As fate would have it, someone is murdered over the course of the evening, and it’s once again up to Poirot to find the culprit. ![]() The whole thing is orchestrated by Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), a renowned medium who claims she’ll be able to communicate with the owner’s deceased daughter Ariadne, meanwhile, is hoping to expose Joyce as a fraud and wants Poirot’s help to do it. (The detective is accompanied by an Italian bodyguard who is so devoted to keeping people out of Poirot’s space that he’ll straight up toss them into the canal now that’s committing to the bit.) Poirot’s self-imposed exile is interrupted by an old acquaintance, the mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who invites him to a séance at a spooky palazzo on Allhallows Eve. Set 10 years after the events of Death on the Nile, in which Poirot lost his dear friend Bouc (Tom Bateman), the famous sleuth has since retired in Venice-Poirot is so distraught over the atrocities he’s witnessed and the losses he’s suffered that he’d rather hide away from the world. In that respect, A Haunting in Venice comes as a bit of a surprise-though not an unwelcome one. Frankly, there was enough controversy … to fill the Nile!ĭeath on the Nile flopping at the box office seemed to resign the franchise to an unceremonious end while also continuing a worrying trend of 20th Century Studios titles floundering under Disney’s stewardship. (Depp’s erratic behavior reportedly affected production until Branagh confronted the actor about it.) There were far more problems plaguing Death on the Nile: As if shifting the release date six (!) times due to the pandemic weren’t bad enough, the movie also had to contend with accounts of sexual abuse by Armie Hammer, anti-vax sentiments expressed by Letitia Wright and Russell Brand, and backlash faced by Gal Gadot for her comments regarding the ongoing violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Johnny Depp signed on to Murder on the Orient Express four months after Amber Heard was granted a temporary restraining order against him, citing verbal and physical abuse. Really, the biggest knock against Branagh’s adaptations has been the absolutely cursed collection of actors along for the ride. There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV. It’s like going to an ice cream shop and choosing a scoop of vanilla: It might not blow your mind, but you know exactly what you’re getting. (Anyone who has made enough Shakespeare movies to have their own listicle clearly loves sticking to tradition.) Poirot will gather the suspects of a murder (or murders) before interrogating them with a comically hammy Belgian accent backstories for why someone would be compelled to kill the victim (or victims) will come to light Poirot will use his brilliant powers of deduction to suss out the real culprit (or culprits) the mystery reaches its tidy resolution. Whereas Rian Johnson modernized the whodunit with the Knives Out franchise, subverting what audiences have come to expect from murder mysteries, Branagh’s franchise remains resolutely old-fashioned. ![]() ![]() I wouldn’t go so far as to say Branagh cares about Poirot more than a project as intimate as Belfast, but the Christie adaptations are, for better or for worse, inextricably linked to the multihyphenate’s sensibilities. But those prerequisites don’t account for Branagh’s own commitment to the material: he’s not just the director of these movies, he is Hercule Poirot, ridiculous mustache and all. ( A Haunting in Venice is loosely based on Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, shifting from the novel’s original English setting to Italy.) By any measure, another installment of a franchise based on the work of one of the most popular authors of all time qualifies as one for the studio. ![]() Considering Belfast received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, winning Best Original Screenplay, Branagh certainly made the most of his “one for you” opportunity.īranagh is back in the director’s chair with A Haunting in Venice, his third Agatha Christie adaptation following Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. (James Wan, for instance, parlayed the success of Aquaman to make something as gloriously batshit as Malignant, which changed my life.) That mantra would explain the recent directorial efforts of Sir Kenneth Branagh, who, after helming a ( genuinely terrible) adaptation of Artemis Fowl, made Belfast, a coming-of-age drama inspired by his childhood in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. For directors navigating the studio system, it’s not a bad idea to follow the “one for you, one for them” approach to filmmaking: essentially, balancing passion projects alongside the commercial demands of the industry.
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