Wordiezett So much average

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Maria Trim I was looking forward to this, and bought the DVD and when it arrived was full of excitement to see it, because it had such great reviews. Perhaps i was spoilt as i had not long binge watched, downton abbey, upstairs downstairs 1976 and the recent one in 2010 set in the same period as Gosford Park. I found the beginning so confusing. It took me a little while to understand what was going on and ages to realise that Sir William had a daughter it got kind of lost in confusion, the only saving grace for me was Maggie Smith. The plot slowly and agonisingly started to develop BUT 3/4 way in i wondered what I was watching. Was it meant to be serious? The same old banal issues with upstairs downstairs servants v masters etc. I likened it to:Downton Abbey Upstairs Downstairs 13 for Dinner by Agatha Christie Nancy Drew (the young maid worked it out) Inspector Clouseau (the bungling inspector played by Colin Fry)I did giggle at Colin Fry.I struggled to believe a maid would get a blouse dry if washed by hand at midnight so she could witness the randy maid with a member of aristocracy making nooky over a kitchen table.Since when did Americans have Valets Henry Denton was obviously playing a part? Lady Sylvia has an assignation with him and a glass of hot milk, yawn. I am sorry I really didn't enjoy it, it was so drawn out and confusing it did not keep my attention, and when Sir William was killed i thought oh goody something has happened. Its only then we find out that Sir William was a profiteer in the war and made woopee with the workers and had numerous children one of whom was a valet to one of the visitors at the shoot, and it turned out although he thought his mother had died she was actually Mrs Wilson the housekeeper who saw the photo of herself when she was young, and realised he was her son, but didn't bother to reveal herself. The only saving grace was Mary who worked for the countess of trentham (Maggie Smith) and Elise. I really did try to like this but alas it just made me switch off my brain. I think its because I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, serious, funny, mystery it never seemed to find its place.

tidwell85 Jeremy Northam's voice instantly hypnotizes the cooks, maids, and footmen at Gosford Park. He lifts their spirits, they forget themselves, and for a moment all work ceases. The irony here is that because they're so entranced they fail to grasp the song's meaning, which is about hopeless longing and dreams unfulfilled. It puts smiles on their faces anyway, but has no effect at all on the upstairs guests, who spend so much energy posturing that they can't seem to recognize the value of any of the many graces offered to them. The downstairs staff certainly appreciates the entertainment, since they toil day and night over details like the distance between the knife and the fork, and whether strawberry marmalade will suffice when the raspberry jam runs out. 'The perfect servant has no life,' declares Mrs. Wilson, and while her pride is admirable, her sacrifice is tragic. What a shame, giving all of your time away to dote on people who don't themselves seem to know how to live, either.The super wealthy can't be entirely blamed for their plight, which I think stems from loneliness. People tend to behave oddly around the rich and famous—they get nervous, begin putting on an act, or trying so hard not to that they clam up. Like a highway patrol cop in traffic, the presence of esteem inspires everyone close by to alter their behavior. It makes sense then that the rich prefer to surround themselves with hired help who are paid to behave respectfully rather than go out into the world and live their lives in public. Their wealth affords them the illusion of a public life in a private and controlled setting. The danger is that after spending years dealing primarily with one's own servants, one might become incapable of dealing with anyone else… even, say, an inspector who needs help solving a murder.Consider the inspector's interactions with the guests. They treat him like the pizza delivery guy. They talk at him flippantly, begrudge him a moment for questioning, and fail to summon a shred of helpful information. This apparent insubordination is more out of apathy than defiance, and the inspector isn't blameless either. He treats witnesses with kid gloves, allows himself to be interrupted but never himself interrupts. I imagine that he would have more vigorously interrogated potential witnesses had the murder occurred in a poor or middle class district, but he behaves submissively when dealing with the guests at Gosford Park.Attending a shooting party like this one is an exercise in straddling that line between intent and image. Image obscures intent, so it must be hard, being a wealthy host, to trust whether guests are attending out of true friendship. We, the audience, can certainly be sure that they are not because of the film's fly on the wall point of view. We quickly become aware of their disparate natures, that they only harmonize in their collective effort to remain in the good graces of Sir William. To open up to each other is to risk exposure or embarrassment, so distance is crucial to maintain a safe proximity. These aren't friends; these are satellites in tow. I makes sense, then, that when Sir William is killed and an inspector starts asking questions, no investigative headway is made. This is because as far as the guests are concerned, with Sir William gone there is no longer any need to engage. It's time to float away, like debris in outer space.The idea of behavior obscuring motive is relatively foreign to Americans. I recently hosted an English traveler who needed a couch to crash on, and he told me that in English culture, protocol of behavior is of the utmost importance. "We can enslave entire cultures, but we'll do it with a stiff upper lip, while we have our afternoon tea," he said. I believe Americans tend to flaunt our motives more overtly, embody them. It's seen as a sign of virtue when a salesman embodies salesmanship, an athlete competition, a computer whiz nerd-dom. I feel (and this is pure conjecture) that to embody 'good manners' is valued but not to the degree that it is in Europe, particularly England. In America, we are almost suspicious of those whose intentions aren't clear. Consider the way characters in reality shows interact. Their behavior is motivated by primordial urges—chiefly, the urge to impose their personality. The line 'I'm not here to make friends' seems to be a reoccurring catchphrase. Gosford Park operates by almost opposing values: America's brand of 'reality' is best concealed so that the surface always appears squeaky clean. I would guess that even a non-English speaker, having spent a weekend with the casts of any of the new 'real world' shows, would walk away with a pretty good understanding of who those people are simply because the personalities are so unabashed. Yet I feel as though a fellow English speaker, even a thoughtful and aware individual, could spend a weekend at Gosford Park and walk away thinking only of how charming the affair was, but having no clue as to what was really going on.Despite all of this I can't agree with the film's outlook, an outlook I would call altogether cynical. The alternative to the lifestyle of affluence is a lifestyle of needs-based living. For years I lived minimally, considering excess a burden and ambition a form of avarice, and you know maybe I wasn't wrong. But if we must rise with each new day, I don't see the harm in striving for some form of highness, even if illusory, as long as an attempt is made towards balance. This film is about the imbalance, the extremity of Postbellum English aristocracy. It emphasizes the evils and the folly that wealth and servitude cause without acknowledging that wealth is simply the end result of something inherently good. It doesn't express the reality that if we didn't posture whatsoever, we would be left crawling.

