Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Fan service drips from the Downton Abbey films, and certainly here for its titular grand finale, from its opening dialogue to the necessary and expected helicopter shot that tracks away from a winding pastoral driveway to the view of that magical facade we've loved seeing for fifteen years now. And, at least in my nicely filled little auditorium, the audible cheers and sighs and laughter helped make the movie for me. It's like the obligatory introductory shot of Hogwarts in each movie, or the slow reveal of John Wayne in one of his flicks. Surrounded as I was by groups of white women several decades older than myself, I felt somehow transported through time and space, back to my high school years of turning on PBS to watch the new drama series that quickly became a favorite between me and my mother. That's the magical feeling that legacy sequels are supposed to provide -- but that's a nut to crack another time. 

It's 1930, and the world is still reeling from the stock market crash, and questions resurface that have long plagued the Crawley family: how much longer can we sustainably stay in our home, with our comfortable lifestyle, and care for our tenant community? It's now about eighteen years after the start of the series (and fifteen years since we started watching it in 2010), and not everyone is still part of the group; Dame Maggie Smith is honored well in this entry, along with a beautiful dedication. But the film works best -- admittedly, perhaps only -- as this metafictional meditation on the cost and necessity of moving on from a place of security and comfort. This is our last look, and indeed, many members of the family have already left or are prepared to leave soon, so the bittersweet warmth of Downton's scenic views and richly detailed interior are never less than enthralling to behold.

The series has always been about this issue, which makes this final entry a consummate work of emotional art. The Crawleys have, endlessly, battled themselves and each other to accept change or resist it. Clearly Julian Fellowes hasn't wanted to (or been able to) let go either, as the trilogy of films has evidenced. And of course we, the viewing public, have been clamoring for more for some time now. But all good things must end, and they end better on our determined terms than by the cruel whims of fate. I applaud Fellowes and director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Goodbye Christopher Robin, A New Era) on knowing when to stop and creating a calculatedly brilliant -- indeed, grand -- denouement to this saga. 

The presence of some American characters, notably Paul Giamatti's brother of Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) and his rakish associate (a delicious Alessandro Nivola), make up the real guest stars here, much in the mode of the series. We're also blessed with Simon Russell Beale, Joely Richardson, and Arty Froushan in such intoxicatingly rich roles that I found myself wishing they had all joined earlier. This is ensemble casting as it was in the golden age of Hollywood, and Fellowes nails it (Gosford Park told us long ago where his sweet spot always lay). He knows his characters intimately, and so do we by now, giving them endlessly quotable lines that elicit emotional responses from the audience in every single scene. 

For me, the greatest emotional payoff in this film -- virtually cashing in all of its emotionally taxed profits on our behalf at the same brutal, rapturous time -- lies with what might have been its biggest risk. Thomas Barrow was not a likable character in the series at all. Robert James Collier imbued a thankless dredge of a role with tortured insight and a richly dynamic energy that allowed the character to shift and breathe and stress for years in relative obscurity and only occasional redemption. But Fellowes and Collier, in the trilogy of films, have finally given Barrow a chance to really blossom before our eyes, and this film in particular provides the almost incredible final ascent of his character to nirvana, and I thought we'd never see it. That's all I'll say on that front. If you know, you know. Be blessed.

It's also fair to say, and I think this goes beyond my own bias, that Collier delivers some of the film's most humorous and joyful moments, along with his comrades Dominic West (still playing a role so well that I keep forgetting it's West) and Arty Froushan (as the unshakably charming Noel Coward). There's a scene I at first disliked, when Coward is asked to entertain the Crawleys and shown in full measure as he plays the piano and sings to them; it felt odd and lazy and overly shmaltzy from a writerly perspective until the camera began panning across the faces of his audience. In light of the impending end of all this, we're treated to watching people at a precipice fully engaged with and moved by the only art available to them in a given moment. Of course they can't whip out their phones to record his song, but there's something to Curtis choosing to force us to witness the power of pure spectatorship when we don't let distractions take us away from genuine human interaction. How we have to pay attention to the important things in life, and so few of them are on our phone screens. And none are on social media. It feels apt in a story about choosing what is ultimately best for us and moving on, especially given the past year of news about AI art and the arts being co-opted by rising autocrats. 

I will note, as a middling criticism, that though Fellowes and Curtis in no way skimp on us, there were several other moments in this film I wanted to linger upon. It's not like their budget or studio would have begrudged them an extra minute or two on delicate matters. Nevertheless, it's invigorating to experience Fellowes's extraordinary gift for pacing in ensemble drama, and he is one of the most efficient screenwriters working today when he's in his groove. Like an Aaron Sorkin piece, his characters will pop in and out of a single brief scene and completely change the plot in a matter of minutes. And after the somewhat fanciful rabbit trail of A New Era, here things feel focused and tight, like Fellowes wound it up with a vigor intended for it to outlast us all. 

