MOVIE TIP

Downton Abbey

I enjoyed this film well enough while I was watching it, but it — poof! — disappeared from my mind immediately afterward. This follow-up to the popular TV series is lovely to look at — those costumes! those sets! — and the storyline, about the king and queen of England coming to visit Downtown Abbey in 1927, provides genteel drama. The movie skips along at a pace that feels slightly fast-forwarded, as if the filmmakers were trying to give every significant character from the TV show his or her moment while struggling to cram it all into a two-hour film. What’s the best element of the whole shebang? You guessed it: Dame Maggie Smith. I could listen to her tartly deliver one-liners all day.