Peter Bradshaw sees Robert Altman play Cluedo.

Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian

The idea of yet another 1930s country-house drama peopled exclusively by distinguished English character actors sounds like a living death. The number of star names generally has an inverse relation to the actual thrill they collectively deliver; everyone just distracts from each other’s prestige. Add to that the antique cars sweeping up the gravelly drive, the chatelaine’s languid ennui, the cheeky footman, the mob-capped parlourmaid, and finally the comedy detective investigating the body in the library… well, it should be cliche hell, the sort of material the late Anthony Shaffer used sheepishly to write for those later Agatha Christie mysteries.

But it isn’t. The tired old Cluedo genre has turned out to suit Robert Altman’s ensemble approach nicely, shaping it, giving it discipline. Altman is sure-footed in this alien habitat, and the film – entertaining, and amusing if insubstantial – has a similar feel to Alan Bridges’s The Shooting Party or James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day. It would almost be quicker to list the big names who aren’t in it (they were off doing Harry Potter), but the director keeps them all more or less in check, and something in the brassbound typecasting prevents anyone showing off too much.

Michael Gambon is the glowering master of Gosford Park, Kristin Scott Thomas his elegant, disaffected wife. Below stairs, Clive Owen and Kelly Macdonald come worryingly close to a John Alderton/Pauline Collins double act. Ryan Phillippe, as the mysterious Scottish manservant, joins the list of leading men (including Ralph Fiennes and Freddie “Parrot Face” Davies) whose head is the wrong shape for a bowler hat.

Inevitably, there is one performer who blows them away with a deliciously unpleasant, scene-stealing performance, and that’s Maggie Smith as the vain, mean Countess of Trentham. While Jeremy Northam, playing Ivor Novello, croons interminably at the piano, Dame Maggie remarks acidly over a hand of cards at the opposite table: “What a large repertoire.” Of someone’s frock, she smiles sweetly: “Difficult colour, green…”

Once the murder is committed, quite late in the film, it all becomes very broad and you can see the ending a mile away. There’s nothing in the way of psychological insight or social comment; but Gosford Park is never dull, and it runs as purringly as an antique Bentley.

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