Film Recommendations

This is where you can find my recommendations for films and TV series.

It is impossible for a summary to do Robert Altman’s Gosford Park justice. On the surface, the film is about a murder during a shooting weekend on an English country house in the early thirties. The suspects are, among others, the butler, the aunt and the brother-in-law of the deceased. But the story, which at first glance seems hardly more than an homage to Agatha Christie, is so much more. The audience has to wait about half the film for the murder to happen and in the meantime delves deeper into the stories of the guests and staff of Gosford Park.

The only help for the audience is the character of Mary (Kelly Macdonald), the new ladies’ maid of the stingy and eccentric Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith). It is her first time visiting an estate this big and because of her clumsiness the other servants have to explain things to her that are a mystery to the audience as well. However, the viewer is left on his or her own for most of the film, and that adds to the appeal of the film, just like the casting. Maggie Smith was born for her role as Lady Trentham, and it seems the writer had Hellen Mirren in mind when he wrote the character of Mrs Wilson, the stiff housekeeper.

But those are not the only famous names on the cast. Other actors include Clive Owen as a valet, Tom Hollander as one of the guests, Ryan Phillippe as an actor and Stephen Fry as an inept inspector.

It is the excellent work of the actors, who portray their characters as persons rather than stereotypes, which makes it easy for the audience to emphasize with their problems and to laugh with them. Everyone at Gosford Park is so human that it is impossible not to like them.

Another highlight of the film is the soundtrack, which helps creating the atmosphere of 1932 just as much as the dialogue and the costumes. Many of the songs were written by Ivor Novello, an actor and composer of the time, who is played by Jeremy Northam in the film.

I can only recommend Gosford Park as the great portrayal of an era and its society. Fortunately, Altman and the writer Fellowes manage to avoid portraying the setting as exotic, which is the case far too often in historical films.