Hey folks, Harry here with the latest from Altman, and I'm not talking about an incredibly STUPID QUOTE that he gave regarding Sept 11th... I'm talking about what is important about Altman.... His work, not his mouth. Sounds like a fun film and I can't wait to see this one...

Hi Harry,

Vertigo here with a look at Altman's Gosford Park, which opens the London Film Festival today.

This is an odd film (odder then the snippet of info I sent you before from the press launch of the festival). It's strange to see the machinations of the British class system through the eyes of an American maverick.

It's what Altman does best - an ensemble piece - set between the wars as a crowd of English toffs assemble at a Sir William McCordle's (Michael Gambon)country pile for a weekend's shooting. With them is Maurice Weissman (Bob Balaban) a Hollywood producer who does Charlie Chan films, researching his latest, 'Charlie Chan in London'. He's accompanied by Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam) and his mysterious valet, Ryan Phillippe(well not mysterious. You can tell a mile off he's an actor researching the role of a valet thanks to his atrocious put on Scottish accent). And Harry, I apologise. I know you were interested in the Charlie Chan plot. So was I. And the snippet we saw a few weeks ago intimated it was the main plot - but it's just one of many. Sorry if I got your hopes up...

However, this isn't all that goes on - with all the toffs comes their personal servants and valets who have to pile in below stairs to attend their lords/ladies every whims - and gossip about them as well. The two main below stairs characters are Mary (Kelly McDonald) and Parks(Clive Owen), a crafty Londoner with a secret - but then it seems everyone here has a secret or two...

Upstairs/downstairs do cross over, mainly because Sir William is having his way with a variety of servants. Meanwhile upstairs it's all going a bit Cluedo as all the guests seem to have a reason to want to off Sir William. Relationships across the classes start to tangle and knot untill they meet in a cluster when Sir William is found murdered in the library. And then all those relationships have to untangle themselves again.

It's a good movie - Altman works with ensemble casts wonderfully, and as ever his ear for natural sound, dialogue and conversation comes to the fore - dialogue from seperate conversations criss crosses the screen, overlapping and interrupting as you catch snatches of half conversations. It's brilliant. It's not a new technique but it's brilliant. The cast, which seems to include most of the British theatre stock, is uniformly good (with Gambon, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith and Clive Owen as stand outs. In fact there's a great scene where Owen manages to act Phillippe off screen proving that pretty stars aren't always good at their job. But we knew that anyway).

Also the Charlie Chan subplot is fantastic, and Bob Balaban as the producer is great - desperately trying to keep up with etiquette, but damn glad he doesn't have to put up with this shit in Hollywood.

Where it falls down is the plot - the relationships between the characters are great, but too much of the film hinges on handy plot devices which kick in at just the right time. The result is a very well directed drama that would be more at home on the TV screen than your local megaplex.

The Regus London Film Festival runs to the 22nd November. See you in the stalls...

Vertigo