This review contains spoilers 

for “Downton Abbey: A New Era.”

I watched “Downton Abbey” 

for the first time during the 
summer of 2020. It was the 
summer after my freshman year 
of college and we had all just been 
sent home from the University 
of Michigan due to the COVID-
19 pandemic. My mom and I 
were sitting in the basement 
one night, as we did most nights 
during 
those 
six 
months 
of 

isolation, looking for something 
to watch when we stumbled 
across “Downton Abbey.” I had 
certainly heard of the show, and 
my mom had friends who had 
watched it, so we figured hey, 
why not, we’ll give it a try. One 
episode can’t hurt.

At the end of that first episode 

my mom and I turned to each 
other, shocked, awed and utterly 
giddy. “Downton Abbey” was 
going to take over our lives. From 
that night onward we watched 
two or three episodes every 
night until we finished all six 
seasons. We watched the first 

accompanying film just days after 
finishing the show. In the first 
five minutes of the movie there’s 
an aerial shot of the Abbey itself 
— Highclere Castle in real life — 
and my mom and I turned to each 
other again. Only this time, we 
were both on the brink of tears. 

Something similar happened 

a few weeks ago in the dark of 
a movie theater. I went home 

to Tennessee to get my wisdom 
teeth out but, more importantly, 

to see “Downton Abbey: A New 
Era,” the second film installment 
in 
the 
“Downton 
Abbey” 

universe, with my mom. The film 
fed us yet another wide shot of 
the Abbey, and my mom and I 
shared a now-familiar look. We 
had been expecting this — the 
tears in our eyes glinting in the 
light of the movie screen — and 
we both laughed.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Alex Garland’s ‘Men’ is almost a 

parody of its genre

Given the almost-masterpiece 

that was “Annihilation” and the 
stylish excellence of “Ex Machina,” 
nothing could have prepared me 
for the disappointment of Alex 
Garland’s 
newest 
psychological 

horror flick. Not even the insistent 
warnings from friends about how 
much it sucked, the underwhelming 
trailer or the fact that “Men” would 
be the third film written and 
directed by Garland that centers 
on female suffering. Against better 
judgment, I mustered the willpower 
to park myself in the empty theater 
— if not for myself, then for Jessie 
Buckley (“I’m Thinking of Ending 
Things”).

Buckley stars as Harper, a widow 

whose husband committed suicide 
after she asked for a divorce. She 
escapes to a charming house in 
the English countryside to process 
the tragedy and is greeted by the 
property’s 
caretaker 
Geoffrey 

(Rory Kinnear, “Our Flag Means 
Death”). Geoffrey, with his massive 
chompers and repository of corny 
jokes, seems relatively harmless 
as he helps Harper settle in for the 
duration of her solo trip. Geoffrey 

asks Harper about her husband, 
noticing that she hadn’t dropped the 
“Mrs.” from her name — Harper’s 
a bit spooked by this, but she later 
calls her best friend Riley (Gayle 
Rankin, “The Climb”), who reminds 
Harper that she is there to heal.

Harper makes her way through 

the surrounding nature and takes 
note of a seemingly feral naked 
man, also played by Kinnear, who 
she suspects is stalking her. She 
visits the town’s church, decorated 
with pagan imagery, and eventually 
makes her way to the pub. At every 
location, Harper comes across 
several men, each with Kinnear’s 
face.

In a once-in-a-career acting feat, 

Kinnear succeeds at distilling a 
particular kind of evil into each role. 
All of the men Harper encounters 
belittle her in their own way: there’s 
the vicar, who questions why she 
drove her husband to suicide; the 
pub-goers, who tease her for her 
anger over the local feral man’s 
release; and there’s even a young 
boy with Kinnear’s likeness pasted 
over his face, who accosts Harper 
at the church and demands that she 
plays hide-and-seek with him. 

What is an electronic music concert without a mosh pit? Flume and 

Channel Tres helped me find out

Detroit’s Masonic Temple was 

popping off on Thursday night. 
Hoards of young, drunk, bejeweled 
humans flew past me as I glided 
through the foyer and into the theater 
aisles. I tried and failed to sneak into 
the pit, so I squeezed into one of the 
few remaining empty seats. 

Channel Tres was already on 

stage, alone, jumping around and 
talk-rapping over his thumping house-
music beats. I was pretty bummed 
about not being in the pit. I was instead 
relegated to a cozy theater chair, when 
all I really wanted to do was mosh 
and vibe to some bumps, on my feet, 
surrounded by dancing human beings. 
And who were my fellow theater-
seaters? They were loud, but not 
singing along — they were just yapping 
away, chatting with friends as if this 
was just another club and this was just 
another guy, showing us some beats he 

cooked up in his basement.

But Tres is not just another 

guy. Tres is an artist, pushing the 
boundaries of both rap and electronic 
pop by seamlessly merging the two 
genres with hit songs like “fuego (feat. 
Tyler, The Creator)” and “Topdown.” 
He is also the master of the indie-rap 
feature, completely stealing the show 
on songs like “Tunnel” by Polo & Pan 
and “Palms (with Channel Tres)” by 
Gus Dapperton. He deserved more 
than the “Chatty Cathy” audience at 
Masonic Temple. 

And then came Flume. 
Flume has been bridging the gap 

between pop and the techno-sphere 
for a while now. He’s a seasoned 
performer, 
having 
headlined 

Coachella, The Governors Ball and 
most everything in between since his 
self-titled breakout 2012 album. And 
with that seasoning should come the 
DJ spice, right? Lifting arms on the 
beat, pushing buttons and, wait, what 
does a DJ do when they perform? 
Again, I started to feel some doubts 

about the whole situation: why was I 
seated at an electronic music concert 
when I could just listen to Flume’s 
songs on Spotify, maybe invite some 
friends, dance and drink some brews 
that don’t cost $12? 

Usually Flume solves this potential 

problem by starting a crazy mosh pit, 

but again, that was not possible from 
my cozy seat. It also would have felt a 
little wrong to push and shove under 
the Broadway-esque decor of the 
venue, with stenciled ceilings and 
velvet curtains. He might have done 

better to perform at the Majestic 
Theater or Saint Andrews Hall, two of 

Detroit’s premier performance spaces, 
each equipped with an ample dance 
floor and an aptly dingy, club-like 
vibe. 

Flume often spices up his shows 

with a host of surprise guests: Toro 
y Moi, Vince Staples or, in the case of 
the Masonic Temple concert, Tres 
and Tove Lo. Tove Lo came out to 
perform her single with Flume, “Say It 
(feat. Tove Lo),” but also took over the 
female vocals for “Never Be Like You 
(feat. Kai)” and “Say Nothing (feat. 
MAY-A.” These were by far the best 
performances of the set because, well, 
there was actually a performer on the 
stage, and not just a dude, bobbing 
up and down, pushing some damn 
buttons. 

But those three songs were not 

enough to carry the performance, so I 
decided to improve the vibe with my 
own devices. In this case, that meant 
ripping my dab pen like a third grader 
destroying a juice box at snack time. 

 JOSHUA MEDINTZ

Daily Arts Writer

‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ shows how 

home and change move us all

MADDIE AGNE
Daily Arts Writer

LAINE BROTHERTON

Daily Arts Writer

Photo by Bella de Sa

Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com

This image is from the official trailer for “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” distributed by Focus 

Features.

Read more at michigandaily.com

