Downton Abbey: A New Era

My mom loves this show, just adores it. This was her Mother's Day gift. Like the first film, she just wanted to see this with me. She really wants me to watch the show. But I was never interested in the melodrama of the aristocracy, nor have I been that obsessed as others are about the lives of the obscenely wealthy, with their giant opulent castles and structural staff of cooks, maids, and cleanup.

But Maggie Smith is always fun with her quips, and the silent film crew getting to shoot the gambling picture at Downton Abbey was a cool addition because I'm a film buff who loved the era this is set. Dominic West as the gay matinee idol who charms effortlessly and Haddock as the grand cinema diva with a thick accent that the maids are familiar with since her family are the "poors" are welcome outsiders to this vast array of characters I often see pop up on Midsomer Murders. With Sound replacing the silent film era, West and Haddock feel their popularity and careers will be at an end. This part of the film interested me purely as a cinemaphile. Hugh Dancy is the director working in concert with Dockery, who corrals the staff and remaining family at DA not going off to a villa in France left to Smith by a count who died always loving her based on a week fifty years prior. The villa part of the plot is about the count's wife and son forced to leave the gorgeous estate, left for Maggie's great grandaughter and her family to vacation. So it's just wealth upon wealth for the few while we get to spend time with the sweet friendly staff and different other subplots about illness, death, marriage, departures, inheritance, goodbyes, job changes, medical diagnosis, past inspected, fear of paternity, and matchmaking.