Downton Abbey-The Grand Finalé, Review: Down Times for the Upper Class

Downton Abbey-The Grand Finalé, Review: Down Times for the Upper Class

One good thing about British films is that we can follow the dialogue. British accent is more comprehensible than its American cousin. Add to that some helpful sub-titles, and you have a film in which both, the audio can be understood, without straining your eardrums. Moreover, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finalé, set in the England of over a hundred years ago, avoids the use of uncommon or effete words, except for the occasional ‘bish’. No need to do a search. Here is what it means: a short, informal abbreviation for "bish-bash-bosh," which is often used to describe a "job done" or a “quick finish”.  A historical fiction, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finalé is set in the period 1912-1930, and first aired in the UK on ITV, in September 2010. The show ran for fifty-two episodes across six series, including five Christmas specials.

The first film adaptation, a continuation of the series, was released in the United Kingdom in 2019. A second feature film, Downton Abbey: A New Era, was released in the United Kingdom in April 2022. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finalé, is the third and final film released in the UK and India on 12 September 2025, yesterday. A grand première was organised at the PVR Maison multiplex in Jio World Drive, BKC, Mumbai, on 11th September. Scheduled to start at 7.30, it began at about 8.30. Preceding the film, representatives of the British Council and Universal Pictures addressed the gathering. The British Council rep lady informed the audience that this film is being used as part of the English teaching tools at the Council. With a 15-minute interval, anybody, who arrived on time, would have spent about 3 ½ hours in the cinema. Was it worth it? Read on.

Watching the grand finalé in the film version of a TV series that was first broadcast in 2010, in 2025, without having seen any of its episodes or the two films that preceded this third and final outing, has its own hazards. More so, when there is a large cast, all of them with their back-stories. To their credit, writer-creator Julian Fellowes and director Simon Curtis have been successful in ensuring that the film would make enough sense for first-time viewers, to keep them engaged. It retains its soap opera constitution, but is shot on a grander scale than most TV series. The characters and setting are immensely credible, convincing you that the England of the 1920s was really as depicted here, and that British aristocracy was on its last legs, with Castles and former Abbeys, now owned by Lords and Ladies, were making way for the flat/apartment phenomenon, which was coming as a culture shock to the decadent ‘royalty’.

A tale of the Crawley family, in 1930, it begins with them attending a London musical play, starring Guy Dexter and Noël Coward. Backstage they meet with Guy, Coward and former Downton butler, Thomas Barrow, now Guy's assistant and homosexual lover. When news breaks about Mary and Henry Talbot's divorce, a disgraced Mary is asked to leave a party, where the hostess thinks that her royal guests might take umbrage at the presence of a divorced woman. Divorce, in the England of the 20s and 30s, was seen as anathema. The Crawleys return to Downton Abbey, in Yorkshire, their palatial home, except for Mary, who stays behind at Grantham House, to receive Cora's brother, Harold Levinson, who is arriving from America, following their mother, Martha's death. Accompanying Harold is American financial advisor Gus Sambrook, who ‘saved’ Harold from financial ruin, by withdrawing his investments in the stock market, prior to the great Wall Street Crash, of 1929. Gus and Mary are mutually attracted and sleep together, while being totally drunk. The party travels to Downton Abbey, where Harold, to Cora's dismay, reveals that he squandered their mother's fortune on poor investments. He wants to invest Downton's remaining assets, including Grantham House, in London, to recoup his losses and repay his debt to Gus. It is later discovered that Sambrook is a confidence trickster, who has pocketed Levinson’s money.

News of Mary's divorce causes Downton neighbours to snub the Crawleys. Robert, still reeling from Mary's marriage ending and Harold's delinquency, furiously walks out when Mary proposes selling the London Grantham House to raise capital. Mary leads her family in rejecting Gus' proposal to invest Downton's income, prompting Gus to hint at blackmailing Mary over their one-night stand. Meanwhile, family member Tom Branson arrives and, along with Bertie Pelham, convinces Robert that Mary is doing what is best for the estate. Robert agrees and fully entrusts Downton Abbey to her, while he and Cora resolve to move to the Downton Dower house, taking along servants John and Anna Bates.

A lot of the film is in-house talk-talk, as in a TV series, but Fellowes has brought in some outdoor action too, in the form of a musical play, the legendary Ascot horse-race, and the annual county fair, which ensure that the audience does not develop claustrophobia. His dialogue is as complex as his characters, with questions being asked, and the answers being yes, no, maybe, I don’t know and this is not like me. Fellowes and Curtis do not deviate from the plot one bit, and avoid any digressions or tangential take offs. Curtis, who has worked mainly in television, has directed four films before donning the director’s hat for the 2022 and 2025 outings of Downton Abbey.

