The Chaperone (2019), directed by Michael Engler

Aged 16 in 1922, future silent movie star Louise Brooks travelled from her home in the mid-west to New York to join a prestigious dance school. This movie is the story of the middle-aged woman who chaperoned this journey, Norma Carlisle. Norma undertakes the task as a break from her marriage and to research her origins as an orphan in New York. Small flashbacks gradually reveal the trouble in her marriage and her time in the big city resolves some issues for her and allows her to make some changes. Young Louise Brooks is almost peripheral to the main story, but Norma both helps and learns from her charge in a way that enables her to assist again when Louise hits trouble 20 years later. Elizabeth McGovern is charming as Norma and Hayley Lu Richardson is radiant as the young Louise, although slightly less convincing as the older version. The fingerprints of Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes are all over this film, which has marvellous costume and production design.