Wolff rating: EXCELLENT
Plot summary: At a shooting party in the English countryside in 1932, the guests and the servants snipe at one another verbally and, now and then, physically.
Biased, pithy comments: Altman brings life to a currently morbund genre---the drawing-room murder a la Agatha Christie. This time, though, he and his script writer examine the upstairs/downstairs interconnectedness between the served and their servants, with particular emphasis on the endless minor subjugation of the servants. The tone is sometimes wry (with the best zingers coming from a hateful Maggie Smith) but mostly sad, with the ugliness of base humanity showing through the thin verneer of the gentry at the twilight of their era. Macdonald is an unlikely emotional center for this ensemble costume drama, but she is up to the task (and her accent is absolutely delightful). My complaints? Perhaps that I saw the solution to the plot about 20 minutes before it was revealed (though I was still interested as it continued), and Altman's naturalistic sound style means that I spent most of the movie straining to figure out who the heck was whom and what they were talking about.
Other Notes: There is a lot one could do with critical analysis of the film (what role do Americans play to contrast the upper and lower classes? What effect do the servants' borrowed status have on their beliefs about the gentry?) but this isn't the place for it.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Robert Altman
Directed by: 2001