Gosford Park

When Robert Altman makes a new film, it's always a noteworthy event that gets the attention of critics and audiences alike: large productions with huge ensemble casts of major Hollywood movie stars, playing real people with full, fleshed out characters, each with their own subplots that intertwine only subtly, until the end when it all finally makes sense. In Gosford Park, Altman makes only two changes to this formula: Hollywood stars are replaced by Top British talent that may be unfamiliar to most American audiences, and a straightforward murder mystery supplants his traditionally complicated plot line. It is in these changes, however, where Altman charms his audiences in a new way. The story takes place in 1932 at a gathering of aristocrats and their servants for a hunting country weekend at the estate of Sir William McCordle. Some time after all the guests are settled in and whose affairs begin to intertwine, one of them is bumped off. While all the characters are well fleshed out, it's Mary, played by Kelly Macdonald, who is the focus of the drama. She's the maid of Maggie Smith's Countess Constance of Trentham, and is being groomed to follow a path to become head servant. After the murder takes place, emotions unfold and secrets from the past are revealed that help the characters - and the audience - solve the mystery. The drama is even more punctuated when Mary's innocence and naiveté is lost as she pieces together the deeper scandal, involving servant-master sexual relations and bastard children.

One of the best aspects of film is how it illustrates that fine line dividing the master-servant social structures, and how often that line is crossed, reminding us that life is just a game of costumes and masks, and we're all the same underneath. While the story was reminiscent of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, where it's the mystery that captivates the audience, Altman goes beyond the mystery with Gosford Park by using the murder as a vehicle to draw attention to the human condition and class hierarchy.

On the downside, but to no surprise to fans of Altman's work, the movie is often hard to follow. His style of filmmaking involves entanglements of characters and subplots that don't appear to have much to do with one another at first blush, and Gosford Park takes this to the next level. Here, the murder takes place at the climax of this confusion, leaving you rather disoriented in the middle of the 2-hour-plus drama. Fortunately, the tone loosens up when a comedy-dim police inspector basically gets nowhere in his investigation, but the pieces start coming together through the other characters. The good news is that it all seems to come together in the end in a way that didn't require grasping every detail of every scene.

Despite its intricacies and confusing moments, there is so much more to Gosford Park that makes it interesting and enchanting. While it is clearly a sophisticated piece of film work with impeccable acting, directing and design, don't stress about not keeping up with it all the time. Sit back and take it in, and you'll feel satisfied in the end.

I just saw this movie earlier this afternoon and I have to say that I was blown away by it. Yes, it's slow. But that's kind of the point. It's a deliberate murder mystery that's not really about the murder at all. It's a deconstruction of class, and how people have to live within the rigid structure of the British Class system between the World Wars. And it's not just lower and upper classes. It's the structure within the classes themselves. Pay attention to the interweaving of the characters and their interactions and realize that it's all because of the class system, and nothing more. You know why nobody cares about the murder, because nobody, even his wife, really cared about who was murdered. Isn't that the real crime here? These characters are so full of themselves, that the death only means a slight step up on the totem pole.

Another thing that I want to say about this film, is that after having seen Black Hawk Down a couple of days ago, this movie is as much a technically visual masterpiece as the Ridley Scott film. The use of foreground and background is simply amazing. The choreography and blocking of the movement is perfect. Is it rigid? Yup. And that's the point.

It's a shame that movies like this are refered to as boring and stiff. One reviewer suggested that it would work as a thirty minute short as opposed to a nearly two and half hour long movie. That seems like a ridiculous notion to me because then all it would have been a murder mystery as opposed to what a wonderfully filmed character drama.

And hey, I didn't remember a single name either. Maybe people who have criticized this movie for that should look back and see how many movies they remember all the names of all the characters upon the first viewing. My thought is that most of the names are inconsequential anyhow.

In this exhilarating chambre piece, set in a mansion during the 1930s, Robert Altman meticulously explores the social interaction between the English aristocracy and their servants. Class distinction is demonstrated funnily between the people who live above the stairs and those who live below. It is especially the interaction between the characters, who clearly dislike one another but are forced by circumstance (due to various obligations) to practice social rituals, that provides some of the most amusing cinematic moments. It is all done with clever subtlety.

Bob Balaban and Robert Altmann story idea combined with Fellowes's eloquent writing is first rate. The dialogues are filled with wit, humour and subtle depth. The mansion itself plays a key character in the story but it is the spellbinding cinematography that functions as the mansion's eyes. The camera is constantly on the move and the viewer feels like an ignored but curious member of the crowd. Many themes are tackled in the movie but it is done quietly. The film also slowly demonstrates the disintegration of the English class system (that started around the war).

Altman has assembled a mountain of talented actors that include a bitchy Maggie Smith, a pompous Michael Gambon, an obnoxious Kristin Scott Thomas, a vulnerable Camilla Rutherford, a desperate Tom Hollander, a devil-may-care Geraldine Somerville, a knows-where-he-stands Jeremy Northam, a douchebag Bob Balaban, a horny Ryan Phillipe, a stupid Stephen Fry, a loyal Sophie Thompson, a principled Helen Mirren, an enigmatic Clive Owen, a no-nonsense Emily Watson, a not-to-be-messed-with Richard E. Grant, a pulling-it-together Derek Jacobi, a frightened Alan Bates, a grumpy Eileen Atkins and an adorable Kelly Macdonald. 'Gosford Park' has one of the best ensemble cast.

