Review of Gosford Park (2001) by Ian S — 25 Apr 2011
It's a movie that asks that age-old question "How exactly do you manage a weekend shooting party in 1932 England after your host has been murdered twice?" It's a thought that has entered each of our minds at some point and until seeing this film, we may have never had the answers needed to go on.
Even after seeing it, I'm not sure I still have the answers needed to go on but more on that in a second. What we have here is an Altman film, or basically an engrossing ensemble piece that either goes on for multiple hours or is wrapped up too quickly and loses something in the end.
Even clocking in at more than two hours, there still feels like there was a lot left out of this and with a cast this diverse, it's hard to imagine anything was left on the cutting room floor. You've got the delightful Maggie Smith, who you want to simultaneously laugh with and slap, Clive Owen, who grows on you despite being silenced about his pat, Ryan Phillippe, who almost makes you care about whatever happened to him, Helen Mirren, who continues to do no wrong, and so many more.
It's a big house for this shooting party and while all the socialites go about their petty squabbling and existence upstairs, below is a whole other world of servers, valets and other assistants that bring a humbling light to the whole thing.
When the host is found murdered via two different ways, immediate suspicion falls on the serving staff (Bob Balaban even remarks that it's always the butler who does it). Enter the criminally ignored Stephen Fry as a somewhat early Jacques Clouseau who steals every scene he is in and almost feels like he was removed from a different movie entirely as he investigates and interrogates.
We get our answers in the final minutes of the film but it's hard not to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the stuff you may have missed when the credits start rolling. Everyone I've talked to who has seen this says you need to watch it more than once and I now see why.
Maybe I was too caught up in the fact that the wickedly funny Richard E. Grant was relegated to a server and not his usual hilarious self or maybe I was trying to figure out why, for a place with so many rooms, we kept seeing the same seven.
Either way, you're bound to notice several little details on another viewing and there are far worse ways to spend a couple of hours.
This review of Gosford Park (2001) was written by Ian S on 25 Apr 2011.
Gosford Park has generally received very positive reviews.
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