DOWNTON ABBEY: THE MOTION PICTURE

Now playing at arthouses, multiplexes, and drive-ins (okay, maybe not at drive-ins) everywhere: 

DOWNTON ABBEY (Dir. Michael Engler, 2019) 

The aristocratic Crawley family and their staff from the British TV smash, Downton Abbey, make the leap to the big screen in this fluffy, frothy, yet charmingly fine film which is currently the #1 movie at the box office. 

Taking place in 1927, three years after the events of the sixth season of the show, this update concerns the returning cast (nearly every member of the sprawling ensemble is back) dealing with a visit by the King and Queen (Simon Jones and Geraldine James) to Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham’s (Hugh Bonneville) majestic Edwardian estate. 

The family, including Crawley’s wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), daughters Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery), and Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael); is excited about the royal occasion while Crawley’s mother, Violet (Maggie Smith) spouts acidic wittisms just like you’d expect. 

That’s the upstairs, downstairs the servants, including the stern butler Carson (Jim Carter), housekeeper Phyllis Baxter (Raquel Cassidy), valet John Bates (Brendan Coyle), Bates’ wife, Lady’s maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt), footman Joseph Moseley (Kevin Doyle), and cooks Daisy Mason (Sophie McShera), and Beryl Patmore (Lesley Nicol); are fretting about nervously about how best to do their duties. 

Since Carson has returned from retirement to reclaim his butler position, this puts the film (and the series’) semi-villain Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier) out of a job (a familiar predicament as his job was always on the line on the show) and he heads into town for his own little racy adventure. 

Then the staff finds out from the King’s crew that they won’t be need for the event as the royal staff will fulfill the duties of cooking, serving, cleaning, and the like. This leads to a plan to sabotage the visiting servants in comical ways so that they can do their treasured work to “restore Downton’s honor.” 

Meanwhile there’s also a budding romance between honorary Crawley family member and Irish Republican sympathizer Tom Brosnan (Allen Leech), and royal attendant Lady Bagshaw’s (Imelda Stauton) maid Lucy (Tuppence Middleton); and friction between Smith’s Violet, and Lady Bagshaw over the family inheritance. 

There are a few other little subplots, but that’s all I’ll go into. DOWNTON ABBEY: THE MOTION PICTURE is an enjoyably breezy piece of glossy entertainment, but it’s really just a super-sized episode of the show. The only really cinematic moments, courtesy of cinematographer Ben Smithard, are when the camera circles the exteriors of the stately house of the title (in real life it’s Highclere Castle), and in some tasty angles in the large interiors. 

Also, with a cast so large like this, many roles are reduced to mere cameos. For example, Coyle’s Bates, a very significant character on the series, gets like three to four lines here. But screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, who created and wrote or co-wrote the entire series, mostly juggles the various strands deftly, and with plenty of well-earned humor. Director Michael Engler also handles the material with amusing aplomb, something he’s had a lot of experience with as he’s helmed choice episodes of such notable shows as My So Called Life, Six Feet Under, 30 Rock, The Big C, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Downton Abbey itself. 

Fans of the show should love this film follow-up, and with its major success, it just may be just the beginning of a new franchise. 

The movie has been structured so that folks who haven’t seen the series should be able to find a way in, but I’d say that it will largely help to have some sort of working knowledge of what went down over those six seasons before taking it on.

More later...

Introducing my new book, Wilcopedia!

I’ve been majorly neglecting Film Babble Blog lately for one big reason: I’ve been working on publicizing my new book Wilcopedia: A Comprehensive Guide to the Music of America’a Best Band. 

Covering the career of the critically acclaimed Chicago band Wilco, it just released yesterday and is available at most retailers that sell books - Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and even Walmart. 

I started a blog called, of course, Wilcopedia (The Blog), which features excerpts from the book, setlists from the band’s current tour, and various related whatnot.

There’s also a Facebook page, which features examples of the press the book has been receiving. I hope you visit these forums to find out more about Wilcopedia as I’ve put a lot of work into it and think interested fans will really dig it.

Okay, so now I’ve plugged my book on Film Babble Blog. I'll get back to babbling ‘bout film shortly.

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The Love Story Between Leonard Cohen & His Muse Marianne

Opening today in the triangle at Silverspot Cinema in Chapel Hill, AMC CLASSIC Durham 15, and Regal North Hills 14 in Raleigh:

MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE

(Dir. Nick Broomfield, 2019)

This is a quite touching treatise on the on again off again relationship between iconic poet/singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and his lover/muse, Marianne Ihlen (the subject of Cohen’s classic “So Long, Marianne”).

It’s also the best film yet by documentarian Nick Broomfield, who, in some of his films (AILEEN WUORNOS, KURT & COURTNEY, BIGGIE & TUPAK) has come off as a twit.

Not here, however, as he tenderly relays the Norwegian Marianne and the Canadian Leonard meeting on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960, and how they immediately hit it off. This is offset by Broomfield revealing that “for a short while, I became one of her [Marianne’s] lovers.”

Marriane and Leonard lived together for a bit, each feeding off the other’s self conscious souls. Leonard began as a writer, an aspiring novelist, but didn’t really make his mark until Judy Collins recorded his song “Suzanne.” Collins persuaded him to overcome his stage fright and get onstage, and then, as Collins says, “He was off to the races, Columbia signed him up, and was his label forever.”

Meanwhile Marianne deals with depression, loneliness, until she gets a telegram from Leonard requesting she come to him with her son to the Montreal. From there, they live in New York as Leonard’s star rises as we see via 1970 footage from the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and the legendary Isle of Wight Festival.

We also get some anecdotal evidence as to how much of a ladies’ man Leonard was in the ‘70s, while he still spent time with Marianne, and Suzanne Verdal, who inspired the aforementioned song of the same name.

If it seems as though I’m spending more time on Leonard than Marianne, it’s because that’s what Broomfield does. Marianne seems to whittle away years in Hydra, which is depicted throughout the film home movie-style as a beautiful seaside and mountainside village, before she decides to go back home to Oslo, Norway, and begin a normal life.

Leonard goes into a monestary at the Mount Baldy Zen Center in California from 1994-1999, but comes back to find that his trusted manager had embezzled millions from him and he was broke. This made Leonard get back on stage to again make a living and the shows were rousing successes (I saw him in Durham, NC, in 2009 and he was magnificent).

Despite the couple’s imbalance, the film’s focus is on their relationship and ends on a poignant note pertaining to Leonard’s last love letter to Marianne received on her death bed in 2016; Leonard would pass three months later.

MARIANNE & LEONARD is as moving as a documentary can get. It’s not as poetic as the troubled people it portrays but it gets awful close to their discomfort in making love last. By putting forth his most personal story yet, Bloomfield seems closer to his subjects than in any of his previous works.

More later...