I also loved the soundtrack. It is never overdone. The jazzy tracks contribute well in setting the atmosphere and there are some wonderful songs performed by Jeremy Northam's character.

In the beginning, it is a little difficult to keep up with the names of the characters which leads to a bit of confusion but with a little bit of patience, once you're over that, it becomes easy to follow. Like a beautiful painting, once it captivates the viewers attention it immediately involves them in an alternate world. From the start, you feel like an ignored guest and at the end it's as though the host has just seen you out.

In 1932, a group of socialites, landowners, Americans and their servants arrive at a country house for a shooting party over the weekend. As the relationships and tensions twist and weave upstairs, so too do the dynamics and relationships between the various house staff and valets below the stairs. Stories and characters play out but whenever a murder takes place, the police move in and everyone is a suspect.

My plot summary suggests that this is a sort of murder mystery and that this will act as the driving force behind the narrative, however this is not the case and in reality the film is much more about the characters and relationships than it is about the murder. To this end the film will annoy some people who are perhaps not used to the sort of film that Altman produces and will be looking for the mystery aspect to be the all. However, I found the rather free-wheeling ensemble approach to be very enjoyable and the first hour moved quickly by thanks to the natural interactions and relationships and it was actually the mystery aspect that didn't work as well because it required too sudden a change in pace – a change that the material seemed to resist and hamper. Despite this it does still work mainly because the Oscar winning writing brings out such convincing relationships and social politics, making it enjoyable and interesting throughout. The direction is great; the use of two cameras in group scenes means that the actors seem to flow around as naturally as their dialogue would suggest – few seem forced to act to a fixed point and seem more realistic.

Considering the talent on board, it is not surprising that nobody really upstages anyone in particular and the ensemble feel is strong. Smith, Gambon, Thomas, Dance, Northam, Balaban and others make the upstairs fizzle with snobbery and unspoken resentments. Meanwhile the downstairs staff are just as well drawn and delivered by Mirren, Owen, Jacobi, Watson, Bates, Grant, Atkins and others. Stephen Fry is fairly minor within the plot but he is delightfully comic, even if he doesn't quite fit into the film that well.

Overall this is a classy film very much in the Altman style – an ensemble piece of characters and relationships that we are left to drift within. Some viewers will find it frustrating that it takes so long to get to the point where the mystery kicks in but I actually found this to be the weaker aspect of the film and the most enjoyable parts were the well written characters and dialogue, which deservedly won Fellowes his Oscar.

Robert Altman's long, fragmented and very hit-or-miss career reaches another of his periodic highs with this clever and beautifully realised dissection of the English class system and skit on the classic Agatha Christie whonunnit.

Altman's preferences for kaleidoscopic social observation has sometimes failed in the past due to the weight of its own ambition: multi-plotted and multi-charactered snapshots of time and place held together by loose ties or a general thematic framework. Sometimes it pays off spectacularly (Nashville); sometimes it flatters to deceive (Short Cuts).

It works well here due to the necessary discipline of the single location and the greater opportunities for interaction among the characters this affords. Add to that an exemplary cast of (mostly) British character actors and a knowing script by Julian Fellowes that gives Altman's keenly observant camera plenty of time to make its own points.

Rightly, Altman is less concerned with the murder mystery, which is almost an aside, than with the opportunity given by a shooting party at a 1930s stately mansion to observe the English aristocracy and their servants in social interaction.

Never happier than when involved in a bit of human anthropology, Altman lightly dissects the complexities and hierarchies which go on both above and below stairs; in which many subtle and unsubtle rituals are played out among groups of people who clearly dislike each other but are forced through circumstance, need or employment to observe the fundamental social practices required.

1932 is also a time of intruding change into the nature of the old English ruling classes, slowly disintegrating in this between-wars period and, in this case, largely reliant on the wealth of one particularly reluctant patron to keep them in furs and flunkies. In on this act comes the (to them) faintly odious whiff of 20th century new money, represented by Hollywood and popular culture. These intruders are kept in their place, but the message is clear - change is coming, and coming fast.

The muted colours and autumnal setting continue this theme of a world in terminal decline and of a group of characters keenly conscious of place and tradition yet also wearied and exhausted by it. Only at the very end, when fundamental change has occurred and many characters are left to face up to very different destinies do we see a bit of sunshine creeping in, heralding the dawn of a new era.

The cast are all excellent, with special mention deserving of Maggie Smith's effortless scene stealing as a bitchy but broke old Countess; the ever reliable Jeremy Northam as matinee idol Ivor Novello, well aware of his place in the great scheme of things and young Kelly Macdonald in the pivotal role of Smith's harassed maid who's inquisitiveness rattles a whole load of family skeletons.