851222 Greetings from Lithuania."Gosford Park" (2001) has a great script, great actors doing great job, very well direction, cinematography, set design. The thing that i didn't like (well, not as much as previous aspects) was the story itself. It's kinda boring if you ask me. The pacing of this movie is very good, at running time of 2 h 14 min it drags only because of the story, but what's the most surprising script is great - dialogs are very well written and it's interesting to watch conversations by different characters (and we have A LOT of them in "Gosford Park"), but then again, story itself isn't that good as the script, it's drama with some mystery, and although i figure it out who was guilty, it's really not about "whodunnit".Overall, "Gosford Park" is drama with very engaging script (Oscar award), great acting, good pacing but the story suffers in my opinion. "Mucho do about nothing" if you ask me. Worth seeing once.

Anna Borsey My abiding memory of this film is my irritation with the vastly overrated Julian Fellowes for being unable to get the language of the period right. In Britain of 1932, NO ONE said things like "No worries!" or "End of story!". There are other linguistic anachronisms, but these two are the worst ones. Both expressions are examples of modern "estuary English" and no educated person would ever utter either. The wealthy, the landed gentry, and the aristocracy in England would never even have heard this type of expression; in fact, they had not yet been invented. The ghastly, interminable soap "EastEnders" has a lot to answer for regarding the debasement of British English, as has the never-ending Australian soap "Neighbours".The plot is very derivative and there are glaring flaws and holes in the narrative. In some ways, Gosford Park reminds me of an Agatha Christie mystery but the plot simply doesn't hang together. HOW did the housekeeper KNOW that the son she gave up shortly after giving birth to him 31 years previously would kill his natural father? For that matter, HOW did she even know WHO he was? She had not seen her son since he was ca two weeks old! He was brought up in an orphanage, and at the age of 31 he is now the valet of Lord Stockbridge, who just happens to have been invited to stay at the country house belonging to Sir William, the man who fathered an illegitimate son on one of his female factory workers 32 years earlier. This woman is now the housekeeper at his, Sir William's, country house. That in itself is rather odd, to say the least. HOW did the valet KNOW that Sir William was his natural father? He states to a fellow servant that on his birth certificate it said "Father unknown". There are far too many incidents of the "two terrible twins": contrivance and coincidence.