Review of Gosford Park (2001) by Luke H — 02 Mar 2012

Gosford Park is a classic English murder mystery drama set in a country manor in the 1930s. It largely focuses on the conversations of the conceited aristocratic guests upstairs and the more humble servants downstairs.

As a satirical insight into class differences and class dependence at the fall of the Empire, it had a lot of potential. But unfortunately it never really progresses beyond banal conversation and is largely a victim of its own stereotypes.

The first hour is focused on the shooting party which most of the guests are there for, and tongue-in-cheek though it may be, I saw an hour of insipid conversations between unbearably annoying characters and very little else.

Furthermore, for anyone who denounces hunting it is vexatious to see dead birds raining from the sky and dead animals draped around every neck. Admittedly, there are some scenes which boasted some amusing wit, but they are few and far between, leaving a vacuum of triviality for the remainder of the ludicrous running time.

One of the laudable aspects of Gosford Park is the ensemble cast, featuring some of the biggest names in British acting talent. The performances of Helen Mirren and Emily Watson were particularly outstanding, but unfortunately these were lost amongst the 65,000 other cast members who flit in and out of what can loosely be called the story.

Even well into the second half new characters are introduced at a rate of about 1 every 20 seconds and, like the rest, are mostly irrelevant. All in all, for an Anglophile who enjoys seeing every British stereotype compacted into one film, Gosford Park is pure gold.

For anyone else, it will probably seem like a lot of boring pseudo-intellectual drivel.