I was just thinking about my favourite rainy-day romantic movies again the other day. You know, because the rainy season has hit and I’ll take any excuse to curl up with a blanket on a wet, grey day and watch a good old-fashioned period drama. And as far as period dramas go, nobody writes a good historical romp for the screen quite like Julian Fellowes. Best-known for Downton Abbey, lesser known for some other truly smashing forays into the class politics of the early twentieth century. I’ve reviewed them all here, so you should have no end of entertainment through the fall.
Enjoy.
The Young Victoria, 2009
The Young Victoria follows, well, a young Queen Victoria through her teenage years from the time she found out she would be queen to her early reign.
Forgive me, but I can’t help but compare The Young Victoria with the three seasons of ITV’s Victoria. I thought Jenna Coleman was a better casting choice for the titular role because she seemed very much like a sweet, innocent little girl, and Victoria had only just turned 18 years old when she ascended the throne. Emily Blunt was a strong personality. Now don’t get me wrong, it made her shine when she stood up to her mother and Sir John Conroy and later faced her first cabinet and promised to be good, but it didn’t help her come across as being barely out of girlhood. Opposite her was Rupert Friend as Albert. A quiet, even-tempered, beautiful blonde German prince who I thought was perfectly cast as opposed to Tom Hughes’ perpetually brooding Alfred in the ITV series.
All in all, I thought The Young Victoria was very well done. It captures young Victoria’s naivety and all the sweetness of her romance with Albert, as well as her strict upbringing under the Kensington System that led to her becoming estranged from her mother. It’s a sumptuous production and indeed, very well-written.
Titanic, 2012
Released in April 2012 to coincide with the centenary of the Titanic’s sinking, this four-part miniseries follows a cast of characters across the social classes as they fight to survive the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history.
Now, if you’re expecting a lush dramatization on the same scale as James Cameron’s Titanic, you will be disappointed. This miniseries was quite obviously low-budget, as evidenced by the cheap sets and underwhelming Edwardian costumes. Come on, it would have been entirely acceptable, nay, probable, to have the ladies swanning about the boat deck with stuffed birds pinned to their hats. Furthermore, there were too many characters, and in the short timeframe I didn’t have a chance to become attached to any of them.
To start off, there’s Lord and Lady Manton travelling in first class with their free-spirited daughter, Georgiana. There’s Manton’s faithful employee and secret keeper, Mr Batley, travelling with his spiteful wife Muriel, played by Maria Doyle-Kennedy, in second class. In steerage, there’s Jim and Mary Maloney and their four children. Jim is an electrician who wired the ship in Belfast. But as a Catholic, there’s no future for him in Northern Ireland. Among the crew, there’s a stoker, Mario Sandrini, who manages to get his little brother Paolo a last-minute job aboard as a waiter in the first-class dining room, where he catches the eye of stewardess Annie Desmond, played by Jenna Coleman.
Each of the first three episodes focuses on the characters in their respective classes and ends when the ship hits the iceberg. You have to wait for the fourth and final episode to find out what becomes of everyone aboard. I will say that Titanic wraps up neatly and gives every character’s arc a satisfying conclusion, but it is far from my favourite Julian Fellowes production.
Downton Abbey, 2010-15
Without a doubt, this is my favourite Julian Fellowes production. I think I’ve watched the series all the way through three or four times by now. Downton follows the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants through the early years of the twentieth century. It starts in the aftermath of the Titanic sinking when the Earl of Grantham discovers that his heir did not survive. His daughters can’t inherit the estate, so a distant cousin is brought in to step into his shoes one day and thus the rivalry-romance between the lord’s daughter and a country solicitor begins.
With six seasons’ worth of content, there’s ample time to get to know and become attached to the characters. I believe Downton became the phenomenon that it was is because every character—whether they are a titled lord or lady or a housemaid or a valet—will capture your heart. It shines a light on the everyday struggles of the working class while also making you feel sympathetic toward the aristocrats who also feel very much confined to their rigorous roles. Let’s not forget that the Dowager Countess steals every scene she’s in with her witty clips and scandalous younger years.
Belgravia, 2020
Based on a novel of the same name by Julian Fellowes, the six-part miniseries Belgravia begins in 1815 with the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. At this ball, Sophia Trenchard discovers that Edmund Bellasis, whom she wed in secret, actually duped her with a sham marriage. Edmund dies in battle and Sophia is scuttled off to the countryside to give birth in secret.
25 years later, Sophia’s son Charles Pope is an up-and-coming member of society whom Sophia’s parents have taken some interest in, and in their longing for a closer relationship with their grandson, have unwittingly let Edmund’s parents in on the plot. What follows is a series of mishaps as Charles’ birth grandparents try to forge relationships with him without letting the secret out, all the while their living children, Oliver Trenchard and John Bellasis, grow increasingly jealous and eventually enraged at the interloper in their circle.
Now, the novel was utterly splendid. The miniseries didn’t quite capture its essence, but it was still good fun. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did if I hadn’t already read and loved the novel so I could look forward to every plot twist.
The Gilded Age, 2022-
The Gilded Age is everything I ever wished for in a period piece. Lavish costumes, old-fashioned manners, and a bitter rivalry between old money and new money. Oh yes, these cats have claws.
When Marian Brooks’ father dies and leaves her penniless, she packs up her old life in Pennsylvania and travels to New York, where her two elderly aunts Ada Brooks and Agnes Van Rhijn, played by Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski respectively, have agreed to take her in and find her a respectable match. The social scene in New York in the 1880s is brimming with scandal. Old money is fleeting and wealthy, self-made families are on the way in. But new money matron Bertha Russell is discovering that no amount of cash can buy respect, especially when she still sounds like the potato-picker she came from. Quite honestly, the American cast’s lack of effortless sophistication might have been the only thing preventing The Gilded Age from being on par with Downton.
The second season, due out later this year, is expected to focus more on the household staff in the employ of these wealthy families—the model that proved so popular with Downton. The first season felt somewhat lacking in that regard. The staff were one-dimensional creatures often simpering and scheming in their downstairs dwellings.