Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Direction, cast make for a pleasing walk through 'Gosford Park'
'Gosford Park' is directed by Robert Altman
Mark Tillie/USA Films
The person done in usually is the one who has given the most others motivation. The surviving suspects, all of them civil in the British manner, tend to stay handy, often under one roof, until the investigation's completion. The genre dictates an orderly unraveling, not a messy international pursuit.
There's a murder in "Gosford Park," but the fact that it doesn't occur until 80 minutes into the 137-minute picture indicates the order of priorities.
Director Robert Altman, who just won the American Film Institute's first annual directing prize for his work on "Gosford Park," says he wanted to work in a genre he hadn't tried before.
And screenwriter Julian Fellows might have been happy to stitch a killing into the fabric.
But both, embellishing an idea by Altman and actor Bob Balaban, plainly were most interested in the interpersonal dynamics of the "Upstairs, Downstairs" milieu.
Altman rounded up a mostly British, theater-trained cast to delineate two levels of the British class system. He and Fellows placed the story in November 1932, just early enough to avoid the distraction of Hitler's encroaching voice.
Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon), the aristocratic host of the weekend's shooting party, is married to Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), who once cut cards with her sister Louisa (Geraldine Somerville) to determine who would bag the wealthy, eminently unsuitable coot. Louisa lost and settled for Cmdr. Anthony Meredith (Tom Hollander).
Third sister Lavinia (Natasha Wightman) took Raymond (Charles Dance), Lord Stockbridge.
None announces her presence quite so often as William's sister, Constance (Maggie Smith), the Countess of Trentham, who misses no opportunity to level fellow guests with cut-to-the-quick observations, delivered martini-dry.
"It must be rather disappointing when something flops like that," she says with mock tact to one of the Hollywood guests.
One of them is Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), a gay Hollywood producer planning "Charlie Chan in London" and trying not to seem too out of place. Fancy him infiltrating such a tweedy event to research a B picture. He brings his bisexual valet Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe), whose behavior reverberates through the country house.
Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), William's cousin, is strangely stirred in as a real-life British Hollywood star (1893-1951), which tells us he won't kill or be killed. Many other real film folks are mentioned.
Officious head butler Jennings (Alan Bates) presides beneath the stairs and enforces a class system within his ranks. Servants are to be identified by their masters' names and are to be seated in the kitchen according to their master's social stature.
Head housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren) seems to be at long-standing odds with the cook, Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins). Mary (Kelly Macdonald), who is Constance's maid, has an unrequited eye for Robert Parks (Clive Owen), who is a visiting lord's well-read valet.
The many others in service include Probert (Derek Jacobi), William's valet, and Elsie (Emily Watson), a housemaid intimate with William. But then it seems William has always had roving hands and roaming fingers. It's Elsie's blurted impertinence that leads to murder.
Without it we'd never meet the pretentious Inspector Thompson (Stephen Fry), who is oblivious and indifferent to clues, and his assistant, Constable Dexter (Ron Webster), the brains and bloodhound of the duo.
With so succulently gifted an ensemble at his disposal, Altman is in no hurry to cut to the mystery. He subordinates it to his exploration of ambient situations, character and the exploration of parallel universes upstairs and down.
"Gosford Park" is a loose lattice of observations rather than complete conversations. For the Altman-uninitiated, it might take getting used to as cinematographer Andrew Dunn's cameras rove in a seemingly random, but highly choreographed, way around rooms, selecting the most incisive remarks.
I've never been a great admirer of Altman's maverick sound, wherein overlapping conversations play over each other. (The style reached its nadir in his "California Split.")
Altman has refined the technique to the point where it seems relatively natural, even as we're leaning in to catch every incidental remark.
There's so much going on in "Gosford Park," and it moves so swiftly, that it just about mandates a second viewing. You can't help wanting to hone in more on one character or another, partly because they're so colorfully embodied.
Phillippe has stepped way out of class, and it shows, although you might credit him for trying.
Smith, Mirren and Atkins register most vividly among the women, Gambon and Bates among the men.
Note the moment when Bates finally comprehends - flustered and even outraged - that one of his staff is enamored of him.
And the veracity of his line, "I am the perfect servant. I have no life."
| 'Gosford Park' |
Director: Robert Altman
Stars: Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Helen Mirren
MPAA Rating: R, for some language and brief sexuality
