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| Editorial Reviews: | |  |  | | À près de 80 ans, Robert Altman, mythique réalisateur de MASH, signe un 36e film complexe et substantiel. Gosford Park, dont l'intrigue est digne d'un roman d'Agatha Christie, s'est d'ailleurs vu récompensé en 2002 de l'oscar du meilleur scénario original. À l'occasion d'une partie de chasse, dans les années 30, une dizaine d'invités et leurs domestiques s'installent dans le château anglais de Sir et Lady McCordle. Comme dans Dix Petits Nègres, ce quasi huis-clos deviendra le théâtre d'un meurtre, ce qui déterrera quelques secrets de famille encombrants et fera voler en éclat les règles de bienséance et de courtoisie. Dans une réalisation très soignée, pudique et élégante, Altman fait craquer avec ironie le vernis de bonne éducation et de luxe de cette belle société, s'amusant à mettre en scène deux mondes parallèles – celui des aristocrates et celui de leurs domestiques – pourtant empreints de la même hypocrisie. Cette multitude de personnages, parfois archétypaux, rend la construction narrative un peu assommante et occasionne quelques longueurs mais Altman, grâce à des rebondissements bien amenés et à des acteurs de talent (Stephen Fry, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Watson), réussit à captiver son public. --Helen Faradji | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| Wonderful, luxurious mystery | |
| | The story opens in 1932 at the country estate of Lord and Lady McCordle; guests arriving for the weekend include friends and relatives and even a Hollywood movie producer. Of course, they bring their servants who bustle around downstairs to make life grand for their betters upstairs. When someone is found dead - and it appears he was murdered twice - everyone seems to have a motive.
The superb cast of British megastars is led by Maggie Smith who steals the show with her funny/snobby countess role, Helen Mirren who is tragically efficient as the housekeeper, and Kelly Macdonald who plays a wonderfully meek ladies' maid. Each of the wealthy guests is incredibly spoiled and oblivious to the world downstairs, where the servants have their own hierarchy and drama. Everyone has a secret and they all unfold much to our delight.
Director Robert Altman's style of having overlapping dialogue can be frustrating; at first it was hard to understand what was being said because everyone talks at the same time or mumbles, but it's still fun to soak up the atmosphere of the filthy rich who find everything too, too boring. This movie is part comedy, part drama, dripping with period authenticity. It was nominated for seven Oscars and won for Best Director. Lots of fun Extras on the DVD.
| | Will You Get What the Movie is About? | |
| | 99 out of 100 people who see this movie will miss the point. The murder is a poorly done and if you want a good mystery story this is not it. The murder has nothing really to do with the underlying story. To see the real story you have two look at the two areas of the house - the upstairs and the downstairs. The people who occupy these areas, literally, live in two different worlds.
It starts when Constance Trentham (Maggie Smith) stops in the pouring rain to talk to other guests who have had a breakdown with their car. She is worried about them getting wet, but where is her maid standing at the time?
The upstairs people talk to each other as though the maid or footman, standing to one side, are not even there. They are not people, just another piece of furniture. They would not have had the same conversations in the presence of their family members or friends because they would judge them on what they say or do.
In some instances the furniture would be treated better. Though in that period of time the people downstairs thought they were lucky. At the same time the people upstairs provide them with entertainment which they laughed at. They wished they could have their lives, but at the same time enjoyed their own more.
Which group live in a "real" world, and which ones have their heads in a cloud?
The cast is filled with the best of British theatre and television. Robert Altman did a fine job.
This is not a story by Agatha Christie, Evelyn Waugh, or Jane Austen. It shows the British class system at its best (worst).
| | | This has the look and feel of English "who-done-it". It is as much the society as it is a mystery. The first quarter of the movie is just introductions to the characters as they approach the manor. Then the discussions start as they are settling in and the sub plots show up but do not overwhelm the main story. If you are trying g to guess ahead forget it. Also plan for every English cliché.
I suggest that you use the closed caption option the first time through as the mumble a lot and the background music is louder than the speech tract. Don't be surprised to find that it has ended just as you are getting into it.
The DVD extras add a dimension to the movie as after watching them you can view the movie with out the sub tittles.
| | | mystery. The first quarter of the movie is just introductions to the characters as they approach the manor. Then the discussions start as they are settling in and the sub plots show up but do not overwhelm the main story. If you are trying g to guess ahead forget it. Also plan for every English cliché.
I suggest that you use the closed caption option the first time through as the mumble a lot and the background music is louder than the speech tract. Don't be surprised to find that it has ended just as you are getting into it.
The DVD extras add a dimension to the movie as after watching them you can view the movie with out the sub tittles.
| | "Nothing's more exhausting than breaking in a lady's maid." | |
| | | The upperclass friends and relations of Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) arrive at his country house for a weekend of shooting, accompanied by maids, footmen, and valets, all of whom will be staying under one roof. Sir William is a mean-spirited and self-centered old man, married to a much younger, emotionally distant wife (Kristin Scott Thomas), with many family members dependent upon his continuing largesse. The hilariously waspish Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith), who believes she has a lifetime stipend, arrives with young Mary Maceachran (Kelly MacDonald), who is trying valiantly to become a good lady's maid. Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), a Hollywood star, and Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), a producer of Charlie Chan movies, are the only guests without aristocratic backgrounds and inherited privilege. The atmosphere of the house, filled with venomous "friends" and relations, soon becomes even more poisonous. The "below stairs" lives of the servants are also fully revealed, as they share living quarters, eat meals together, tend to the laundry and cooking, and gossip about their employers. The butler Jennings (Alan Bates) and the head housekeeper (Helen Mirren) run the household and try to guarantee that no real-world cares will intrude upon the lives of their employers. Since "upstairs" and "downstairs" occasionally meet very privately at night, secrets abound, many of them secrets of long standing. When Sir William is poisoned and stabbed ("Trust Sir William to be murdered twice"), nearly everyone has a motive for wanting him dead. For director Robert Altman, the primary focus of the film is on the characters, their way of life, and their values, with the murder mystery secondary. Set in late November, the end of the year 1932, the action takes place when this secure aristocratic lifestyle is also nearing its end, something that the arrival of the newly rich Hollywood characters, Novello and Weissman, illustrates. Dramatic cinematography (by Andrew Dunn) emphasizes the cold and rainy dreariness of the weekend, and suggests parallels with the coldness of the dying aristocracy. Interior shots reveal the contrasts between the elegant and mannered lives of the "upstairs" characters and the hardworking daily lives of the "downstairs" characters, who adhere to their own rigid social codes. Every detail rings true, and as the characters' lives and interrelationships are revealed obliquely in brief snippets of seemingly unrelated conversations, a broad picture of the upstairs and downstairs lifestyles gradually emerges. Fully developed, many-leveled, wonderfully acted, often funny, and impeccably directed and filmed, this is a film one can watch again and again with delight. Mary Whipple
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