Rating: 
Summary: A Delight!!
Review: This Altman picture was completely capitivating. The acting was top notch, especially, Maggie Smith, Emily Watson, Helen Mirren and Kirsten Scott-Thomas! The conversations the characters are all having are hard to catch, but when you do they are real treasures. The dialouge just sparkles and shines and with such a fine ensemble cast it is absolutely marvolous! The ending made perfect sense and the movie fitted together very well. I definately recommend this to those of you out there that like that like a good masterpiece theater movie combined with all the juicy well directed scenes that distinguish Altman. Also the sets are just beautiful and you just want to settle into the rich upper class elite of Europe. You also get to experience the snobbery and pure narcisitc behavior that complemented the lot of them, at least in this movie. Lisa Nary
Rating:
Summary: Sly yet Subtle. Very Worthwile
Review: Gosford Park is a most unusual and complex film. Its all about the "getting there," and then when it does "get there" the "gotten" only serves to compliment the "getting." Yes, there is a murder mystery, and yes it is solved, but this only further complicates the characters and their relationships to one another. The revelation of the mystery only affords a greater mystery. So, in all actuality, the ending is only the place where the movie ends and the credits begin. How Gosford Park is all this and still manages to be satisfying is, perhaps, the greatest mystery of all.
The plot of Gosford Park is entirely to complex to be neatly tidied up here, besides anything less than a full script would be superficial. I will say, however, that it concerns a massive group of impossibly rich characters, invited to a shooting party circa November 1932. Nearly all of these are restricted to the upstairs (aristocrats) and downstairs (servants). The first half of the film would seem to show the differences between these, but then, ironically, someone is murdered and the film takes the opposite turn. Suddenly, each of these people are all just people, and the only thing dividing them is a set of stairs and musty ideals. Each group is, after all, made up of individuals put in their place solely by chance. In the end everyone has their own specific problems and concerns, that may or may not relate to their class, and are often either paralleled or mingled with the opposite class.
Do these themes resolve the movie? Well, yes and no. In the end the murder is irrelevant, and could have been substituted by any similar scandal or tragedy. It is the characters that matter. We never really find out just who everyone is, but that, the mystery left unsolved, may be the point of the movie. Gosford Park is at first all about surfaces, every character begins a caricature. However, gradually we realize that there is something never completely disclosed going on beneath the surface. Sure there are little revelations throughout, but all they really tell us is that each character is more than meets the eye. In an exact reversal of typical narrative, the characters start out simple and accessible, but end complex and mysterious. So their plights are never really resolved, they may still come away a little bit wiser for their visit.
All of this is made rich by cunning direction, lush photography, and impossibly wonderful performances. That director Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville) manages to drag a brilliant performance out every every member of his whopping 23-character cast is, well, like I said... impossible. But then again Altman really doesn't seem to give a damn. He is one of the most talented directors of our age, and he puts that talent to good use here. He knows the tricks of his trade very well. He can make any character an innocent, a suspect, and all with the angle of his camera. And how he handles that cast...!
Speaking of which, it would take entirely to much text to detail the performances of each main character, as there are so many of them. However, there are two female performances that stand out, and seem to be garnering special attention. Maggie Smith is a show-stealer. She is so wonderfully bitchy and disdainful in her role, really giddy to behold. She manages to teeter perfectly between being a part of her class, and absolutely contemptuous of it. Then, in the opposite light is Helen Mirren. A servant, her performance is composed of subtle glances which tell us just enough of her bitterness, cynicism, and ultimate love, without completely revealing her. She is ultimately very sad, and she suppresses and reveals that sadness in just the right way.
Altman openly claimed his film to be greatly influenced by the classic French film, La Regle Du Jeu, a very similar study of social classes. Does this detract from the film's originality? Not really. Upstairs-Downstairs movies are really a genre all their own. Antiwar films, interracial love stories, teen angst dramas and other specific types of movies all may express very similar themes, but they can also be very unique. Gosford Park expresses the universal ideas of La Regle, but in a different manner. It lifts the themes and settings of the earlier film, and populates them with many different characters, and situations. The tone is different as well...
In Gosford Park Altman takes a very sly, farcical approach to his material. When watching it I got the feeling that he was like a kid throwing rocks into a busy anthill. His murder is his greatest rock, and one the ants spend a great deal of time figuring out how to approach. Should they swarm all over it, stand aside and laugh scornfully, hide away, or blame each other? Altman's ants all take a different approach. In the end there's just this rock sitting in the anthill, and they all leave. Besides, if anyone committed the murder it was Altman himself.
Rating:
Summary: People Watcher Heaven
Review: Filled to the brim with interesting characters played by superb actors, all compressed into a very British weekend hunting party. We see glimpses of many secrets, some of which are left unresolved or unexplained in order to tickle the imagination of the viewer. Everything moves swiftly, with many laughs and a few tears. If you're a "people watcher" then this movie will be a delightful experience. If you need predictable structure and explanations, then skip it. My husband gave this movie his highest award: he wants to see it again and as soon as possible!
