Julian Fellowes’ Gosford Park: The 21-Year-Old Mystery Film That Changed Genre Forever
Classifying “Gosford Park” as merely a “whodunit” is missing its complex layers and exceptional quality. Almost two decades before “The Gilded Age,” Fellowes and Altman created this film, defying genre norms by employing the structure of a mystery not just to unravel a crime, but to scrutinize an entire societal milieu. The movie’s strength lies in its intricately portrayed upstairs-downstairs society, an outstanding cast, and a story that prioritizes human secrets over detective work, thereby establishing it as one of the most thought-provoking and multidimensional mystery period films ever produced.