'Gosford Park' Brings Social Satire to Screen in Lush Film

Author: Kate DeForest

Straddling the rift between the lower and upper classes of England, a disparity that became more and more apparent through the post-World War I years in which the movie takes place, "Gosford Park" settles comfortably within the vision of its director Robert Altman. It is Altman that guides the film, avoiding the clichés of the whodunit mystery (for the most part) without losing any of the opulent grace of the era.

The basic plot, a murder mystery, isn't the reason to see the film. But the succinct dialogue and subtle character development, the attention to detail and historic accuracy and the precision with which every shot is constructed are provide compelling enough inducement.

The characters are remarkably well-wrought through dialogue. The action of the film can best be described as quiet. Even the stabbing of the head of the household where the guests congregate for a sporting holiday is silent and amber-hued, the scream of the first to witness the aftereffects of the crime is of an elegant pitch and the swooning faint of one of the female characters has the grace of a swan's neck as it dips its beak into a pond, producing nothing more startling than a soft thud on a richly patterned oriental rug. The humor in the film, at its best, mirrors the quality of the action: it is quietly subtle, but can be no less devastating than the bottles of poison the camera zeroes in on every once in a while, in an uncharacteristically heavy-handed reminder that this is, in fact, a murder-mystery.

The movie can't help but be compared to an older British export, the comedy series "Upstairs, Downstairs." In Altman's creation, though, the aristocracy lacks the gentile benevolence of the former series. And that's not necessarily to the film's disadvantage. "Gosford Park" shows an aristocracy of nuanced and elegant desperation, treating them with just enough compassion to make them bearable but sufficiently piquant to render them believable, a declining but beautiful segment of society struggling to maintain their position in the face of a new order.

Put into such context the film presents the viewer with exceptional character sketches — by no means full portraits, but the rough lines that give the impression of the full character — of participants either desperate to stay the rift in the fabric of values accelerated by the Great War or to rent the tear irreparably.

The society depicted in the film was changing. One of the characters, a self-made man made wealthy by his factories, sweatshops not exactly conducive to propagating the gentlemanly role into which he has married. This becomes particularly evident when considering the gross liberties he takes with his female workforce, liberties that he has translates from factory to home.

In another skillfully constructed subplot a young, inexperienced lady's maid is educated in the ways of both upstairs and down, providing an education for the audience as well.

The cast, an ensemble of mostly British actors, with the exception of two Americans, is an impressive gathering of stage veterans and one or two newcomers Even the weakest member of the cast, who is beyond doubt Ryan Philippe, is serviceable, if only because his character is that of an overly-serious young actor pretending to be a Scottish manservant (and doing that badly). The only acting required, then, consisted of a faulty Scottish accent.

The movie's only faults, and they are few, lie in the actual mystery genre aspect of the film. There and, there only, does the script fall into cliché. The villain is taped knees down, showing only shoe and pant leg, the police inspector is a bumbling fool, while his inferior officer is business-like and perceptive. Yet these weaknesses also serve to foil the real gems of the piece: the subtle social cues and predatory habits of the time and people portrayed, for example. A movie where even the faults have some merit, "Gosford Park" is not to be missed.