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Title: Gosford Park
Review: Excise the murder mystery and there's a really great story here about how people treat one another, regardless of class or station. There's also a nice contrast between British reserve and American directness. Yet, Hollywood needed a hook, and that's where the classic "well-dressed dinner guests gathered around a body, wondering who could have done it" device comes in. To Altman's credit, he wisely spends as little time as possible on the actual murder and gives the inspectors who show up hardly any screen time. Good thing, since the real treat here comes in keeping track of all the uniformly wonderful performances, bedroom shenanigans, betrayals, alliances and nasty infighting. As a class warfare piece, it pales next to Renoir's classic Rules of the Game. But Gosford Park manages to make its points without overstating them, and while a tad overlong, it holds together nicely at the end.
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