Issue 819

Movie Reviews

with Evelyn Gough

Gosford Park (M)

Directed by Robert Altman

Ryan Phillippe (left) and Kristin Scott Thomas (right) graple with the importance of upstairs and downstairs in Gosford Park.

If I was feeling lazy I could simply list the stars in Gosford Park - there are so many of them there would be little room for anything else. The cast reads like a who's who of British acting nobility with veterans like Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi, and the equally venerable (just slightly less wrinkly) Emily Watson, Clive Owen, Jeremy Northam, Stephen Fry, Charles Dance and Kristen Scott Thomas. And that's just brushing the surface!

They all leapt at the chance to work with the critically acclaimed director Robert Altman, who has combined a five star cast with an Oscar winning screenplay. The result is an engrossing, enlightening and very entertaining glimpse into the English class structure, a system which seems positively archaic to the modern generation, yet we're only talking the 1930s here, a tiny 70 years ago. Ahh... the good old days. Not!

A one sentence synopsis of Gosford Park would read: 'Upstairs, downstairs with an Agatha Christie twist' so if you're a fan of quality British television and whodunnits, this is a must see.

It's the early '30s and a snobbish upper class family are congregating in the country to enjoy a fine English tradition: murdering wildlife. Among their ranks is an interloper, an American movie director, in England to glean information for his next film project.

The enormous stately home, Gosford Park, where they all are staying, runs like clockwork thanks to its staff of maids, housekeepers, butlers and manservants. But not everything is as picture perfect as it appears. There is intrigue and friction aplenty, both upstairs and downstairs, and one member of the household won't survive the weekend (cue ominous music!)

It's complex, funny and sad. If you enjoy quality filmmaking take a step back in time to pre war England with Altman's Gosford Park. Highly recommended.

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