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Pimp: Gosford Park by LJC
It's a not a whodunnit. It's a whydunnit.

Background:

In November 1932, Sir William McCordle is having a shooting party at his country estate. He is married to the Earl of Carton's eldest daughter, Sylvia. They have one child, a daughter, named Isobel. He has a little dog np-one likes named Pip. They've invited Sylvia's two sisters and their husbands, her Aunt Constance the Countess of Trentham, and a number of other young men (married and unmarried) for the shooting, as well as William's distant cousin, matinee idol Ivor Novello, and his American friend, Charlie Chan producer Maurice Weissman.

Accompanying the upstairs guests are their servants--chauffeurs, valets to dress the men, lady's maids to dress the women. They join the belowstairs staff at Gosford Park, commanded by the fearsome dour Mrs Wilson the housekeeper, Jennings the butler, and Mrs Croft the sour old cook.

We see this world where upstairs and downstairs collide through the eyes of Lady Trentham's new maid, a young Scottish girl named Mary MacEachran. Mary is very young, and utterly inexperienced, and quickly befriends head housemaid Elsie, and Lord Stockbridge's valet, the mysterious Robert Parks. Also in attendance is Weissman's valet, the smarmy yet very pretty Henry Denton, with his bowler hat and wandering accent.

Sir William loves country sports, even though his is awful at them. William as nouveaux riche, and he and his wife cannot actually stand one another. Isobel fancies Lord Rupert, but Rupert is a young son and worried Sir William will think he's only after Isobel's money. Rupert's hanger-on friend Jeremy Blond is using Rupert as his entree into society, and is really just there to get a taste of the high life. Freddie Nesbitt blackmailed Isobel into getting him an invitation, in the hopes that the week-end will result in his getting a job as one of William's bakers. His hopelessly middle class wife Mabel is overawed by the company, and very much a Novello fangirl. Sylvia's sister Lavinia married a hopeless Naval Commander who adores his wife but is a wreck in business, and William is hoping to get out of the week-end without having to tell Cmdr. Meredith he's pulling out of his investment scheme. Ivor is playing the piano for his supper, and Maurice thinks the whole upper crust world is too hilarious for words, and is mining it for research for his next picture, Charlie Chan in London.

Then in the middle of the second night, Sir William is murdered.

Twice.

Why You Should Give It a Try:

Gosford Park is a snapshot of a vanishing world. An entire generation of young men died in the trenches of World War I, and war is again on the horizon, though very few seem aware of the precipice they're approaching. It's the last gasp of the British Empire. Vast country estates are being sold off left and right as the upper classes can no longer afford to keep the enormous staff required to maintain them and the style of living associated with them. The vast gulf between the landed gentry and the servant class is becoming more apparent with each passing day, and fewer young people are choosing to go into service as other opportunities present themselves in factories, and shops. The idea of knowing your place and staying "where you belong" is being recognised as going the way of the dodo as ambitions rise among the lower and middle classes.

But most of all, Gosford Park is a story about people. You care about the little Scottish lady's maid and her doomed attraction to Parks, Elsie who wants to live her life in defiance of class barriers, and Dorothy the Stillroom maid and Cmdr Meredith who share a moment thanks to love. You cheer for Mabel and Ivor, rising above it all. Even skeevy Henry Denton who is only ever out for himself has his moments. You even giggle when Lady Sylvia has her batty insane moments of glee, or Sylvia the Bitch Queen gets hers, and cry when Wilson the perfect servant reveals her story and her past.

Every single character, from the lowest kitchen maid to the highest countess is the star of their own life, and everyone has regrets, dreams, hopes, desires, and most of all, secrets. The cast is populated with A-list actors, and there's not a moment in the film where any one person is "the star" and the rest just supporting actors. It's a true ensemble, and in true Robert Altman style, it takes often several viewings to catch every line of dialogue and character moment as the story bears everyone along at a breakneck pace. There's something amazing about throwing in the DVD and just listening to it, as the audio weaves among all the different conversations in the drawing room, dining room, servants' hall, and every little encounter on the stairs. Every single time I watch this film, I notice something I hadn't before. And I've seen it over a dozen times this year alone.