Rating: 
Summary: Not all that enjoyable
Review: This is one of those muddy tales of Mr. Altman's that never gets anywhere. Somehow, I never really cared about any of the major characters or their tales. The main reason I sat through this rather long movie is that the acting was top notch. I suspect that if you like Mr. Altman's movies you'll find this to be an enjoyable movie. I think he sometimes makes great movies and sometimes misses. I thought this a miss. I prefer a movie with more of a plot, more character development, more of a sense of purpose.
Rating: 
Summary: Bring a notebook and a pencil . . . .
Review: You'll need it to keep track of all of the characters and how they are interrelated. The movie itself is quite well done, and extremely interesting. However most will leave the theatre still trying to figure out who all the characters are and how they were associated. As my mother said as we left the movie "If I didn't know better, I wouldn't think we saw the same film". That's how different our interpretations were. Nevertheless, we both enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to other viewers who enjoy English mystery/comedies.
Rating:
Summary: An hysterical view of a house party
Review: If you enjoy British comedy, this is the film for you. An all star cast brings you to a house party at an English Manor house. The owner of the manor, a noveau riche industrialist, married to the daughter of a impoverished earl, is found dead in his library. A totally inept detective is called in and he investigates the murder. The ladies' maid of one of the guests is conducting her own investigation. All of the guests and staff seem to be connected in myriad ways. The film looks at life both above and below stairs. Most people are familiar with the above stairs life, the below stairs life is just as if not more interesting. The characters are really funny, and the mystery is fun to solve. This is a great film.
Rating:
Summary: Watch Your Back, Frodo! Here Comes a Challenger.
Review: The Golden Globes may have given a boost to the sanitized bio pic
A Beautiful Mind and the gaudy, glitzy but ultimately banal Moulin Rouge, but in a year when probably a dozen films have a legitimate shot at the Academy's Best Picture nomination, the three best are Lord of the Rings, Memento and this one. With Gosford Park you get in one package a comedy of manners, a whodunit, a satire on pre-WW2 upper class England (not to mention Hollywood), a many faceted love story, and -- at the end -- something near heartbreak. After a quarter century, Robert Altman -- who should be a cinch for Best Director -- returns to the peak form of Nashville. This is ensemble acting at its finest and Altman pulls that off with a cast which unreined could have been ten or more characters mugging for screen time. To mention a few of them, Maggie Smith superbly underplays a snob whose pretensions outrun her pocketbook, Helen Mirren perfectly disappears into her role as manor manager, Stephen Fry is the best bumbling police inspector since Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, Emily Watson continues to pour eloquence of motion and expression into every role, and even the usually vacuous Ryan Phillipe and Kristin Scott Thomas actually act. The accents are rugged to follow for the first half hour or so and the banter among the servants is often too quick to be caught completely. Some may find the movie somewhat long and the pacing slow. So much the better for my taste -- it gives that much more time to watch these professionals at work, enjoying themselves, the material and the art that Altman makes of it all. Go out of your way to catch this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Good To See Once, No Need To Buy It
Review: This is a fine film to see once, either in the theater or via rental, but one time is all you'll want or need to see it. Once the plot has run its course, memory of the presentation loses its intrigue. The depiction of the fading-Empire British caste system was interesting, but a great deal of their accented muttering was difficult or impossible to understand. It was great to see Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon together again, though they did not share much screen time. This movie will definitely make you re-think your thinking, if you're pondering whether or not to hire a staff of personal servants. I certainly will not... not after seeing Gosford Park.
Rating:
Summary: See it for Helen Mirren!
Review: Although I dearly love Maggie Smith and was gladdened to hear all of the Oscar buzz for her, once I saw the film I just had to tell folks that the real bit of acting in this film was a shining performance by Helen Mirren. She is about as close to perfection as I have ever seen in a film. As usual, Altman's vision is flawless and surprising and, of course, Smith is wonderful...isn't she always? This is a much more insightful version of Upstairs-Downstairs and they are playing for keeps. An absolutely wonderful film and Mirren is the high point of it.
Anyone interested in learning the acting trade would do well to study her closely.
Rating:
Summary: Where's the sound man when you need him?
Review: I'm a sucker for this type of setting in a movie. But, if I could have understood more of the dialog (was that English?), the experience would have been great. Really, didn't anyone sit in a theater and listen to the incomprehensible amount of unintelligible language before releasing the movie?
I enjoyed the movie in spite of the hard to understand dialog
and I'd really like to see what wound up on the cutting room floor. The movie was brutally edited to move like a merry-go-round. It did and it was too fast for my taste. I wanted more. I wanted it to last. I wanted to see the house and the furniture, the clothing and jewelry, the food and the china, the maids' quarters and Maggie's room. MORE, MORE, MORE!
Now I'll have to go and watch the "Upstairs, Downstairs" videos (again) to get my fix.
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