A coup of sorts was to bring in the real-life character of Noël Coward (1899-1973). Coward was already working as a stage actor in London by his teens, and had his first major hit as both playwright and performer by his mid-20s, with The Vortex, a scandalous look at cocaine-addicted aristocrats, with incestuous overtones. Coward wrote songs, films, short stories, and even a novel. He recorded albums and had a smash success in Las Vegas. He entertained troops during World War II, with tireless zeal, even as his homosexuality kept him officially outside the establishment. He was knighted in 1970. In the film, Coward is inspired by the character of Mary, and says that her life could be an interesting subject for him to write about. Then, when somebody chides him for prying into and exposing private lives, he gets a hint about the title of his new play.

Private Lives, a comedy in three acts, by Noël Coward, was published and produced in 1930. It is a cynical comment on love and marriage, characterised by his trademark witty dialogue. Elyot Chase and his second wife, Sibyl, are honeymooning on the French Riviera, when he discovers that his first wife, Amanda Prynne, and her second husband, Victor, have the room next to theirs. Elyot and Amanda’s attraction to each other is too strong to ignore; they run off to Paris together only to discover that their love is based on a mutual craving for violent arguments and physical brawls. Its second-act love scene was nearly censored in Britain, as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, ‘Someday I'll Find You’, for the play. The play starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier. A Broadway production followed in 1931

Allotting screen-time and space to about 20 characters is a Herculean task, and Fellowes and Curtis are up to it. All the characters come across as credible, and it is difficult to single out any one as a better performer. Some of them begin where they ended their contribution to the earlier film, or the TV series, and some have been newly inducted. None of them go over the top. Mary, who accepts the imminent change in society and loss of privileges of Lords and ladies, is the at the center of the film, and her interaction with Sambrook, as well as her sister giving a piece of her mind to the con-man, stand out as engaging tracks in the narrative. Sambrook and Levinson look their parts physically.

Royalty and aristocracy all over the world began to get phased out in the early to mid-20th century, and this movie captures the Crawleys coming to grips with the phenomenon in London and Yorkshire. We have seen numerous Indian films about decadent Rajas and Nawabs failing to accept the inevitable change, and the emergence of socialism as a way of life, in many countries. Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar and Abrar Alvi-Guru Dutt’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam did a splendid job of recreating this ambience. In fact, Ray traced the onset of losing royal privileges, albeit to invading East India company forces, and not social upheavals, in the 19th century based Shatranj Ke Khilari too.

If you need to know who’s who in the film, here is a list of actors and the roles they have played.

Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham

Laura Carmichael as Edith Pelham, Marchioness of Hexham, second daughter of Lord and Lady Grantham

Jim Carter as Charles "Charlie" Carson, former butler of the Crawley family and husband of Elsie Hughes, housekeeper.

Raquel Cassidy as Phyllis Baxter, lady's maid to Lady Grantham, and wife of Joseph Molesley

Paul Copley as Albert Mason, a tenant farmer under the Crawleys, father of Daisy's first husband, William Mason and love interest of Beryl Patmore

Brendan Coyle as John Bates, the valet of Lord Grantham, and husband of Anna Bates

Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary Crawley, eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Grantham

Kevin Doyle as Joseph Molesley, the local school-teacher at Downton, former footman at Downton Abbey and husband of Phyllis Baxter, now a film script-writer

Michael Fox as Andrew "Andy" Parker, former footman and current butler at Downton Abbey and husband of Daisy Parker

Joanne Froggatt as Anna Bates, lady's maid to Lady Mary, and wife of John Bates

Paul Giamatti as Harold Levinson, an American businessman, and brother of Lady Grantham

Harry Hadden-Paton as Herbert "Bertie" Pelham, 7th Marquess of Hexham, and husband of Edith

Robert James-Collier as Thomas Barrow, former butler at Downton Abbey, currently the housekeeper, dresser, and secret lover of Guy Dexter

Allen Leech as Tom Branson, the widower of Lady Sybil, Lord and Lady Grantham's late youngest daughter, and husband of Lucy Smith, a distant cousin of the Crawley family

Phyllis Logan as Elsie Hughes, the housekeeper at Downton Abbey and wife of Charlie Carson

Elizabeth McGovern as Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham

Sophie McShera as Daisy Parker, assistant cook at Downton Abbey and wife of Andy Parker

Lesley Nicol as Beryl Patmore, long-time cook at Downton Abbey

Douglas Reith as Richard "Dickie" Grey, Lord Merton, a family friend of the Crawleys, godfather of Lady Mary, and second husband of Isobel

Dominic West as Guy Dexter, an actor and secret lover of Thomas Barrow

Penelope Wilton as Isobel Grey, Lady Merton and mother of Mary's late first husband Matthew Crawley

Simon Russell Beale as Sir Hector Moreland

Arty Froushan as Noël Coward

Alessandro Nivola as Gus Sambrook

Joely Richardson as Lady Petersfield

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://youtu.be/P_30wFRxlnA