DOWNTON ABBEY
It’s business as usual at
the Crawley estate in
1927: the grounds are gleaming;
the servant bells are tinkling;
Lady Mary’s bob and the Dowa-
ger Countess’s barbs remain
razor-sharp. Then word arrives
of an impending visit from the
king and queen, and Downton
erupts in a tizzy, complete with
the return of the family’s former
butler, Carson. Spending the
length of a feature with this
upstairs/downstairs crew is
soothing, like slipping into a
warm bath expertly drawn by the
sympathetic maid Anna. Sept. 20.THE GOLDFINCH
The film starts with a bang: a terror-
ist attack at a New York art gallery
kills Theo Decker’s mother, who’d brought
her young son to see the titular Dutch mas-
terpiece. Working from Donna Tartt’s Pulit-
zer Prize–winning novel—a spellbinding
doorstopper—Brooklyn director John Crow-
ley teases heartbreaking performances from
Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright and Ansel
Elgort as the now-grown Theo, who finds him-
self unmoored by that act of violence. Sept. 13.TALKING TO
STRANGERS
Society is in a bit of
a bind: we can’t function
without giving strangers
the benefit of the doubt,
but we’re positively garbage
at assessing other people’s
motivations and emotions.
In his chatty new book, Mal-
colm Gladwell shows how
our impaired judgment has
consequences for every-
thing from police stops and
international diplomacy to
modern literature and
must-see TV. Sept. 10.rd.ca 15(D
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