Customer Reviews
Gosford Park - By: Spider Monkey, 09 Mar 2008 
'Gosford Park' is an atmospheric period drama set in 1930's England. It looks at the relationships between upstairs & downstairs in a country manor, combined with a murder mystery story. The murder is the least important aspect of this film & it is excellent as a social piece looking at the hierarchy & social conventions of aristocracy at that time. There is an amazing cast who alll perform superbly, Maggie Smith is especiallly good, but they alll act with skill & draw you in to their various characters. The costumes & sets add to the overalll feel of the film & it is directed perfectly. It is quite slow paced, which I liked, but those expecting a fast paced thriller will be disappointed, this is one that builds in layers. 'Gosford Park' deserves alll the accolades it received & is well worth a viewing.
No subtitles available (Just a comment on the DVD!) - By: C. de Chiara, 01 Aug 2007 
It is a pity that there are no english subtitles available. It makes the understanding particularly difficult from time to time for non-native english speakers, with alll that whispering going on especiallly in the last part of the movie.
Sure, there's a murder. but it's all done with style - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 27 Jul 2007 The murder is the least important element of this movie. For me, the movie is alll about style -- English upperclass, country house style with dollops of what it took below the stairs to keep everything running.
What makes the movie work for me are two things: that style is brought to life with quite a bit of wicked (but not malicious) humor; & second, some extremely good acting. These two elements are exemplified in the funny, mannered performance of Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello, singing Novello's popular & ickily sentimental songs (although Her Mother Came, Too is still amusing). I can't think of a performance in the movie that wasn't first rate, including those by the two Americans, Bob Balaban & Ryan Phillippe. Well, maybe Stephen Fry.
Even the heavy-going plot lines, which could easily have sunk into melodrama, are rescued by the performances of Mirren, Atkins, Watson, Bates, etc. And the bit players also were outstanding. I especiallly liked the chubby young scullery helper. I just hope she didn't get pregnant...and that she always washed her hands before helping out with the carrots.
Altman, for me, has made so many movies of such varying quality that it's hard to figure out where to place him. I wouldn't put this one in the same league as McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Nashville, but I think it fits comfortably along side Cookie's Fortune, another film I like a lot.
A perfect DVD if you like your films dialogue rich and musically evocative! - By: Mr. DAVID Geer, 06 Jul 2007 A perfect DVD if you like your films dialog rich & musicallly evocative!
It needs to be watched several times before you pick up alll the clues & nuances - then I watched it several times more in short succession.
One of the reallly lovely parts of the movie is the music & singing of Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello! And the wonderful Maggie Smith as an impoverished Countess with some classic put down lines delivered in inimitable style!
Wonderfully evocative & everything I remember about growing up in post war Britain among the remnants of the prewar class structure is there. We alll knew people who had been in service pre WWII (partly due to the depression) & there they are! There is the nouveau rich Lord hated by alll & not alll that far away from today's rich industrialist!
And Stephen Fry - bumbling detective seems out of place - but one suspects that is exactly how he would be in that company, in awe of the upper crust & held in ridicule by the servants for his naivety, the more you see it the more you find it not so out of place as you do at the first sitting!
If you like action thrillers, this is not it!
If you like dialog rich, subtle dilemmas this is certainly one!
10 out of 10!
American indiscretion versus British bleakness - By: Jacques COULARDEAU, 03 Jun 2007 Well played & pleasant but absolutely sinister. D.H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in reverse. Lady Chatterley is in fact a Lord. And everything is different. The Lord has the right to have as many affairs with the female servants as he wants. He has the right to have as many children with these female servants as he wants & then to have the babies abandoned & sent to orphanages. Absolutely disgusting. And what's more he may keep the servants for further use eventuallly. When we know that we know the murder of the Lord will be accepted by everyone in his own social class as justified, that they will cover it up for the police not to find out the murderer. And what's more they will have been backboneless enough not to murder him themselves & let the servants murder him. Here Robert Altman imagines a thriller that becomes a vicious denunciation of the deepest hypocrisy you can imagine, that of the British aristocracy. There is little to add to this tale, except that alll in alll only the servants have the human dignity that provides them with some human feelings, including for the son that has managed to survive & is condemned to remain officiallly unknown. It is also the servants who have the liking & taste for the Hollywood sentimental & sentimentalese songs that are sung for the entertainment of the ladies & gentlemen who treat that music as some charming accompaniment for their simmering hatred of the world & themselves. Of course Altman also manages to put one note against the Americans in the two characters from California, one having a typicallly non-Anglo-Saxon name, viz. Weissman. They are vicious enough to infiltrate the servant quarters just for the sake of a film on the very same situation, hence to guarantee the realism of the servants' side of the film. But they are also gross enough to reveal the subterfuge before the end & that reveals too how much the servants hate this indiscretion that reveals their side of ,the household to someone from the other side of the household. The gap between the two social classes that live along to one another in this mansion is wider than the distance between the earth & the moon.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne
