"Downton"

Her Indoors and I went to see this yesterday.

As I expected, there is no real plot, just a few sketchy sub-plots with tenuous links to each other; the characters are one-dimensional to the point of being caricatures (yet still inconsistent); the film barely questions the underlying social injustices - a couple of the characters claim to be 'republicans' i.e. anti-monarchy without realising that their employer, a large landowner, is a beneficiary of the exploitative monarchical system.

The filming is 'sumptuous', nice camera angles and lighting, beautiful interiors and costumes etc. There was only one crass anachronism, when a self-employed plumber who worked late said "I want to make a success of my business, so I don't just do nine-to-five", and apart from that it all looked historically accurate to me.

It's basically three episodes of the TV series shown back-to-back without advertising breaks.

Yet somehow it grinds you down and I left the cinema in a good mood with a big dumb grin on my face. Strange.