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Gosford Park review
:. Director: Robert Altman
:. Starring: Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith
:. Running Time: 2:17
:. Year: 2001
:. Country: UK/USA
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obert Altman runs a tight ship. Apparently, the staff of Gosford
Park takes after him. After the embarrassingly bad Dr. T and the
Women and the less disappointing Cookie's Fortune, Altman finally
finds a method of reigning in his patented first half hour of meandering
chaos and the slow piecing-together that follows: Shove it in a crowded
house and refuse to let anyone out.
Generally advertised as a drawing-room mystery, Gosford Park is also
a tightly woven, two-sided tapestry. On the surface you'll find a slew of
rich lords, ladies and harpies, led by Gosford Park residents Sir William
McCordle and Lady Sylvia McCordle (Michael Gambon and Kristin Scott Thomas,
a face period directors obviously love), bored to death by their own boredom
and concerned only by how they can remain rich enough to stay bored. Flip
the tapestry over though to reveal the "downstairs" events and you'll find
the real story of how this uppercrust portrait remains so neat.
It's fairly impossible to relate all the characters in this film and their
relations to one another (even the official film site has to use a
family-tree-like structure), and in the end, it doesn't really matter. Try
too hard to follow it, and you'll just end up frustrated. Instead, sit back
and let the entire mess wash over you. Mainly, you'll realize the "upstairs"
people (who can be difficult to tell apart) are terrifically unhappy, in
part due to their constant teetering on the edge of not being rich. As for
the serving staff, they too are a bustling mess, full of gossip and duties.
Altman does give the audience the courtesy of providing one focal point,
Mary MacEachren (Trainspotting's Kelly Macdonald). The naïve,
slightly bumbling servant to Constance, Countess of Trentham (Oscar nominee
Maggie Smith), is, like all the staff, always watching everything and
because of her relative anonymity in this house of strangers, the one who
ends up seeing the most.
Embroiled in their own dramas, yet constantly gossiping about the upstairs
going-ons, the staff is treated much more lovingly by Altman and therefore
is a whole lot more interesting to watch. They see all, talk about it even
more, but in the end (and this becomes a main point) they still emulate what
they see, creating their own hierarchy (led by Oscar-nominee Helen Mirren)
with just as many silly societal regulations, like referring to visiting
servants by their employer's name. These stiff, self-imposed rules should
keep the downstairs as ordered as the upstairs, and in the end, they do. The
murder (and the subsequent revealing of hidden pasts) ends up being yet
another slight ruffle in the schedule that is soon smoothed over and
shrugged off by most of the characters.
For all the bumbling in the first half, the murder plot is folded as neatly
as the flowered, linen napkins at each diner's place in the dining hall, and
is just as predictable. The place—and the film—are so neat, even the murder
lacks bloodshed. As interesting and distinct as the downstairs characters
are—a feat in a film with so many familiar faces, including Richard E.
Grant, Ryan Phillippe, Clive Owen, Derek Jacobi and Emily Watson—they will
still show up in the kitchen the next morning, washing dishes; in the
bedroom, laying out their ladies' gowns; in the parlor, pouring scotch for
the gentlemen. Each character fulfills a role that's crucial to the genre
and it seems that if they deviate from their role, the drawing room falls
apart.
Gosford Park is a cold entertainment, an easily put-together puzzle
that, while enjoyable in the execution, you just sweep away when finished.
Even when wrapped up in attractively clipped British accents and a
well-choreographed waltz of upstairs/downstairs relations, it's about as
substantial as the privileged parlor prattle that creates the background
noise of Gosford Park.
Laura Tiffany
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
New Film Reviews since 2012
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