Review of Gosford Park (2001) by Tracey S — 04 Apr 2008

Maybe I just didn't get it, or tried too hard to like it, but the first hour and a half almost bored me to tears. The supposed "murder" that the whole thing is about doesn't happen till at least an hour into the story, and by then the characters were so wrapped up in their own stuffy and self-absorbed ways that I stopped caring.

It's perfectly okay to have characters in a movie that are completely selfish - but there's a fine line between engrossing your audience and putting them off, and Altman stumbles that line very badly here.

I guessed who the killer was almost right away, and the relationships between these people are so full of cynicism, disconnect, and arrogance that I wanted most of them to be killed anyways. The production design is magnificent, though, and most of the acting is top notch (though Ryan Phillipe's fake Irish accent would not ever have fooled anybody), and despite the presumptuous self-important air surrounding the whole thing I did get caught up in its well-built storyline from time to time.

I suppose it's a rather intelligent commentary on the hierarchies of British society, but that doesn't change it from being kind of dull and annoyingly impressed with itself.