Agatha Christie must be spinning in her grave.
I can’t fault Kenneth Branagh for wanting to play her famed Belgian detective again; it’s a great role, and Branagh fills Hercule Poirot’s patent leather shoes with a delightful blend of aristocratic condescension and shrewd, sharp-eyed deductive analysis. It’s always fun to watch Poirot’s narrow gaze scrutinize the comparative heights of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs.
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| Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) initially has no interest in the challenge offered by longtime friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey). But his curiosity eventually is piqued, and he agrees to tag along for what becomes a most unusual evening. |
Green’s repeated efforts to “improve upon” Christie’s meticulously crafted novels ran 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express off the rails, and his 2022 disembowelment of Death on the Nile went under not only for the third time, but also the fourth and fifth.
This time out, Green doesn’t even try to adapt Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. The only thing this film has in common with her 1969 novel is the presence of one character, and he treats her in a manner that will enrage the celebrated author’s fans.
Why adapt a famous author’s book, if you’re just going to ruin it?
Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Branagh — who also directs — and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos allowed their Gothic sensibilities to run amuck. Branagh’s third Poirot outing is a classic example of style over substance: cockeyed camera angels, darkened hallways, smash-cut close-ups of worried expressions, Hildur Guönadóttir’s shrieking score, and the repeated squawking distraction of a cockatoo that swoops into numerous scenes for no good reason … all of which do nothing to conceal Green’s clumsy plot.
The setting is Venice in 1947, as Italy struggles to rebuild itself. Ten years have passed since the events in Death on the Nile, a decade has left Poirot disheartened by the fact that another generation found itself in a war even worse, in some respects, than the “Great War” he endured during his younger days. Poirot has retired and retreated behind the gates of a Venetian appartamento; he employs a bodyguard, Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio), to dissuade anybody wishing to engage his detective services.
Even so, Poirot tolerates a visit from longtime associate Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a mystery novelist who has based her series character on him. She offers a puzzle: a supposed medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), whose “performance” at a recent séance left her baffled. Ariadne, inclined to accept the notion of communication with the dead, believes that if Mrs. Reynolds can convince Poirot that she’s the “real deal,” then the result will be a certain best-seller about “the woman who stumped Hercule Poirot.”
(It must be mentioned that, in Christie’s canon, Ariadne is a friend who helps Poirot in seven novels, and would never, ever bait him so callously. But we move on…)
Clearly stung by the notion that he could be fooled by such an obvious charlatan, Poirot accepts the challenge. The setting for the next séance proves foreboding: the crumbling palazzo owned by retired opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). The place is believed haunted by the ghosts of young orphans who met a terrible fate therein, decades earlier.
Worse yet, it’s also where Rowena’s beloved daughter Alicia died one year ago, having apparently jumped from her upstairs bedroom window and drowned in the canal below.
It also happens to be Halloween. A particularly stormy and wind-swept Halloween. What could be better?
Aside from Mrs. Reynolds, Poirot, Vitale and Ariadne, Rowena’s other guests include:
• Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan), the Drake family doctor, an emotionally shattered man whose WWII service left him with a severe case of PTSD, which has all but destroyed his career;
• Leopold (Jude Hill), Ferrier’s precocious 10-year-old son, who prides himself on maturity and intelligence, and is fond of stories by Edgar Allan Poe;
• Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), Rowena’s loyal housekeeper, who was devoted to Alicia, can quote biblical passages in Latin, and goes out of her way not to spend a night in the palazzo;
• Desdemona Holland (Emma Laird), Mrs. Reynolds’ young assistant and “public face,” who establishes the requirements of each séance; and
• Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), a pompous, Manhattan-based chef who essentially crashes the party, and once was engaged to Alicia.
The slashing winds, sleeting rain and Zambarloukos’ cockeyed cinematographer having thus set the mood, the séance proceeds as planned. To a point.
Somebody dies. Spectacularly. Poirot places the palazzo under lockdown — rather superfluous, since the storm has taken out the phone lines, and prevented any assistance from outside police — and embarks on his own investigation.
The rest of the film takes places within the palazzo, during this single evening. The formula is familiar: Poirot interviews each of the others — Ariadne offering snarky asides along the way — while, uncharacteristically, beginning to doubt his own senses.
That’s a blindingly obvious clue practically from the moment Poirot sets foot in the palazzo, and let’s just say that David Suchet’s Poirot would have sussed that out within minutes. Viewers with half an ounce of sense will figure it out just as quickly, which renders Branagh’s bewildered and agitated overacting both a) ludicrously out of character; and b) a tedious waste of time.
Green deserves credit for one clever touch, involving the rooftop garden that Rowena has let fall into ruin, following her daughter’s death.
Fey’s performance is … troublesome. As introduced, Ariadne seems a genuinely concerned — and somewhat impish — friend who hopes to lift Poirot out of his funk. But as the story proceeds, she becomes increasingly sharp and unpleasant; frankly, she becomes a pain in the ass.
Yeoh gives the film’s best performance. Her Mrs. Reynolds is regal, quick-witted, self-assured and smoothly able to parry Poirot’s every effort to discredit her. Dornan is similarly strong as the long-suffering Dr. Ferrier, a man holding himself together through sheer force of will (and carefully timed pills supplied by his son).
Hill is owlishly adorable as the solemn young Leopold, although it’s easier to picture him in a Harry Potter adventure; Christie never concocted such a character. Allen makes Maxime appropriately arrogant and unpleasant; Laird ensures that Desdemona’s apparently still waters run quite deep.
Reilly makes Rowena’s long-suffering grief quite persuasive; it’s easy to picture her clinging to the faint hope offered by a spiritual medium.
As events proceed, it becomes apparent that this isn’t an entirely random set of suspects: a classic Christie touch. But the journey simply isn’t very interesting; Branagh’s Poirot spends far too much time chasing his own tail. As director, Branagh and Green quickly succumb to a kitchen sink’s worth of overly embroidered theatrics.
This film is a slight improvement over Death on the Nile — damning with very faint praise — but it’s still disappointing.
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