What a lovely end to a lovely show, a perfect ending that bought everything together tied up with a neat little bow and made me wish that I had generational wealth too and that my great grandparents would have also bought me a villa in France.

A New Era looks at Downton Abbey coming into the 1930s, where talkies in cinema are the new big thing and the family realise they have more connections than first meets the eye. While a film is being produced at Downton Abbey some of the family members go to the south of France to inherit a villa that was left to the grandmother of the group, Maggie Smith, by an old lover she had somewhat of a fling with.

However this fling doesn’t seem all that innocent when it turns out that the main man of the house could actually be an imposter and his real father be this random French man, it’s a very interesting storyline that doesn’t really go anywhere but it’s quite nice to have a bit of mystery in the final moments of this series.

We also see how the new era is changing people from women having more say in the household to film and TV changing throughout the years and and how there just seems to be many more opportunities for people than there were before. It’s quite nice to be in this little bubble between the two world wars when everything seems to have quietened down and people can get back to some normality, it was very hard to not look at the young ones of this movie and imagine what their lives would be like in just 10 years time.

As always with Downton this film had simple feuds and fickle concerns but that doesn’t make it bad because we care about these characters so much so we care about their problems because we want to see them do well, and it is nice to know that regardless of what happens in the future they’ve had this moment of peace and happiness that they can take with them as a memory.

Overall the film was enjoyable, it was nice to see new characters introduced as well as having some time with your old characters too despite them looking aged because of the time jump from the show to this film. It was nice to have closure with everything too and I do believe Downton is done now and I would like to see the BBC move on to new projects, but it was a lovely ending all the same and it was nice to catch up with the characters one last time before they’re off our screens completely.

What do you think of Downton Abbey: A New Era?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding