Thanks for the memories!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A great film, one of the few which can be seen many times, in which an Agatha Christie-like thriller mixes with personal drama, both above and below stairs, in a well-observed and authentically reproduced period setting.The only false note -- but a jarring one -- is in the miscasting of Steven Fry, that bonne à tout faire (do accept this expression, it's French, but international, you see, and appropriate for other reasons) of the entertainment industry, as Inspector Thompson. Fry seems to think he's in a kind of music hall gag, where he plays a caricature of a bumbling police inspector, half Clouseau and half English class distinction (milk into teacup after, not before, tea), and keeps reminding everyone of his name, as a tired joke. Watching performers such as Maggie Smith, or the excellent Eileen Atkins, as well as many other distinguished members of the cast, is always rewarding, but Fry's appearances are best glossed over as quickly as possible, as they reduce the film's quality. How Altman could have made this mistake is hard to understand.

If, as I am, you're a fan of this movie, don't miss Julian Fellowes' wonderfully eloquent commentary on the DVD. It's just about the best thing of its kind, offering fascinating insights, not only into the various characters but also into the whole vanished world of English country houses and the complex cultures they contained, both upstairs and down. It turns out that even the tiniest details and bits of business in the film -- food and drink, clothing, pecking order, salutations, customs, rules of etiquette, etc. -- were carefully thought out and as authentic as Fellowes could make them. (He's also, for what it's worth, refreshingly generous when it comes to giving credit to his actors.)Altman also contributes a commentary on the DVD, but (like his commentary on "Nashville") it's quite disappointing. He sounds old, a bit dim, and a little past it, as if he hasn't seen the movie in years and has forgotten most of it. That's okay; "Gosford" is still, to my mind, his best movie, and we do have Fellowes to interpret it for us.

The 2000's was the worst decade of the cinema history. Of course, there were a few enjoyable films and even masterpieces, Altman's Gosford Park is stuck between the category of masterpiece and great work. This films is interesting from the very beginning till the end, while I was watching the film, I almost never cared for who was the murderer because it was so much fun watching the characters invented by Altman. If I was in a party, my guests would be the Gosford Park ones for sure, it even includes Ivor Novello, the star who's most famous role was in the silent Hitchcock masterpiece "The Lodger". This film received the Academy Award for best screenplay (in the same year as Mulholland Drive), the plot was classical, but it still held my attention and even made me laugh throughout the 2h11m. The dialogs and the characters (that I've already mentioned) were very good and the adaptations by the actors were great too, not to mention the photography that I enjoyed a lot. For anyone who has seen Luis Buñuel "Exterminating Angel" before, will find some similarities, they both showed a dark side of the high society, but Gosford Park a even more degrading one, yet, still humorous. It is a film easy for anyone to like and I liked it, I wouldn't call this a masterpiece, but it is close. A must see to anyone.

My abiding memory of this film is my irritation with the vastly overrated Julian Fellowes for being unable to get the language of the period right. In Britain of 1932, NO ONE said things like "No worries!" or "End of story!". There are other linguistic anachronisms, but these two are the worst ones. Both expressions are examples of modern "estuary English" and no educated person would ever utter either. The wealthy, the landed gentry, and the aristocracy in England would never even have heard this type of expression; in fact, they had not yet been invented. The ghastly, interminable soap "EastEnders" has a lot to answer for regarding the debasement of British English, as has the never-ending Australian soap "Neighbours".The plot is very derivative and there are glaring flaws and holes in the narrative. In some ways, Gosford Park reminds me of an Agatha Christie mystery but the plot simply doesn't hang together. HOW did the housekeeper KNOW that the son she gave up shortly after giving birth to him 31 years previously would kill his natural father? For that matter, HOW did she even know WHO he was? She had not seen her son since he was ca two weeks old! He was brought up in an orphanage, and at the age of 31 he is now the valet of Lord Stockbridge, who just happens to have been invited to stay at the country house belonging to Sir William, the man who fathered an illegitimate son on one of his female factory workers 32 years earlier. This woman is now the housekeeper at his, Sir William's, country house. That in itself is rather odd, to say the least. HOW did the valet KNOW that Sir William was his natural father? He states to a fellow servant that on his birth certificate it said "Father unknown". There are far too many incidents of the "two terrible twins": contrivance and coincidence.