You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

Gosford Park

Maggie Smith. Michael Gambon. Kristin Scott Thomas. Charles Dance. Geraldine Somerville. Tom Hollander. Clive Owen. Jeremy Northam. Sophie Thompson. Helen Mirren. Bob Balaban. Ryan Philippe. Stephen Fry. Eileen Atkins. Emily Watson. Richard E. Grant. Alan Bates. Derek Jacobi.

And that's just the cast (a fraction of it, at any rate). It's also directed by Robert Altman. I'm not as familiar with Altman's films as I should be. I've never seen M*A*S*H or Short-Cuts or Nashville, but I know enough to recognize that Gosford Park is exactly the type of movie Altman is known for. Big ensemble casts, and lots of intertwining plots and relationships.


It's based on an idea Robert Altman and Bob Balaban had. They wanted to do a murder mystery set in England in one of those big manor houses with lots of weekend guests. They took the idea to screenwriter Julian Fellowes, who came from a particular background and knew about the inner workings of a house like that. They didn't want to deal with WW2 and they didn't want it to be taking place at Christmas. So they settled on November 1932 for the time setting.

The movie is absolutely fascinating. A great mystery with lots of red herrings and misdirections. I don't think I've ever seen such a tightly woven plot in a film. You really have to watch the movie a few times before you catch everything. It moves so fast. It starts with a shooting party at the estate of William McCordle (Gambon). Lots of family and a few acquaintances are there for a few days, and with them come their servants.

It's kind of reminiscent of "Upstairs, Downstairs", and ane of the cool things about the film is that it spends as much time on the "downstairs" characters as it does the "upstairs" ones. In fact, one of the gimmicks of the movie is that there is no scene in the entire film that does not include one of the servants - sometimes active participants in the scene, other times just in the background. There is no privacy for the priviledged, and much of the exposition of the film is delivered in the form of gossip from the servants' quarters.

I can't get started talking about the plot of the movie because I'll go forever. There's just so much going on. Basically, William McCordle is murdered (twice), and all of the guests are detained at the house for questioning. But there are a bajillion other subplots. Lady McCordle (Thomas) and her affair with a handsome young valet (Philippe). The valet and his strange relationship with his employer, an American film producer (Balaban). Commander Meredith (Hollander), a man with money troubles who doesn't realize how lucky he has it being married to a woman he actually loves. The bitter enmity between the head cook (Atkins) and the head housekeeper (Mirren). I have to stop now, seriously.

The movie does a great job of setting up the parameters of how the upstairs people relate to the downstairs people, and vice versa. There's a very real sense of the rules of engagement. There was a very audible audience reaction the first time I saw it during a scene where a servant speaks out of turn, and no one needed to explain that the poor girl was immediately out of a job as soon as she opened her mouth. Perhaps people in the audience would have realized that anyway, but it's definitely something that permeates the film - the inherent sense of propriety between the classes in a setting like that.

If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend getting it via Netflix or even buying it so that you can watch it a few times without worrying about getting it back on time. It's an incredibly brilliant movie, and if you like mysteries you will luuuurrrve it.