Tag: Agatha Christie

A Haunting In Venice (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: (sing to the tune of Eleanor Rigby) Agatha Christie, puts a Poirot in a house where a murder has been, ghosts cause a scene.

I very much enjoyed the Branagh version of Murder On The Orient Express (or MOTOE, pronounced Moe-toe). I wasn’t quite as enamoured by Death On The Nile (or DOTN, pronounced Dot-en) but it had its moments. With both of those I had some sense of expectation going in, I had witnessed the trailers enough times that I had a general idea of what to expect. This? This felt like it was secretly released. This is the blindest I’ve gone into one of these, I was aware of how MOTOE ended and had a general idea about DOTN, but I knew nothing about A Haunting In Venice (AHIV, pronounced A-heev). It’s (loosely) based on Halloween Party, which is not exactly a well-known Christie book. So it would have been useful if the studio bothered to promote it AT ALL to let the audience know what they were in for. I didn’t see a single trailer being played at the cinema and very few posters. There didn’t seem to be any excitement pre-release, it just felt like the studio was saying “Okay it’s out now, deal with it”, treating it with all the pomp and circumstance of a silent fart.

I was really hoping my trepidation was wrong and that this wouldn’t turn out to be as painful as a hole in the head. It’s……..alright. It’s decent enough and doesn’t reach the lowlights of DOTN, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to the highlights of MOTOE. Part of that is because the mystery itself just isn’t as narratively satisfying. It’s not set up well enough, the clues aren’t given in such a way that you could conceivably guess the ending and important points are moved past VERY quickly. It also pulls the “maybe magic, maybe mundane” card too much. It’s explored brilliantly with the séance scene, where Poirot works out how they’re pulling off the tricks. But then later on you have the main villain seemingly killed by a ghost. The fun in a film like this is seeing how it’s done, so when death is reduced to “a ghost did it” it cheapens it somewhat.

The performances are all pretty damn good, but I do wish we got more Yeoh. Branagh continues to shine as the lead and is usually the most captivating presence on screen. Part of that might be because of the strange directorial choices. Branagh doesn’t have much of a background in horror movies, and that much is clear in this. The physical geography of some of the scenes is a bit muddled, and there are some moments where it feels like the characters are reacting to camera movements, which obviously don’t exist in their reality, so really they’re reacting to nothing.

It does have some highlights; the aforementioned séance is a lot of fun to watch unfold. The puppet story about the plague children is hauntingly beautiful, and the ending is nice to watch.

In summary; a spooky detective story that is essentially unessential.

See How They Run (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A depressed alcoholic and bitter Inspector (Sam Rockwell) works alongside an enthusiastic new Constable (Saoirse Ronan) to solve a *adopts accent* MURDAH!

I absolutely adore a good WhoHasDoneThis? (which as B99 fans know, is the grammatically correct way to refer to films in the Whodunit genre). A great whohasdonethis film contains my favourite things to watch: great ensemble cast, a stylistic look to them, and a clever script. I love being surprised in films, and whohasdonethis films provide those in spades. Well, good ones do anyway. Bad ones are far too obvious, the audience should never reach the correct conclusion of the reveal before the film itself does, but the reveal has to make enough sense that when it does happen you feel kind of stupid for not getting it.

The person who is generally referred to as being the best when it comes to this genre: Agatha Christie. A lot of modern stories in the genre are heavily in her debt, and invite comparisons. The smart thing to do in this situation is to lean away from it, remove anything that can cause people to compare it to Christie. Especially if you’re a director (Tom George) making his first feature length film, and a writer (Mark Chappell) who has mainly made television. You want to keep it fairly safe and do something very un-Christie, to avoid comparisons to one of the greats. That’s the smart and logical thing to do.

They decide to go “fuck that” and lean so far into Christie comparisons that they’re basically shunting her work. It’s a very brave thing to do, and one that runs the risk of being a spectacular failure. Somehow it’s not. This film has an uphill battle to work, and climbs that hill admirably. Everything about it just works. The story is one you’re invested in, a believable case could be made for any of the characters, all who are fleshed out enough that if they were revealed you wouldn’t sit there wondering “who’s that?”. It has a visual style that’s reminiscent of the LA Noire games, some truly beautiful use of focus in some of the shots. The script is clever, keeping you entertained throughout. I mean, there’s one point where it literally tells you the ending, and when it happens you can’t help but laugh and be impressed. It’s also really funny, getting a lot of genuine laughs from people in the screen I was at. The performances are perfect, everybody is at their best. Saoirse Ronan, in particular, needs highlighting as a ball of energy who you love to see, her joyous outlook is infectious and every moment she’s on screen is a delight to watch. Sam Rockwell is good, and make no mistake, he’s a huge get for a film like this, but, I dunno, part of me feels it should have been David Tennant and I have no idea why, he was never linked to it at all, but it feels like the kind of role he’d do well in.

On the downside, there is a slight loss in momentum as it heads into the final third. The final section itself is brilliant, but the lead into it is a little forgettable. It’s not helped by a dream sequence which doesn’t seem to add much except make me want to watch The Shining. I also thought the opening was strange. This is going to seem very picky but I can’t ignore it. It opens with a shot of a theatre sign, pans down and we see someone. But because the focus is on the person, the background is out of focus. This would be fine but it means that the opening is a blurry shot of a sign, just seems a bit weird that they wouldn’t have that in focus and then just change it as they panned down. Picky I know, but it bugged me, especially the second time I saw it. But the fact I’ve seen this twice says enough about how highly I regard this film. A great watch, and a much better Whohasdonethis than the rather lackluster Death On The Nile. Does make me think that I really need to watch The Mousetrap though.