Gosford Park

Robert Altman reworks THE RULES OF THE GAME and Agatha Christie mysteries as though he were a bebop musician covering old jazz standards. Watching it, you recognize the melody (that is, the narrative set-up and general developments), but find endless surprises in the riffs and structural innovation.

What could have been an exercise in style is instead a richly textured, funny, and occasionally heartbreaking film about the human condition.

Gosford Park may pivot on the intrigues leading up to and following an old-fashioned murder, but part of the surprise is that Altman keeps the murder offscreen and generally soft-pedals the dramatic significance of who committed it. The use of murder, assassination, accidents, natural disasters, and the like in many of his previous films typically strains for effect, but here his evocations of Agatha Christie whodunits are deliberately tweaked, undermined, and deviated from.