The good news about A Haunting in Venice is that director and star Kenneth Branagh has reduced Hercule Poirot’s moustache considerably this time. It pretty much needed its own dressing room in Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.
The less good news for Agatha Christie fans is that the original book Hallowe’en Party has been severely tweaked – and not just by resetting it in Venice.
Photo: 20th Century Studios
But American writer Michael Green does have form when it comes to tampering.
His previous successes – Logan, Alien Covenant, Blade Runner 2049 and the most recent Murder on the Orient Express – were all rejigs of original material, some better than others.
A Haunting in Venice opens on Poirot retired among the canals, though he’s constantly badgered by would-be clients with murders to solve.
He refuses all requests, until an old friend – the mystery writer Ariadne Oliver – makes him an offer she thinks he can’t refuse.
It’s Tina Fey, leading a typically international cast – from the Irish stars of Branagh’s Belfast, Jamie Dornan and young Jude Hill, to Camille Cottin, fondly remembered from the French TV series Call my Agent. Oh, and coffee ads with George Clooney.
But I digress. Ariadne lures Poirot in to investigate an apparently fake psychic, cashing in on people’s misery.
Enter the psychic, Joyce Reynolds - played for some reason by Michelle Yeoh.
Her séance takes place in the stately home of opera singer Rowena Drake, who’s desperately trying to make contact with her recently deceased daughter Alicia.
As we’d expect, the eminently practical Poirot is sceptical. Now in the books he’d need no justification for dismissing this sort of hocus-pocus, but Branagh seems anxious to make this just as much a spooky ghost-story as a simple whodunit.
This is known in the business as having a bob each way.
Among the guests are a shell-shocked doctor and his too-clever-by-half son, a chef, a couple of refugee siblings and a superstitious housekeeper. The usual Agatha Christie job-lot.
The séance takes place, then takes a turn for the bizarre.
Rowena swears that the uncanny voice coming from the mouth of Mystic Michelle is in fact that of her daughter. Further gimmicks include a typewriter that operates with nobody touching it, and a chandelier that suddenly crashes to the floor.
But by now all we’re really interested in is “Who’s the body?”
The murder happens in a suitably dramatic fashion. All the lights go out, Poirot insists on the doors being locked, and that nobody leave the room. And off we go.
But apart from the actual murder, there are other games afoot. The so-called suicide of Rowena’s daughter Alicia, for instance. And ghostly figures pottering about the palazzo.
Poirot finds himself doubting his own eyes. And even suspecting old friends.
But with Christie adaptations, you do have to stay on the Christie rails. Once you deviate, trying to make it more modern and relevant, for instance, you get into trouble.
Branagh seems determined to change Poirot from the fussy, vain Belgian of the books to a serious, earnest chap with a heroic back-story, though goodness knows why.
It’s certainly no improvement on the David Suchet Poirot in the classic TV series. And it’s also a lot duller.
It’s as if he sucked all the personality out of Poirot in the first two movies and replaced it with an outsized moustache. And now he’s cut back the moustache.
As for the ludicrous extra ghost-story elements…. Well frankly they’re as phony as Poirot’s accent.
The best thing about A Haunting in Venice, once again, is the famously picturesque location. Venice will never let you down. Unlike this movie.
