Film Review: Gosford Park - Breaking it all Down

Gosford Park isn’t Robert Altman’s last film, but I think of his late career work, it’s the strongest. It still has some flaws, significant ones likely related to a failure to consider some aspects of the history of the mystery genre, but still good nonetheless.

Gosford Park is basically a satirical whodunnit. Set at the fictional manor of Gosford Park, it follows a collection of upper-class high society people, plus the manor’s staff, as a bunch of people get together for a hunting party and dinner in Interwar Britain, only for the owner of the manor and host to turn up dead.

Where the satire comes in is the murder doesn’t happen until extremely late in the film, with the sole detective being a police detective (played by Stephen Fry) who absolutely cocks up the investigation, leaving some of the staff to try and figure out who the killer was and why on their own. Consequently, the long build up to the murder is born out of the film having to front load the development of what characters have what relationships with each other, because the detective isn’t going to be able to provide that. This also gives a chance for the ensemble cast, with a murderers row of great British actors, to bring in a bunch of great performances.

That said, the execution isn’t great. The Detective is a great example – like a Lestrade he happily ignores evidence and ruins crime scenes in favor of his own prejudices, but he assumes the killer was one of the upper crust because they’re the only ones who could have a motive. Except the whole thing with the novels the film is satirizing is that the police detectives immediately go for the staff because the elite are above reproach and thus them committing murder is inconceivable – so generally Holmes, or Poirot, or Marple, or Whimsey would be going to clear the names of a member of the staff who has been wrongfully accused. In short, those works, even if they weren’t necessarily progressive, by nature of not taking the easier option ended up subverting the stereotypes of law enforcement of the time. So the film, in a way, is reinforcing those ideas, and the satire falls flat.

That said, the writing and character beats make up for a lot of the faults. You can’t put Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, and Richard E. Grant in a movie and not get good performances. There’s a definite sense of “We’re not sure if these people have been in a movie together, and if there’s any doubt we should fix that.” It makes for a tremendous watch.

Additionally, what the writers do get right are the sense of class dynamics in Interwar Britain, and the hard lines between the upstairs property owners and the downstairs staff that keeps everything running. Consequently, I was not surprised when I discovered that the writer of this movie would go on to create Downton Abbey.

So, I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who liked Downtown Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs. Fans of Poirot or Marple will probably be kinda frustrated.

You can find where Gosford Park is available for streaming on JustWatch.