Gosford Park

"Nothing's more exhausting than breaking in a lady's maid."
The upperclass friends and relations of Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) arrive at his country house for a weekend of shooting, accompanied by maids, footmen, and valets, all of whom will be staying under one roof. Sir William is a mean-spirited and self-centered old man, married to a much younger, emotionally distant wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), with many family members dependent upon his continuing largesse. The hilariously waspish Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith), who believes she has a lifetime stipend, arrives with young Mary Maceachran (Kelly MacDonald), who is trying valiantly to become a good lady's maid. Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), a Hollywood star, and Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), a producer of Charlie Chan movies, are the only guests without aristocratic backgrounds and inherited privilege. The atmosphere of the house, filled with venomous "friends" and relations, soon becomes even more poisonous.

The "below stairs" lives of the servants are also...

Altman does UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS & Dame Agatha - or does he?
Well, strictly speaking he doesn't of course - Robert Altman never simply tags onto an established genre; he plays with it and makes it his own by turning it upside down. So, while the idea for "Gosford Park" may have been inspired by murder mysteries "Christie style" and by the likes of "Brideshead Revisited" and the BBC series about the Bellamy's Eaton Square household, we leave familiar territory the moment we enter the estate ... through the servants' entrance; for although large parts of the action take place "upstairs," it is manifestly told from a "downstairs" perspective.

Academy Award-winningly scripted by Julian Fellowes (himself a descendant of British nobility and therefore able to draw on manifold personal insights in creating the movie's characters), "Gosford Park" is primarily an examination of the unquestioningly accepted rules of the early 1930s' British class society: where, beset by primogeniture and a lifestyle often beyond their means, an aristocrat's...

Recipe for Lasting Success
Take an 'idea' by Bob Balaban and Robert Altman, transform that idea into a screenplay by Julian Fellowes, place Robert Altman in the director's chair, and gather many of the finest actors in England (and the USA), photograph it with Andrew Dunn as cinematographer, and assign the musical score to Patrick Doyle and presto! - out comes a bubbling movie that entertains on every level and makes a lot of statements about class distinction and other prejudices as well. GOSFORD PARK is a gem of a film and only grows better with repeated viewings.

Gosford Park is the estate owned by grumpy William McCordle (Michael Gambon) who has a way of distancing most everyone he encounters, his bored wife Sylvia (Kristen Scott Thomas), his frumpy daughter Isobel (Camilla Rutherford), and served by a staff of servants who include the very in control Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren), the butler Jennings (Alan Bates), and the head of the kitchen Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins). A weekend hunting party is...

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