The Outfit (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Easily the most beautiful and underspoken crime thriller in recent memory, The Outfit was one of those sneaky movies that flitted in and out of select cinemas early in 2022, right around awards season when nobody pays much attention to new releases. It's a crying shame, because as director Graham Moore's debut (he had previously written the screenplay for The Imitation Game, for which he won the Oscar), it's one of the most suave, confident, and brilliant debuts I've seen in a while. And in a genre that almost never rewards first-timers in any capacity. This film is about as twisty and polished as any war-era thriller, and the sort of "whodunnit" aspect is endlessly unpredictable, and yet it could easily be produced as a theatrical experience that would be no less riveting.

In Chicago in the '50s, Leonard Burling (a typically stunning Mark Rylance) lords over his bespoke outfitting shop for men. Originally hailing from Savile Row, he moved to the States after WWII; he firmly claims his identity as a "cutter" multiple times during the film, maintaining his stiff upper lip throughout. During one scene, he mentions the Blitz being only part of the reason he left; the other was blue jeans, the manufactured workaday stuff pumped out in assembly that could be made and purchased cheaply. His life seems sewn up, so to speak, in his trade and shop, and his pace of life seems slow and rather dull, despite his obvious passion and fascination with habiliments. His warm, wooden-and-leather parlor (the production design is extraordinary here) can be at once changed into a sort of operating room, with a large cutting table dead center and tools and fabrics of various sorts carefully arranged all around.

Burling's formidable poker face belies other secrets, though, than some dark tragedy from his past, and over the course of the film -- and numerous theatrical encounters with various personae -- we will learn exactly what's going on behind his personal façade and the façade of his shop. Several gangsters will grace his door over the course of the evening, ones belonging almost exclusively to the violent and dangerous Boyle family, including characters played by Dylan O'Brien and Johnny Flynn and patriarch mob boss Simon Russell Beale. They seem to offer him some protection and business, but they also use his store as a front for secret messages, meetings, and even a drop location for various associates. Burling doesn't get involved in the crime, as he is dutifully attempting to keep a calm and healthy atmosphere for his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), but the pair see and hear far more than they should and have made respective plans accordingly. Nobody is without motive, insight, or dangerous information.

I don't want to spoil anything else, because the joys of this film are manifold but hinge on the increasing unpredictability of its plot. Each new encounter had my head reeling, whether it involved romantic revelations, financial hardships and debts, or details about a rival crime family looming on the fringes of the Boyle dynasty. All in all, it's an incredibly rich film, made with I expect a modest budget that primarily went to its cast, but that leaves you with an impression of something epic having taken place. For a chamber piece of crime thrills -- a phrase I've never used and don't expect to use again -- it's astonishing and beautiful and will likely haunt me for some time to come.

Radioactive (2020)

 Score: 4 / 5

For a biopic, it's not particularly grounded in reality. But that's precisely what I so enjoyed about Radioactive, Marjane Satrapi's high-concept investigation of the life of Marie Curie. This isn't meant to be terribly realistic in terms of historical accuracy, and it's not meant to be measured by traditional standards of biographical movies. Satrapi and screenwriter Jack Thorne (known for eschewing timelines and choosing magic over the mundane) here turn Curie's life into a fascinating, time-jumping adventure into the famed woman's psyche. More importantly, they seem to consider her own opinions of her legacy, neither the glory or horrors of which she could have possibly known.

The always brilliant Rosamund Pike continues her streak of surprising us with unexpected characters and brutal emotions as the famed physicist and chemist. Working through the time jumps in Curie's story -- from her early professional career in 1890s Paris to her death in 1934 -- Pike fires on all fronts, stealing every scene even as she carries the movie. While her dialogue often pronounces its themes and motivations with total disregard for subtlety or complexity, she delivers it with enough conviction and pride that it usually sticks the landing. Relishing the pragmatism and fiery spirit of her character, Pike often squares off with Sam Riley, who plays the Polish immigrant's scientific partner and husband Pierre Curie. Some of my favorite scenes feature the two interrogating their feelings for each other as if using the scientific method to test their own emotional journeys.

