Downton Abbey: A New Era

Violet, the head of the family, inherits a villa in France, left to her by a man she knew years ago, and nobody dares ask what that means. Part of the family goes to the Riviera. In the same days a film crew is shooting at Downton, a unit caught in the middle of the change from silent film to sound, and they upend the whole running of the house. Simon Curtis directed. It is the second feature in the series. The French section was shot at Villa Roccabella, about an hour from Saint-Tropez. The production designer Donal Woods had one criterion when looking: it had to fit the period Violet might have visited as a young woman, meaning the middle of the nineteenth century. The villa was designed in the late nineteenth century by the Danish architect Hans-Georg Tersling, and its marble corridors and pink marble columns stand deliberately against the heaviness of Downton itself. The budget was 40 million dollars, twice the first film, the increase coming from pandemic safety protocols and the extra locations. The North American opening took 16 million dollars from 3,815 cinemas and the international gross was 35 million. It was among the last major roles Maggie Smith played before her death in September 2024. Who it is for: people who watched the series and like period decor. Who it is not for: anyone who does not know it. The film introduces nobody and assumes you can already tell a cast of ten apart.