0 Comments | Add a Comment

0

GOSFORD PARK
© 2001 USA Films

Sponsored Links
Gosford Park
Vertigo
Simple Plan
The Big Lebowski
Phone Booth

GOSFORD PARK

Gosford Park is the name of a vast estate where Sir Henry McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his unloving wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) are holding a weekend shooting party. The guests include their daughter Isobel (Camilla Rutherford), Sylvia's sisters Lady Stockbridge (Geraldine Somerville) and Lady Meredith (Natasha Wightman), their husbands Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance) and Lt. Commander Meredith (Tom Hollander), Sylvia's aunt Constance, Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith), showbiz folk (and real-life personages) Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam) and Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), the Nesbitts (James Wilby, Claudia Blakeley), Isobel's suitor Lord Standish (Laurence Fox) and Standish's friend Trent (Jeremy Blond). These people are seen to by the household staff butler Jennings (Alan Bates), housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren), cook Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins), first footman George (Richard E. Grant), second footman Arthur (Jeremy Swift), Sir William's valet Probert (Derek Jacobi), head housemaid Elsie (Emily Watson), Lady Sylvia's maid Lewis (Meg Wynn Owen), still room maid Dorothy (Sophie Thompson) and head kitchen maid Bertha (Teresa Churcher), among others and by Lord Stockbridge's valet Parks (Clive Owen), Weissman's valet Denton (Ryan Phillippe) and Lady Constance's maid Mary (Kelly Macdonald). Eventually, a murder is committed and Inspector Thompson (Stephen Fry) and Constable Dexter (Ron Webster) arrive on the scene to investigate the crime.

Why, you may be wondering, would a reviewer bother listing all these names? For one thing, it may be handy to carry into the theatre. This is because director Robert Altman and writer Julian Fellowes, working from an idea by Altman and Balaban (the pair also produce here with David Levy), in their quest to give us the downstairs perspective, go out of their way to avoid introducing many of the characters. This might make sense if identity confusion was a plot point, but the servants seem fairly clear on who's who among the upstairs lot, and the titled characters are well aware of each other's names, ranks and peccadilloes. We're the only ones who are in the dark, which serves neither the social observation nor the murder mystery track very well perhaps it's intended to make us listen more keenly, but instead, it tends to turn a lot of what might otherwise be intriguing character moments into a slog through names that turns out to be irrelevant. We get so caught up in trying to figure which characters another character is talking about that we occasionally lose sight of what's being discussed and often come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter much and the one question that should never occur to a murder mystery audience is why attention should be paid in the first place.

Still, GOSFORD PARK has its moments. Smith is a standout as a positively wicked old lady, whose brand of brazen rudeness and utter glee in gossip give Constance an edge in personality. Macdonald, whose Mary is as close as the film comes to a protagonist, is convincing and endearing, and Owen is engagingly enigmatic. Phillippe, Northam, Mirren and Atkins also register strongly.

Fellowes' dialogue is often richly clever and Altman creates the vital, dimensional group dynamic he's famed for in huge gathering scenes, which pays off brilliantly when one character does something truly unexpected. The production design by Stephen Altman and costumes by Jenny Beavan seem authentic to the last seam, bottle and knife. The shooting scene may disturb viewers who are opposed to the killing of actual living creatures for entertainment purposes, as the birds falling from the sky look very real.

GOSFORD PARK does touch on a number of larger social issues than one weekend in the country it succeeds much better than the recent AFFAIR OF THE NECKLACE in depicting the kinds of apparently minute incidents that lead to the massive social change that the viewers, if not the characters, know will come. It also often fascinates as a history lesson. What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is fully draw us into its world, because it keeps interrupting its own flow by making us wonder exactly who we're with and what they want in any given scene, especially with the titled crowd.