Big Screen Peter: Gosford Park

With the societal fever pitch surrounding Downton Abbey reaching a buzzing drone of late, I thought it apt to take a new look at one of Julian Fellowes earlier works, Gosford Park.

Though set roughly two decades after Downton Abbey's onset, Gosford Park is, in many ways, a similar examination of a class society and the dynamics of a changing world. Whereas the action of the television show centers around the melodrama of love and money, Gosford Park is a paced mystery offering a noir twist on the upstairs/downstairs plot device.

Directed by the famed Robert Altman and starring such luminaries as Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, and the up and coming Clive Owen, Gosford Park debuted in late 2001.  It received a wider release shortly thereafter, having been nominated for seven Academy Awards.

From the opening sequence, as sheets of rain splash down on a chauffeur and a lady's maid, Altman's touch is evident. The varied dynamics of the British class system has rarely been so artfully poised against one another as in the opening sequence of Gosford Park. It's both simplistic — wet v. dry — and yet so frostily complex, as the Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith) encounters an American film producer named Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban) with her third cousin and famed actor, Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam).

This exploration of societal dualities marks Gosford Park. It's the icy tension that flows forth from these dualities, however, that grants the movie an arresting immediacy not often felt in period pieces.

The story is not inherently complex — everyone there wants something from the rich old man — but the large cast and accented English can prove disorienting for some viewers. As the film unfolds, the struggles of each character are made clear. And with various shots lingering on bottles of poison, Altman does his best to set an ominous undercurrent to the transpiring witticisms and dramas.

Though the acting is undoubtedly superb, it's the writing of Fellowes and the pacing of Altman that set Gosford Park up as both a first-class mystery and one of the better period pieces produced. Unlike many whodunits, however, Gosford Park is focused on the aftermath of death and how it affects those involved.

It's the young maid Mary Maceachran, exquisitely played by Kelly Macdonald, that drives the movie toward its close. As the Countess of Trentham's lady-maid, she's at a loss — bewildered not only by the bustling life of a servant in a large estate, but at the behaviors of those around her.

Though the entire cast is quite adept throughout, it's Macdonald who delivers the searching emotional weight to Gosford Park. Her personal explorations, in the aftermath of death and in the shadows of officialdom, elevate the film even further.

As the losses are finally revealed and the set pieces drift back to their other lives, Gosford Park becomes a truly transformational work. And one that certainly shines brighter than the high class soap opera Downton Abbey.