The Unfettered Critic – October 2019

We’re back.

And so are they.

“We” being your Unfettered Critics. “They” being. . . well, we’ll get to them in a moment.

Some of you may have noticed (and we thank those of you who’ve stopped us on the street to say you had) that our column mysteriously went missing from recent issues of this esteemed lifestyle magazine. It’s our fault. One day the phone rang and we answered. Life hasn’t been the same since.

To keep our retirement from becoming stale, we occasionally (as many of you know) write books. Projects pop up from publishing houses or film studios that we’ve worked with in the past. If we like the subject matter, along with a very distant deadline and the (ahem) budget, we deem it an offer we can’t refuse. This time the elements just fell together.

Knowing it would be complicated, we put our lives (and this column) on hold, and dove in: five months of researching and interviewing and transcribing and writing and editing and pouring through digital archives that seemed to reach clear to Hades, until, at the end of August, we sent a first draft manuscript to our London-based editor. We’re now awaiting comments—which we know will lead to torturous adventures in text revision and image captioning.

Speaking of torture: We can’t yet reveal to you what the aforementioned project is about! (Other than it’s a lavishly illustrated tome that falls within the category of “show-biz,” which the publisher plans for wide-release “sometime in 2020.”) ‘Nuff said.

Meanwhile, may we please divert your attention to the above-mentioned “they.”

Consider, if you will, two words: Downton Abbey. Or, better yet: Four words: Downton Abbey—the movie. We couldn’t be more excited.

The outstanding British-produced historical drama aired on PBS from 2011 to 2015. The account of the Crawley family—Robert, Earl of Grantham, the Countess Cora, their three conflicted daughters, the extended family, and their sometimes adorable, sometimes aggravating, always fascinating, servant staff, won hearts worldwide.

And now that wondrous group (we think of them as friends rather than “characters”) will stand tall on the big screen. The movie’s story begins in 1927, a year after the TV series ended. To the family’s surprise, a messenger arrives to announce that King George V and Queen Mary are planning to visit Downton. Imagine the frenzy! The primping! The polishing! And that tantalizing cooking!

Most of the sprawling cast is returning: Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Brendon Coyle, Joanne Foggatt, etc., etc., etc. And with the screenplay written by Julian Fellowes, who created every fictional element of the series, it certainly looks promising.

Above all, we’re looking forward to quotes from the grand dowager, Violet. The zingers Maggie Smith delivered, such as: “I do think a woman’s place is in the home, but I see no harm in her having some fun before she gets there;” “All this thinking is very over-rated;” or “Principles are like prayers; noble, of course, but awkward at a party,” have made us miss her most of all.

The film opens September 20—after the date we’re writing this, but before the date this Review hits your doorstep. Hopefully some of you (and us) already have seen it. We predict it’ll stay on area screens a long time. So when next you spot us on the streets of Jacksonville, instead of asking where we’ve been, perhaps you’ll tell us how much you liked—or not—the film.

And maybe by then we’ll be able to tell you what our bloody book is about!