“Gosford Park” happens to be home to a good old-fashioned murder mystery, the kind popularized by many a book, movie and everyone’s favorite board game, Clue. Fortunately for myself and other audience members, the characters visiting Gosford Park are a bit more dimensional than, say, Col. Mustard.

Robert Altman directs the film, which takes place in 1932 at the English country estate of Sir William McCordle and his wife Lady Sylvia. William and his wife live in the last gasps of refined upper-class British culture. Their lives consist of being waited on and pampered so they can glamorously strut around their estate like some spoiled house cats.

On this weekend, William cordially invited friends and family for a weekend shooting party at his Gosford Park. A hunting or shooting party is the sort of social tradition that already has the entire itinerary mapped out. Straying away from it would be social death.

“Gosford Park” begins with the various party members arriving with their personal maids and valets. Each one’s complete job description is to look after his or her Lord or Lady’s every need. Like sweat pants today, not having a personal maid is just considered giving up.

Besides the guests’ servants, William seems to have employed an entire hotel staff, with maids and valets sectioned off into individual work duties. The army of workers, however, mainly is restricted to staying to the bottom quarter of the house.

The movie quickly introduces one of its subplots, the fact that not everyone living in this house has the benefits of luxury. Guests occupy mainly the upstairs, while down below are the servant quarters where the basic behind-the-scenes work that it takes to run the whole estate.

Not everyone partying upstairs is considered to be on equal playing ground. One member of the family who happens to be an actor brings along Morris Weissman, a Hollywood movie producer. Weissman came to do research on a British hunting party that turns into a murder mystery (hmm). To fit into this elite social gathering, he also brought along an enigmatic valet (Ryan Phillippe).

Initially the film sets up a definite distinction between the upstairs and the downstairs. It would appear that the help and the elite have nothing in common except living under the same roof. Except then the film starts to peel back the surface impressions and reveal interconnected lives powered by love, lust and loss. Both the Lord and Lady of the house have dipped into the gene pool of the servants.

While we watch these simple caricatures morph into dimensional people, a murder takes place. Doesn’t that always seems to happen at the most inappropriate time?

As in any good murder mystery, every single character seems to have a motive to murder. Even ones without a clean-cut motive are given shifty eyes and stalled responses to delicate questions. I was surprised how well these worn and cheesy plot devices were used to install suspicion into even the most good-hearted character.

Overall, I really enjoyed the mystery genre characteristics that I haven’t seen in a film for quite a while, but then “Gosford Park” rose above that to become more of a piece dealing with the social differences between an elite and servant culture. The entire film was buttered up in class warfare, and yet everyone had the same desires and needs as the next.

One of the only problems I really had with this film was its greatest asset, the ensemble cast. The acting was incredible and no character seemed miscast or unfit for the puzzle, but the problem was trying to keep track of all the different characters. With every guest having their own servant, the entire house staff and the occasional late arrival, I could not keep track of every one.

“Gosford Park” is not the kind of film that a viewer can just casually watch. By the end of the film it should all come together though, hopefully.

Don’t go to this movie expecting some suspenseful thriller, but a dry, witty British social gathering with some murder intrigue. If anything, the film is a wonderful satire of social norms and politeness.courtesy photo

Ryan Phillippe stars in “Gosford Park,” a film about an eclectic group of people invited to a weekend shooting party (not that kind of shooting party). A series of events that bridges generations, class, sex and tragic personal history culminates in a murder … or is it two murders?