It is 1947, and affable Lord “Dickie” Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) and his glamorous wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson) are dispatched to New Delhi to bring home the Union Jack from the old Raj. Mountbatten may be royalty, but even he will soon learn the truth of the ancient adage “The sun never sets on the British Empire because God doesn’t trust them in the dark”.

Various political players including General Hastings “Pug” Ismay (Michael Gambon, always a pleasure), a baffled Cyril Radcliffe (Simon Callow), and an unseen, scheming Winston Churchill, come and go until a devious plan – partly motivated by the coming Cold War, partly rooted in Britain’s apparent partition lust – to divide India is unveiled. Mountbatten may not like it, but his name is on the horrible document, regardless.

Working from a screenplay she co-wrote with Paul Mayeda Berges and Moira Buffini, director Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham) explores her own family history in a romantic sub-plot between Jeet (Manish Dayal), one of Dickie's new Hindu servants, and Aalia, the upwardly mobile Muslim woman he plainly adores (Huma Qureishi).

Chaotic scenes beyond the palatial grounds hint at the displacement of some 12 million people, but only just. The chocolate-boxy Viceroy's House is content to look and function like an exotic Downton Abbey. There are hints of steel about Lady Mountbatten (Anderson, excellent): upon arrival, sensing racism, Edwina promptly tells her housekeeper to pack her bags.

Still, we never do get around to Lady M’s famous romance with Nehru (Tanveer Ghani) and a few dozen others.

Occasionally, Chadha’s upstairs-downstairs presentation of the titular estate doubles as a blackly comic microcosm. The ludicrously opulent colonial architecture and Ben Smithard’s gleaming cinematography make for many pretty pictures. The cast are as grand as the gaff. Fans of BBC costume drama will likely be happy cinema patrons.