Downton Abbey: A New Era

My sisters and I haven't been able to do anything together for over two years because one of us was always taking care of our parents so it was really fun (and a little bittersweet) for the three of us to be able to go to an early access screening of Downton Abbey: A New Era last night.  We are huge fans of the PBS series (we even saw the first movie together) so it was great to catch up with the Crawley family once again.  Violet (Maggie Smith) calls the family together to inform them that she is altering her will.  It seems that she has inherited a villa in the south of France and intends to bequeath it to her great-granddaughter, Sybbie.  Robert (Hugh Bonneville) and Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), Edith (Laura Carmichael) and Bertie (Harry Hadden-Paton), Tom (Allen Leech) and Lucy (Tuppence Middleton), and Lady Bagshaw (Imelda Staunton) all decide to travel to France to meet the current owners of the villa to unravel the mystery of Violet's mysterious past.  Meanwhile, Mary (Michelle Dockery) stays behind because a director (Hugh Dancy) wants to use Downton Abbey as the location for a film starring Guy Dexter (Dominic West) and Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock).  Chaos ensues when the movie suddenly becomes a "talkie" and when the downstairs staff, including Barrow (Robert James-Collier), Mrs. Carson (Phyllis Logan), Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol), Molesley (Kevin Doyle), Baxter (Raquel Cassidy), Daisy (Sophie McShera), Andy (Michael Fox), and Anna (Joanne Froggat), are roped into being extras.  Everything about this movie is simply delightful and fans of the series are sure to love it.  The locations and costumes are stunning and, even though there are a lot of characters to keep track of, the story is really engaging.  I particularly enjoyed the character arcs for Barrow, Molesley and Baxter, and Violet.  I laughed out loud many times and I had a tear in my eye at the resolution (series creator Julian Fellowes has stated that he is happy with the resolution if this is the last movie and so am I but I hope there is another one).  My sisters enjoyed it as much as I did (we were the last people out of the theater because we had to discuss it at length immediately afterwards).  I recommend this installment to people who love the series as much as my sisters and I do!

Note:  I think the next movie should be a prequel featuring the exploits of a young Violet.