Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Rated PG • Theaters

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale promises to be, well, a grand finale to Julian Fellowes’ highbrow soap opera that first premiered 15 years ago. And just to drive home how much he expects fans to love this conclusion, the film begins with an ovation. But does this third movie based on a TV series deserve our applause?

This installment doesn’t stray from the franchise’s most familiar themes: familial scandal and financial woes. The year is 1930, and as the movie begins, we learn Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) has recently divorced the race-car-driving husband she married in Season 6 of the television series. (I assume the actor who played him wasn’t available.) Mary becomes a social pariah excluded from polite society. Troubles compound when the family discovers part of their fortune has evaporated.

The movie doesn’t possess a tight plot—it’s more a vague impression of a story. Mary, reeling from her divorce, abandons morality in a scene that should carry greater emotional consequences. The family continually praises her as she pushes her far-from-infirm father out of his role as head of the family. And the film’s final dubious lesson is that everything can be solved with a dinner party. Then there’s also the moralizing progressive agenda that crops up from time to time.

Nonetheless, fans of the series will undoubtedly delight in the opulent settings and luxurious costumes. The old favorites from the cast are all here, with the notable exception of Maggie Smith’s Lady Violet, whose absence looms large. Fellowes offers viewers some clever dialogue, but for the most part the film relies on our craving for nostalgia to impart pleasure, rather than its own merit.