Gosford Park

About Gosford Park

Gosford Park is a 2001 film directed by Robert Altman. The screenplay is by Julian Fellowes, based on an idea by Altman and producer Bob Balaban. It features an ensemble cast including Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeremy Northam, Bob Balaban, Ryan Phillippe, Stephen Fry, Kelly Macdonald, Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, Eileen Atkins, Emily Watson, Camilla Rutherford, Tom Hollander, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi, and Richard E. Grant.

The film is set in 1932 at an English country house. A party of wealthy Britons and Americans accompanied by their servants gather at the home of Sir William McCordle for a shooting weekend. A murder occurs in the middle of the night, the film presenting the murder from the servants' perspective. But rather than a simple mystery to be solved, the film uses the whodunit format to create a drama showcasing the tensions of the British class system. Many intertwining subplots detail the complex relationships among the characters, both above stairs (the wealthy guests) and below (the servants).

In the rainy November of 1932, the snobbish Constance, Countess of Trentham (Dame Maggie Smith) and her timid Scottish maid Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald) travel by car from the Countess's estate to Gosford Park, her niece Lady Sylvia McCordle's estate, for a weekend hunting party. On the way there, they encounter the matinée idol Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam) and his friend, Hollywood producer Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban), who are also on their way to Gosford Park. The guests are greeted by Sir William McCordle (Sir Michael Gambon), his rather younger wife Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas), and their daughter Isobel (Camilla Rutherford). Besides Aunt Constance, Ivor and Morris, the guests include Sylvia's sisters Louisa (Geraldine Somerville) and Lavinia; their respective husbands, Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance) and Commander Meredith (Tom Hollander); The Honourable Freddie Nesbitt (James Wilby) and his "common" wife Mabel (Claudie Blakley); Isobel's suitor Lord Rupert Standish (Laurence Fox); and his friend Mr. Jeremy Blond (Trent Ford). The upstairs guests also bring along their own servants; every lady has a lady's maid and every gentleman a valet. Most notably, Lord Stockbridge's valet is Robert Parks (Clive Owen), Lady Trentham's maid is Mary, and Morris Weissman's valet is Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe). Noticeably without servants are the impoverished Freddie and Mabel Nesbitt. Freddie has married the commoner Mabel with an eye to her father's glove factory fortune; now both the factory and the fortune are gone and the Nesbitts are in dire financial straits. In secret, Freddie is blackmailing Isobel with some past secret of hers, later hinted to be a teenage pregnancy that was kept secret.