Gosford Park
A bunch of conniving British toffs and their servant-people (as well as an American movie producer and Ivor Novello) gather in a country house for a hunting weekend and the chance to badger the owner of the house, Sir William McCordle, for money in one way or another. We mainly follow the experiences of ladies’ maid Mary Macreachran (played by Kelly Macdonald), as she works out how to see to her mistress’ needs and deal with the pressures of the downstairs life with the rest of the butlers, maids and cooks. Characters, both minor and major, are flickered over by the camera and we pick up hints of stories and relationships, which slowly (really slowly) build until the moment when an affair is revealed (which is a great moment), someone is murdered (which is predictable), and then the guests all try to deal with the death (which they do strangely), while the police investigation goes on, led by Stephen Fry as an incompetent detective.
Emily Watson - good value. Ryan Philippe - glad he’s dropped off the radar since 2001. Maggie Smith - had loads of fun. Kelly Macdonald - fine. Michael Gambon & Kristin Scott-Thomas - icy. Charles Dance - played a character you barely saw, and didn’t know which name to put with him for ages. Bob Balaban - writer and played American TV producer - came up with not particularly inventive or post-modern conceit of having said producer shout the plot of the movie he was actually in to someone in Hollywood down the phone. Helen Mirren - fine performance, especially at the end. Clive Owen - first thing I’ve seen him in that I thought he was worth all the bother. Tons of other actors - must have been irritated with director Robert Altman after seeing how little they were on screen in the final cut.
It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t all that previous reviewers seemed to make out. Overloading the film with stars and characters is Altman’s thing; I don’t know how much value it really adds, to be honest. Why not just tell one story really well rather than trying to inject ‘real meaning’ into about 50?
I thought this was superb. I liked the way the murder mystery was rendered largely irrelevant and instead the focues was on a fresh and uncliched take on the whole upstairs/downstairs thing. For once the servants could be every bit as nasty and conniving (or as good) as the masters.
Comment by Simon — 6 March, 2006 @ 11:55 am
Dull, muddled, dull, overlong, dull…
Comment by Heidi — 6 March, 2006 @ 6:05 pm