawling into the 1930's, with The Great Depression, wars, and innovations imminent. The film creates a vitality even in a staid Brit world largely because of a robust screenplay and spot-on actors. Not to forget drone shots of the impossibly cinematic estate.

In fact, no melodramatic villain appears, if you exclude the arch-disturber, Change. Writer Julian Fellowes and director Simon Curtis have crafted a rousing fable about a new era as it approaches the third decade of the 20th century through the lens of a visiting Hollywood production to the Abbey.

Marry that modern incursion to the hidebound Brit tradition and you have a sentimental farewell to the old world, signified by the sharp-witted Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith), who is ready to pass the estate and a newly-added villa in the south of France to the younger Granthams. A formidable subplot is the change the Hollywood production itself must face as sound trounces silent movies and same-sex relationships emerge, galaxies away from our modern acceptance of sexual orientations.

The most moving scene is when the production learns it has to create a sound track in order to continue filming. Watching them sync the sound (dubbing so to speak) to the actors for the first time since they saw Jolson say a few words in The Jazz Singer is just as if we were in a time machine witnessing that monumental change almost 100 years ago.

Downton Abbey is a state of mind, not a place, where our dreams of upper-class blissful isolation clash with the realities of life both for the rich and the poor. Throughout is a benign sense of humanity's essential goodness and our common bonds. Cinema has brought us together in time and sympathy-see A New Era in a theater with its glorious visuals and commanding sound-We've come a long way, Baby.

Lovely to see the cast back again. Script and acting as good as ever. But this film was spoiled for me by the choice of director. In my opinion he just doesn't understand the essential appeal of the piece. Cut, cut, cut.......formulaic and totally out of keeping with the Downtown magic. Such a shame.he has turned this into just any old film rather than embracing the Downton feel. The whole thing feels a bit like a pastiche. Pace is all wrong and it lacks the period feel of both the tv series and the previous film. The whole effect is rather mechanical and lacking in charm which is a real pity.

Fans of the tv show and earlier film will get the most out of this, with plenty of dangling plot threads deftly picked up and woven into a satisfying series of resolutions.

There's plenty of strongly emotional moments here. It plays like one of the Christmas specials but more so, and combines an appropriately high stakes 19th century historical family mystery with an examination of an industry on the cusp of a revolution, as metaphor for Downton and the Crawleys doing their best to survive in a changing world. Hints are given how they will manage it.

This is not the place to start with Downton, and the movie assumes wise viewers know that. With so many characters, with so much history, the audience are given not so much introductions as little reminders.

As is traditional, Maggie Smith gets most of the best lines, but there are no weak performances. There's even a scattering of wisdom here and there among the drollery and drama.

Set in 1928, following the wedding of Lord Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) son-law Tom Branson (Allen Leech) to Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), film company British Lion sends a request to Downton Abbey asking to produce a film using Downton as the location. While Lord Grantham is not keen on the idea, Lord Grantham's eldest daughter and agent of the estate Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) convinces Robert to approve the idea due to Downton's roof being in dire need of repair. As Downton reluctantly welcomes the film production to the estate with some members of the household staff excited while others repulsed, a discovery comes to light that Lord Grantham's mother, Dowager Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) is the owner of a villa in the south of France that was willed to her by a late acquaintance of hers Marquis de Montmirai which has continued to be used by his surviving wife and son. As the Crawley's, except for Mary, head to the villa at the request of the current Marquis, Robert soon finds reason to question his legacy and lineage.

Following the release of the first Downton Abbey film in 2019 wherein the $20 million production grossed $200 million worldwide, creator Julian Fellowes sated he and the cast had ideas for further continuation. After Fellowes finished working on The Gilda Age, Fellowes wrote the script in 2020 and following various work arounds for COVD protocols in 2021 the film began production. Released in 2022, the film didn't deliver the same numbers as its predecessor making $90 million against a $40 million budget, it was seen as a success overall due to the nature of the cinema landscape favoring blockbuster tentpoles while adult skewing material such as Downton went to streamers. As a film it's very much in line with the first Downton Movie where it's a chance to revisit the characters and world audiences fell in love with in the TV show.

As with the previous film, Downton Abbey: A New Era is a very busy film with many things going on in both major plotlines and individual character moments so once again it's pretty much like you're watching an episode of the TV series except on a theatrical budget. The two major plotlines are both very rich with the filming plotline playing as a clever culture clash with elements of Singing in the Rain as we see this silent melodrama filmed at Downton need to be retrofitted into a "talkie" due to the rising popularity of talkies in the wake of The Jazz Singer. The movie production crew colliding with the ordered world of Downton is somewhat similar to the royal staff rolling over the Downton Staff from the previous film, but there's enough differences that it doesn't feel like we're retreading ground. The secondary plotline involving Violet's inheritance of the French villa does stretch disbelief to an extent and does risk going into "soap opera" territory, but the writings strong enough that it avoids that pitfall.

If you enjoyed the TV series and the previous film, there's enough here to motivate longtime fans to indulge in a viewing. It's a very busy movie but it never feels overstuffed and most of the plot lines and revisits of characters hit instead of miss.