It may have taken 45 years, but the London Film Festival appeared to
have come into its own Wednesday night with the world premiere of Robert Altman‘s Gosford Park starting things off.
Festival director
Adrian Wootton told the London Independent: “To show the world
premiere of a Robert Altman film that was actually completed only a week
ago is quite a coup. The reason that we are getting these films is that
we have demonstrated that because of our profile and international
status it’s worth the big boys coming. And people are undoubtedly using
the festival as a pre-Oscars launch.”
The Altman film received mixed
reviews from British journalists. Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent of
The Guardian, called it “a gem of a period drama.” David Lister
in the Independent, commented that despite being directed by an
American, Gosford Park is a “quintessentially British film.”
Nevertheless, he found the movie “plodding.”
