Downton Abbey: A New Era film review

A second big-screen helping of Julian Fellowes’ drama

I’ve always had “a bit of a soft spot” for Downton, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Tuning into a new offering is reassuring, like “putting on a pair of old slippers”. But even my patience was tested by A New Era, the second Downton film spin-off. We’re now in 1928, and the dowager countess (Maggie Smith) has unexpectedly inherited a villa from a French aristocrat, with whom she had a dalliance many moons ago. As a “posse of Downton residents” decamp to the Riviera to inspect the property, Downton itself is invaded by a film crew who are paying through the nose to use the building as a set. All the usual Downton ingredients crop up – “a birth, a proposal, a death, a paternity worry, a health scare” – but there’s far too much exposition, and the writing is often woeful. “Old slippers? Sometimes they have to go.”

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