After a short break caused by COVID, Kenneth Branagh’s handsome Agatha Christie adaptations, “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile” and now “A Haunting in Venice,” have become an annual tradition. Like fruit cake at Christmas, or those Halloween Molasses Kisses that stick to everything they come in contact with, the movies are a sweet treat, but are quickly forgotten.
Branagh returns as both director and elaborately mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot. When we first see the world’s best, and most famous sleuth, he is in self-exile in Venice, living alone with only his bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio) for company and as protection from the crime groupies that pester him when he leaves the house.
He is burned out, tired of staring into the abyss of the worst of human behavior. Instead, he passes his time ensconced on his rooftop patio, enjoying the sun and the best pastries Venice has to offer.
His idyll is interrupted when an old friend, possibly his only friend, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) drops by. She is the author of a string of detective novels based on Poirot’s exploits, and has a case she thinks will lure him out of retirement.
She convinces him to attend a Halloween night seance at the allegedly haunted palazzo of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), a mother grieving the tragic death of her daughter Alicia. The detective, a man of science, is skeptical, but agrees to attend, if only to expose the proceedings as fakery.
When people start dying, Poirot’s instincts kick in as he sorts through the red herrings, ghostly happenings and the backgrounds of each guest, including the pious housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), the shell-shocked Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his precocious son Leopold (Jude Hill) and psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), to get to the bottom of the case. “There have been two impossible murders,” he says, “as if the living have been killed by the dead. No one shall leave this place until I know who did it.”
“A Haunting in Venice” is the most gothic of Branagh’s Christie adaptations. Tilted camera angles and extreme close-ups lend a claustrophobic, and welcome weird vibe to the murder mystery. Add to that some jump scares and hallucinogenic imagery, and you get the jitteriest of Branagh’s Christie films. The rest of it, from the stunt casting to the big reveal at the end, feel more familiar, like ghostly spectres left over from the other films.
Branagh directs and performs with vigor, but the mechanics of the investigation sap much of the film’s energy and tension. Despite good performances— Cottin and Yeoh are standouts—the talky nature of Poirot’s interrogations, even when broken up by slick editing and inventive photography, slow the movie’s pace to a crawl.
Worse, the cross examinations don’t reveal much in the way of usable clues for the audience. One of the treats of a murder mystery as a viewer is the opportunity to follow along, to arrive at a conclusion based on the information provided. “A Haunting in Venice” cobbles together a series of clues, obvious only to Poirot and screenwriter Michael Green. It feels like a cheat when the great detective reveals an arcane fact not even hinted at in the narrative.
“A Haunting in Venice” is a beautiful looking film, with exquisite, gothic production design and some fun performances, but as a thriller, it feels as lifeless as one of the movie’s murder victims.
In the whodunnit genre few names loom larger than Agatha Christie. The author of 66 novels and 14 short story collections was known as the Mistress of Mystery and holds a Guinness World Record as the best-selling fiction writer of all time.
Her books are the fuel for countless stage plays, television shows and movies, but the spark that make the novels so entertaining often goes missing in translation.
It speaks volumes that the best Christie movie of late, “Knives Out,” isn’t an adaptation of her work. It borrows the mechanics of her best stories, including the climatic singling out of the murderer in a roomful of suspects, to make the most enjoyable movie tribute to her style in years and that includes Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 thriller “Murder on the Orient Express,” which is actually based on a Christie classic.
The director takes a second kick at the Christie can with “Death on the Nile,” an adaptation of the writer’s best-selling 1937 mystery of jealousy, wealth and death.
The film begins with a flashback to World War I and the origin of Belgian soldier Hercule Poirot’s (Branagh) flamboyant moustache.
Cut to 1937. Poirot, now a world-renowned detective, is on vacation in Egypt aboard the lavishly appointed ship S.S. Karnak. Also aboard are heiress Linnet (Gal Gadot) and her new husband Simon (Armie Hammer), a glamourous, honeymooning couple cruising the Nile in an effort to hide from the jealous Jacqueline (Emma Mackey), who happens to be Linnet’s jealous former friend and Simon’s ex-lover. Jacqueline has other plans, however, and comes along for the ride. “It’s indecent,” says Simon. “She’s making a fool of herself.”
Linnet fears that Jacqueline is up to no good and reaches out to Poirot to look out for her safety on the ship. “Maybe Jacqueline hasn’t committed a crime yet,” she says, “but she will. She always settles her scores.”
When Linnet turns up dead, Jacqueline is the obvious suspect, but she has a rock-solid alibi.
So who could the killer be? Is it Linnet’s former fiancé Linus Windlesham (a very subdued Russell Brand)? Jazz singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo)? Maybe it’s Marie Van Schuyler (Jennifer Saunders), Linnet’s Communist godmother or Rosalie Otterbourne (Letitia Wright) Linnet’s old classmate.
Only one person can get to the bottom of the matter. “I am Detective Hercule Poirot and I will deliver your killer.”
“He’s a bloodhound,” says Rosalie, “so let him sniff.”
“Death on the Nile” has an old-fashioned Hollywood epic feel to it. There’s glamour, beautiful costumes and even more beautiful people set against an exotic backdrop shot with sweeping, expensive looking crane shots over CGI pyramids. There are, as they used to say, more stars than there are in the heavens populating the screen and a knotty mystery that only Poirot can untie.
It also feels old fashioned in its storytelling. Branagh takes his time setting the scene, adding in two prologues before landing in Egypt. It takes almost an hour to get to the sleuthing and the weaving together of the clues and the characters. The leisurely pace sucks much of the immediacy out of the story, and despite all the moving parts, the mystery isn’t particularly intriguing.
More intriguing is Branagh’s take on Poirot. On film the detective has often been played as the object of fun, and while the character’s ego, persnickety personality and quirky moustache are very much on display, but here he is a serious man, heartbroken and brimming with regret. We learn how the death of a loved one changed him, turning him into the man we see today. It’s a new take on the crime solver that breathes some new life into the character’s lungs.
Then there is the pyramid in the room. Yes, Armie Hammer, the bland slab of a leading man, has a large role in the action. He is so interwoven into the movie that he couldn’t be cut out, à la Kevin Spacey in “All the Money in the World,” despite his recent scandals. At any rate, despite having one of the larger roles, he doesn’t make much of an impression.
“Death on the Nile’s” high style and all-star murder mystery may please Agatha Christie aficionados but it could use a little more of the “Knives Out” vibe to make it feel less old fashioned and conventional.
