Minor SPOILER in the middle: I am generally a fan of Robert Altman, but this is definitely not one of my favorites. I agree with others who have mentioned poor sound quality. It was hard to hear the voices when the background sounds were so loud! (and I am not hearing impaired). Like several others who have posted here, I ended up turning on the subtitles. I have had to use subtitles before with a few British films (Those with what I suppose to be 'lower class accents,' namely in "Little Voice" and "The Full Monty." However, I have never previously used subtitles with Merchant Ivory films or others depicting the upper class.) Strange. Anyway, I also agree that there were too many characters to keep straight. Even at the end, I was trying to connect the names with the faces and sort out their relationships. (Having the subtitles on probably made this worse as I was paying more attention to the words rather than what was shown on-screen.) I disagree with those who have said that the mystery is not solved at the end...the 2 parties are accused and both are guilty! I think I would have gotten even more out of this film if I would have viewed it again, but I don't have the patience to do that. Afterwards, we watched the "Deleted Scenes" with Altman's commentary on why they were deleted. Time after time, Altman said that various scenes were deleted because they were not necessary to the plot, or that the point had been explained elsewhere. I disagree. With as many characters as there were, I think that reinforcing a few points would have made the film easier to follow. Overall 7/10. I am thinking about down-grading to a 6/10.
Review of Gosford Park