It plays with the conventions of the classic English Drawing Room Mystery, poking gentle fun at the genre through the bumbling Inspector Thompson, and his infinitely better qualified assistant, PC Dexter. It draws on memories of everything from Upstairs Downstairs and Remains of the Day, to The Shooting Party and The Rules of the Game. There's even a little bit of Margery Allingham's Campion, if you squint.

Real-life actor Ivor Novello is brought to life (with a bit of cinematic sleight-of-hand regarding RL Novello's poor singing voice) by Jeremy Northam, who downplays Novello's sexuality but is still deliciously bitchy now and then, and serves as a perfect bridge between the worlds Above and Below stairs as popular entertainment was shunned by the upper classes but wholly embraced by the servant class. And Clive Owen is nothing short of amazing as Robert Parks. Newcomer Kelly Macdonald's Mary MacEachran is the perfect viewer identification character, guiding the viewer through a world they most likely know little about, as she is instructed in how to navigate between her lady's chambers and the vast servants hall belowstairs. Helen Mirren is extraordinary as Wilson, who appears out of thin air like a ghost, and has a deep-seated rivalry with the grumpy cook, Mrs Croft (Eileen Atkins, who co-created Upstairs Downstairs with actor Jean Marsh). Kristin Scott-Thomas is the ultimate ice-queen, almost on the verge of sending up her typecasting (and you should see her and Maggie Smith in Keeping Mum if you haven't already). And you'll never watch the Harry Potter films quite the same way again, after seeing Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith sniping at one another across the dinner table as Sir William and his wife's hilariously bitchy Aunt Constance.

But it's like a huge game of "OMG it's THAT GUY" because not only does it have la Mirren, Derek Jacobi (omg THE MASTER!), Clive Owen (guh), Emily Watson, Ryan Phillipe (in the role written for Jude Law, who had to bow out due to scheduling), Stephen Fry, and State of Play's Macdonald. It also has Tom Hollander (POTC's Cutler Beckett), Geraldine Somerville (HP's Lily Potter), Charles Dance, Claudie Blakley, Alan Bates, Bob Balaban, James Wilby (Regenerations' Siegfried Sassoon), Camilla Rutherford (Rome's Jocasta), Richard E Grant (The Doctor! Sort of!), and Laurence Fox (Mr Billie Piper). And more. There are so many more. Dame Judi Dench's daughter Finty Williams as a housemaid type more. I am not lying when I say everyone is in this movie.

Also, it has quite possibly the hottest kiss committed to celluloid ever in the history of ever. (But I may be biased).

The Fandom:

It's tiny, but it's devout. A lot of the extant fan fiction was written for the annual yuletide multi-fandom secret santa fic exchange, and it ranges from character vignettes and plotty gen, to steamy slash and het. The most popular romantic pairings involve Robert Parks, in the form of Mary/Park, Ivor/Parks, Denton/Parks. But there is something for everyone. And every year, there seems to be just a wee bit more. The film's been out for 7 years, and every yuletide there's a handful of new stories, or new snippets pop up on LJ. And as keeper of the Master List, I try and track them all down. Eventually. And we're hoping for more, in the form of a ficathon this spring/summer.

Fansites/Fan Resources:

Land of Might Have Been
Gosford Park Fanlisting
gosfordpark
Gosford Park Fan Fiction Master List
Yahoo Mailing List

Gosford Park on DVD/CD/In Print/Etc.:

Gosford Park R1 NTSC DVD
Gosford Park R2 PAL DVD

Download Gosford Park from Amazon Unbox

Gosford Park: The Shooting Script by Julian Fellowes

Original film score composed by Patrick Doyle, with additional music composed by Ivor Novello and performed by Jeremy and Christopher Northam. Available on CD or Downloadable MP3 Album.

In Search of Ruritania, an Ivor Novello Biography by the film's Novello Expert, David Slattery-Christy, which includes a chapter on the film as well as anecdotes from the set.

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