The plot is an old fashioned country house murder mystery, but it is also an excellent study of life both upstairs and downstairs in a 1930's country house. It is well directed (by Robert Altman) to give a great feel of life in this period with excellent attention to detail in the sets. There is a very good script from Julian Fellowes. There are a lot of good performances, although there are almost too many stars for the good of the film, but director Robert Altman brings out the best in them. The story line alternates between the upstains characters and the downstairs characters. One of the strong points of the film is the sound. Robert Altman had microphones on all the actors and so a lot of scenes have realistic background sounds, conversations and normal sounds. The performancs and characters of Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren dominate the film.
4/5 
Maggie Smith
Helen Mirren
Kristin Scott Thomas
Charles Dance
Michael Gambon
Derek Jacobi
Jeremy Northam
Richard E Grant
Stephen Fry
Kelly Macdonald
Clive Owen
Claudie Blakley
Emily Watson
Tom Hollander
Alan Bates 
Geraldine Somerville 
Sophie Thompson 
Eileen Atkins 