Slavish

I don't think I'm a fan of these movies serving as conclusions or continuations of TV series. Remaking a small-screen serial to adjust to the long form of a theatrical release is another matter, and there are plenty of examples of features that work in this field separate from their episodic precedents. Although both motion pictures, feature-length cinema and chapter plays broadcast and streamed at home are two considerably different art forms; one might work well in one medium and fail miserably in the other. Despite mostly positive reviews from others, I consider that the case with "Downton Abbey" (2019), although even it's better than another such example of this phenomenon in 2019, "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie," which makes it appropriate that the latter is mostly restricted to Netflix whereas this conservative country-house melodrama on classism for Anglophiles received wide theatrical distribution. That's because the show lends itself better to the big screen in a couple ways, although it also falls short in most other respects.

On the plus side, "Downton Abbey" is architecturally grounded by the eponymous estate. The camerawork and use of space, consequently, translates well to a movie. For "El Camino," they attempted to compensate for this by emulating the Western, with its sweeping vistas, but dismally so. The other thing going for "Downton Abbey" is the score. The script here doesn't deserve its dramatic buildup, but, admittedly, it does manage to make even setting up chairs in the rain more compelling than it otherwise would be (which is to say it wouldn't otherwise have been of any interest and barely is regardless).

I never finished the TV series, but it was entirely too easy to pick back up with the characters in this movie. That's because despite all the big world events the show covered in a "Forrest Gump" (1944) sort of way, the characters left standing don't develop. Sure, the daughters switch beaus and this or that servant resigns or is hired, but it seems ridiculous to me that a series survives for years, hours upon hours of story, without changing. I suppose that's comforting to viewers picking up a show once a week to not be thrown off by radical shifts in character and narrative, and it makes more sense for the same reason to dance in and out of the lives of a plethora of them, but it's antithetical to good cinematic storytelling. A two-hour farewell party to your favorite characters frozen in time doesn't make for quality cinema. It doesn't help, either, that these characters and the writing are slavishly in awe of the British social hierarchy of yesteryear. Some episodes are best left in the past.