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BATTLE
OF THE BRITISH ALL-STARS
Gosford Park
dir.
Robert Altman starring: Michael Gambon, Emily Watson,
Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Kelly Macdonald, Kirstin Scott Thomas,
Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi, Richard E. Grant, Clive Owen, Ryan Philippe,
Bob Balaban, Steven Fry
Official
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IMDB
An enjoyable anthropological study and
comedy for the first two-thirds that quickly winds up in an unneeded
whodunit in the final third.
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Simpering
grace in a cocktail glass.
Ryan
Phillipe taking acting lessons from one of the greats: Helen Mirren
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Count
on Robert Altman for the ability to marshall together such a production
as this: a 1930s manor whodunit featuring an all-star cast of British
film actors, a film that feels good whether it stays on course or
not.
If
you're not familiar with the notables of British acting you may
want to take notes during this because it's not often that anyone
is able to gather three generations of such calibre together in
one film much less in one room. Although at times it may be hard
to separate the men in their dress-best apart or the servants in
their drab grey, each character gets their licks in, in a typical
Altman milieu now transplanted to the manor set.
You
must indulge me while I gush over the cast.
The
great Dame Maggie Smith (whom most will recognize now as the headmistress
in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) plays a crusty
Countess who seems to takes the spotlight each scene by virtue of
some very funny snobbish lines. With equal prominence, Michael Gambon,
who was the deliciously monstrous gangster in The Cook The Thief
His Wife and Her Lover, is another snarly upper crust noble
who has invited the elite of Britain to his Gosford estate seemingly
for no other reason that to watch them bicker and scheme. Kirstin
Scott Thomas is the beautiful but snippy younger wife of the host,
favouring each scene she's in with a languid, calculating cat grace.
If you hated her in the English Patient you may want to mentally
delete her from this film.
Those
are just the handful of notable actors playing the elites who have
come to Gosford for cocktails, shooting and sniping at each other.
Another set of British acting royalty play the army of maids, footmen,
valets and other servants who scurry underneath the manor. The
always excellent Helen Mirren whom most will know as the tough as
nails detective in the BBC crime series Prime Suspect is
the head of an immense housekeeping staff who have been mobilized
to meet the needs of a dozen idle rich. The glowing Emily Watson
(Breaking the Waves, The Boxer) is a sometimes outspoken
head housemaid while Clive Owen (The Croupier) is the manly
valet of a guest. Even American actor Ryan Phillipe takes a turn
as a curious, irreverent valet for a visiting Hollywood film producer
who is scouting Gosford for a Charlie Chan murder mystery.
If
you've skimmed the last two paragraphs you can be forgiven for not
acknowledging the main feature of this film, which is to see so
many actors working so well off each other under the direction of
Robert Altman, who is almost solitary among American directors for
his power to bring together an enormous cast. Like his legendary
films: Nashville, M*A*S*H and The Player, Gosford
Park is a collection of parts weaved together in a meandering
story unified more by location than by theme. I liked Gosford
Park but more for the flavour than the point.
Gosford
Park has tremendous flavour, like a four course meal. Like all
good movies, Gosford Park transports you to a place out of
the experience of most viewers into a world you may want to visit
but probably wouldn't want to embrace. For a good two-thirds of
the film Gosford Park is a funny satirical study of the manor
set of the 1930s when doubt at the veritability of the British Empire
hadn't quite reached the upper class. Arriving for a weekend of
bridge, pheasant hunting and dining, the guests of the estate have
equally arrived to resolve various demands and longstanding arguments
by appealing to the host, Sir William McCordle (Gambon). With no
intention at all of satisfying the appeals of any of his supplicants,
McCordle sets himself up as an object more usefully removed. In
the last third of the film, an Agatha Christie-like structure descends
on the film which could have been done without. It's almost as though
Altman had enjoyed the anthropological element of the film so thoroughly
(as did I) that he had to hurry to bring in the elements of the
whodunit when there was no time left.
The
price of good clothes: unceasing cattiness
Like
another great study of servants and their masters, The Remains
of the Day, Gosford Park is at its best when it reveals
the callow, snobbish nature of the manor set. Unlike that Merchant
Ivory production, Gosford Park is lively and funny throughout.
With a snide nudge and wink we quickly are taken downstairs
below the veneer to hear the gossip, the intrigues and the indiscretions
that seem to provide the servants and us (because we share more
in common with the servants) with our entertainment. Like us, the
servants are both fascinated and repelled by the strictures of the
upper class, taking pleasure in their small roles in the lives of
the rich while sniggering at the rich set's lack of common sense
when it comes to relationships and decency. The symbol of innocence
in the film, the young maid of the elderly countess, played by Kelly
Macdonald, is the cipher for our own questions, travelling between
both worlds as her mistress' spy. As a new maid she gets to have
both the upstairs and downstairs worlds explained to her: the various
roles of the household, the stated and unstated rules governing
the behaviour between the servants and the served. Rules that can
be broken but only if kept out of sight.
One
of many threads knitted through the film is a hinted at relationship
between the head housemaid (Watson) and the lord of the manor. An
older generation of servant played by Mirren may hold other secrets
that until this weekend have remained successfully buried under
layers of discipline. In a dryer film such elements might have been
brought out overtly. Thankfully, they are not here.
Out
of the hands of Altman Gosford Park could have been developed
as a more serious film, more deftly incorporating the murder mystery
earlier and more securely with the other elements. Another director
might bring forward the more tragic elements or highlight the villainy
of certain characters. (Indeed, if you were looking at a driving
conclusion to the mystery, you will be disappointed.) But it is
Altman's manner and confidence with his enormous cast that is the
warmth of this film, a character that makes this one of the better
films this year.
In
theatres now.
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