After Maggie Smith’s death (sniff), I went about rewatching some of my favorite of her performances, and I was thrilled to find Gosford Park (2001) available on streaming. This is such a great movie, which we’ve referred to many times on the blog but not done a full review of — maybe because it sometimes been hard to find? Whatever, I got it and screencapped (sometimes crappily, blame Amazon), and this will have to do.
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One of my all-time favorites! Every detail is telling, visually as well as in the dialogue. (Seeing what Fellowes was capable of here, it only makes the leaden and labored writing we’ve seen from him since all the more disappointing. Perhaps there was more input from the director and improvisation from the actors than we’re aware of?) Every character is distinct, truthful, and multi-faceted, even the uniformed servants. I also love how much we see of the servants maintaining the upper-class characters’ clothing. Think of Derek Jacobi’s line while whitening his dead employer’s collars, ‘it’s all I can do for him now’; Mary’s face falling when she realizes she has to stay up late to wash the warmer shirt for the hunt; or the movie producer’s ‘they’ll think you don’t care’ to the faux valet about picking up his shirt and socks. The shoe room, the ironing, the comment about the machine made lace, Lady Sylvia’s hair piece and eyelashes, even the kitchen maid’s post-rendezvous underwear adjustment – so many tiny critical details.