So I added this to our list entirely because my wife is a huge fan of Downton Abbey and has been antsy about waiting for its movie. Gosford Park was written Julian Fellowes, the showrunner of the hit television series. It has a similar setting as the show and you can even recognize a couple of familiar faces in its cast. It also has a lot of other famous names to round out its cast.

In 1932, family and friends gather at the estate of Sir William McCordie for a shooting party, bringing along their servants with them. At least two of his relations are there to ask for money from him and become increasingly anxious over the course of the stay when he seems inclined to disagree. Meanwhile the fact that one of the guests is an actor who has found success in Hollywood causes some excitement, especially among the servants. One valet attached to an American movie executive causes some consternation as he apparently speaks with a Scottish accent but doesn’t appear to know much about life in service. Other characters among the servants include a lady’s maid new to the job and a valet who claims to be an orphan but has little to say about his past. Inevitably as tensions rise within the overcrowded house, Sir McCordie is murdered and the police is called in to investigate.

Anyone who has watched Downton Abbey can recognize how this film shares its DNA. Everything from how the house is divided into an upstairs section for the residents and a downstairs section for the servants and customs like how unmarried women can’t have breakfast in bed will be familiar. Amusingly enough the television series is still the grander, more gorgeous spectacle of the two. This makes sense as it was set in the manse of an earl of the realm while the events of this film takes place in the house of a mere knight. But more importantly, Gosford Park takes place much later when the gilded lifestyle of the aristocrats were already in full decline. This explains why the staff behave in awful ways that would horrify Mr. Carson and why so many of the upstairs guests seem to be in need of money. It’s pretty cool to view this film in light of this knowledge and realize how far the so called nobles have fallen by 1932.

While hints are dropped about the murder plot from the beginning, I found the main story to be uninteresting. The revelation of the identities of different characters feels tangential to the overall tone of the film and I dislike that all of the conflict with McCordie’s relations turned out to be red herrings. I found the little stories about each of the other characters to be much more compelling, such as one wife trying her best to look decently presentable in polite company while not really having the money to pull it off. Unfortunately, once again the television series does all this better and if we must think of a single film that captures aristocrats interacting with servants in a single house, then this film falls very, very far behind Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.

While Gosford Park isn’t a bad film, it doesn’t have much going for it. For fans of Downton Abbey who are still waiting for its movie, it can be a way to temporarily stave off withdrawal pains. It’s also rather amusing to watch it for the star-studded cast. It wouldn’t have been obvious when it was made, but watching it today one can’t help but notice that it is the performers playing the servants who became the big stars. For most people however, this probably isn’t worth your time.