A review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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There are magicians who shout at you, “Look what I can do!” and then they do their tricks, with smoke, mirrors, and puffs of smoke, attempting to shock and dazzle you.
But the most impressive act is the one that doesn’t shout, that stands there calmly like anyone else, then quietly begins to juggle, tossing more and more pieces into the air. The master is the one who makes the impossible seem effortless, and he keeps you focused on the game, not himself.
Gosford Park is like the latter. Or I should say director Robert Altman is like that, a master juggler who makes incredible things seem effortless. With his last film, he showed that he could bring warm-hearted charm to a small-town murder mystery without raising his voice in Cookie’s Fortune, just as he brought gritty realism and a shockingly sharp sarcasm to life in L.A. in Short Cuts.
Gosford Park has the charm of both, the quiet casual wit AND an array of characters so huge it would usually take three movies to develop them all sufficiently. Somehow, Altman juggles about thirty different characters, moving them from the hunting parties of the upper-class upstairs in an old English manor to the things that go on in the servants’ quarters late at night, and he does so without losing the audience.
The story follows a young maid Mary (Kelly Macdonald, holding her own in an A-list cast) who learns the ropes at Gosford Park and, in her bewilderment at the complexity of the operation, frequently gets lost. During her misguided meanderings through the house, she stumbles onto secrets that will take on extraordinary significance at the untimely death of one of the party-goers. While there are echoes of Agatha Christie here, the mystery isn’t so important. It sets in motion events that unleash the consequences of many sins, for sinners who have been courting disaster behind closed doors.
The cast seizes this opportunity to enliven characters that might otherwise have been stodgy and bland. No doubt you’ll have your favorite characters, like I have mine.
I greatly enjoyed the wicked-witch snarling of Kristin Scott Thomas, who finally gets to play a villain and a memorable one at that. Most of the guests at her house are villains too in their own way…
Jeremy Northam plays Ivar Novello, a hilariously suave and full-of-himself Welsh movie star, one that doesn’t realize his charms wear thin very quickly.
Novello’s friend Morris Wiseman (Bob Balaban) is an American director of Charlie Chan films, researching the way in which a British manor operates, from its servants to its lord and lady… but he’s far more interested in shouting on the phone to Hollywood than he is in actually paying attention.
Meanwhile, the great Maggie Smith outdoes herself, playing her usual snooty old lady and then slowly turning the volume up to 11, becoming a snob of psychopathic proportions.
Above all of this Michael Gambon, lord of the manor. Gambon turns in another performance as an arrogant, dangerous, disgusting, and powerful old man who can ruin a whole family’s financial future without thinking twice.
My favorite performances come from Helen Mirren, Emily Watson, and Clive Owen. Mirren plays Helen the head housekeeper, whose runs the show behind-the-scenes with imperious authority and an expressionless face, but just as the servants are busy and wild behind the stately facade, so Helen is a tempest of emotion wrapped up in ritual. Watson plays Elsie, a world-weary maid who puts on a poker face but listens perhaps too closely to the scandalous gossip of the house. (For the first time, Watson, one of my favorite actresses, doesn’t flash that irresistible smile too much in a role; in fact, I only caught one fleeting smirk.) Owen plays Robert Parks, a smug valet who becomes somehow more mysterious the more we learn about him.
It’s a conflict of class, and in each scene we become painfully aware of who gets to say and do what. But we also learn that the freedoms and privileges into which they characters stumble or are born have very little to do with the happiness and contentment they find in the end. The rich and “free” live in prisons of social manner, greed, and fear, while the servants struggle with humiliation, abuse, ambition, and pride. Love, or the lack of it, is what really controls the hearts of men and women here, and you’ll see that those who truly love find deeper rewards, and deeper meaning, in everything they do.
In the end, Mary’s eyes are the eyes through which we see this world. She’s honest, timid, and overly cautious, but her conscience is alive.
A friend of mine challenged me after the film, saying that it condones a vengeful murder and excuses the murderer getting away with it. The law, as personified by the bumbling inspector (Stephen Fry), can’t make things right, and the murder has delivered a certain kind of justice… so why make a fuss?
In many reviews, I’ve complained that movies too often justify vigilante justice. Am I going soft on Gosford Park?
I suppose it’s possible. But I think the film shows us characters who do their best to explain away their crimes. I don’t think the movie wants us to approve and celebrate their crimes. If Mary is the moral center of the film, then she remains appalled at the killing, no matter how much she sympathizes with the killers. And she remains independent, having to think for herself, with no hero to admire. There is no knight in shining armor who wins Mary’s heart… only another prideful man who tries to steal a kiss when he gets a chance.
These vengeful vigilantes are not painted as heroes… merely the next generation of meddlers with the next series of excuses. As long as they live by the film’s punchline… avoiding a confession because “What good would it do in the end, really?”…they will leave the truth unspoken, and consequences will arise.
Meanwhile, one of the servant women finds a moment in the middle of the movie to suggest a different path. She, like Elsie, is willing to take a risk, take a stand, even if there are consequences, and speak the truth in love. Those brave acts of rebellion are the acts that resonate, that stand up to scrutiny, and that demonstrate the power of innocence.
In the end, we are still in Mary’s head and heart, and she has turned her back on those who would draw her into their methods. She has gained sympathy for the devils, but she is not a devil herself.
But now I’m making it sound so ponderous. It’s a heavy moral dilemma, yes, but it’s at the heart of a film that feels as light as meringue. Gosford Park has a charm, a lightness, and a dazzle all its own. That it maintains it style, tone, and our attention so consistently is a small miracle. I found every minute of the film a great pleasure, and I’m dying to see it again.