Most fascinating about this uncommonly straightforward feminist project, however, is Satrapi's direction. Some might call it heavy-handed and artificial, but I'd liken it to a Tennessee Williams memory play; after all, it begins with the collapse of our protagonist shortly before her death, and the entirety of the film comprises flashbacks (and flash-forwards) as she reviews her life, thankfully without voiceover narration. As such, it features a dreamlike aesthetic wherein feelings and themes become literal symbols. When Pierre and Marie kiss for the first time, a large open flame in the background literalizes their bright, burning passion. Indeed, the picture is never less than beautiful to be hold, with much credit due to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, whose body of major work with Lars von Trier and Danny Boyle, among others, is never less than dazzling. The many laboratory scenes, which could so easily have been cold and clinical, are rendered through gorgeously filtered light, reinforcing the dreamlike aura of memory. And then there are the impossibly beautiful moments of Marie in a dark void -- usually while in emotional turmoil -- lit by the light of radioactive, emerald stars.

Even as the dialogue sometimes lacks depth, the same cannot be said for Radioactive's dramatic structure, and it is in this that the film most succeeds as a biopic. Sure, the actual plot follows concrete points in her life like those you might read in a children's biography book about women of science or Nobel Prize winners. It's not deep, but a good refresher for those of us who don't know everything about famous physicists, if you take it with grains of dramatic salt. But interspersed with her victories and failures are the (perhaps inevitable?) consequences of her discoveries. Brief scenes show a doctor offering radiation therapy to the father of a little boy dying of cancer, x-rays saving lives and limbs on battlefields, an atomic bomb dropping towards the Hiroshima skyline, and a particularly brutal transition into the Chernobyl disaster. It is this unique, consistent attention to a very palpable legacy that sets Radioactive apart from so many others of its ilk.

Operation Finale (2018)

Score: 3.5 / 5

We all know the story -- even peripherally -- of Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazi brains behind the "Final Solution," the Holocaust. We know that he escaped Europe and lived for a decade in Argentina under a false identity. We know that Israeli intelligence agents tracked him down, captured him, and returned him to face trial before sentencing him to death. We know, too, that his name is synonymous with the "banality of evil" and that "little Eichmanns" are the sort of sycophantic, mindless paper pushers and bureaucratic desk workers who never get their own hands dirty but whose activities cause great harm to others.

It would follow, as we know the basic story and characters, that a cinematic depiction of these events and characters might be one of those great war thrillers or revenge dramas that sweep awards and educate while they provoke and honor. Operation Finale, while serviceable and highly entertaining, falls short of such expectations for many reasons. Though a pretty amazing team of artists hide behind the curtain -- to say nothing of the ones on screen -- there's just something that didn't quite work on the grand, epic scale of (for example) Munich or Zero Dark Thirty.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think Operation Finale even wants to be considered a "great film." It's almost a chamber piece, revolving around its two main characters as they intellectually spar during Eichmann's captivity. The great pleasure of the film lies with these characters and the actors who portray them. Ben Kingsley is chilling as Eichmann, at once silly and conceited yet calculating and manipulative. He seems to have no remorse for his crimes, and endlessly seeks justification for his own existence, about which he has apparently no delusions. He knows he's just an animal, and though brief insights into his emotional state occasionally flash through his stony visage, his existence seems based on instinctual tasks like eating, shitting, and finding comfort.

Oscar Isaac carries the film as his primary captor, Peter Malkin, who struggles to keep his mission professional but nevertheless succeeds where his peers fail. He crosses boundaries in his efforts to get Eichmann to comply, alienating his team, but as the story's end attests, Malkin apparently knew exactly what he was doing the whole time. His beauty in no way detracts from the proceedings, though it does distract on occasion; his greatest contribution to the character, however, is in his dedication to the little moments of silence as he contemplates the horrifically complex ethics of the mission.

With a team including Javier Aguirresarobe and Alexandre Desplat, Operation Finale had great resources and guidance. While director Chris Weitz may have been ill-prepared for a postwar espionage thriller with timely and important themes, there's not a clear reason why this flick isn't a new staple in the WWII canon. Perhaps we can blame the story itself: not really a war movie, it flips constantly between feeling like a thriller or drama or history. How do we read it? How did the director read it? It's not an easy question to answer, made all the more difficult in the film's repeated tonal shifting; I love breaking the mold of genre and experimenting with new art forms, but it's important too to have a sense of purpose and intent and, it's true, direction. Its attention to detail and fabulous nuance in ethical dilemma make Finale engaging if not quite thrilling, and even got me to forget (briefly) how the story would end.

P.S.: Keep your eyes peeled for Simon Russell Beale in a surprising single-scene role as David Ben-Gurion, blessing Malkin's team before they depart Israel.

IMDb: Operation Finale