Agatha Christie would have been ashamed of a story this soapy and simplistic. What this film shows brilliantly is the way a big house like Gosford Park worked, who ran it and how. As the rich get richer, butler seems like a sensible career goal. We learn far more about the Downstairs crew than the Upstairs - I never worked out who was who, let alone who was married to whom. What did the fair bloke with the "common" wife have on the daughter of the house? Who was having relations with the kitchenmaid? Not one of the Upstairs crowd, I think - he was wearing a tail coat and must have been one of the footmen. The revelations about Lord McC's past in Isleworth are clunky to say the least. One thing we do find out: these people may be rich, but they're not noble. Lord McC, it's hinted, is a war profiteer, and his guests talk business at the dinner table. Real toffs don't do that - they don't have jobs. As for the "funny" detectives - they just aren't, and they don't hack it as parody.
Review of Gosford Park
