Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 43 minutes
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Michael Green (adapted from Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party)
Quick Impressions:
“Snip! Snap Dragon!”
My mother was such a Poirot enthusiast that when my daughter was little, she always imagined my late grandpa as David Suchet in costume. It’s easy to see how she would have mixed up two of her grandma’s favorite people. I’m the type who likes to see a new movie every week. My mom, though, liked to re-watch her favorite movies and shows again and again. And again.
And again.
Sometimes this drove me crazy, but it assured that I passively memorized several British comedies and essentially every episode of Poirot starring David Suchet. That’s why for the past several weeks, I’ve been feeling a vaguely sad, nostalgic yearning, thinking, “Isn’t it about time to watch ‘Hallowe’en Party’?”
(“Snip! Snap! Dragon!” the whispered children’s chant runs through my head.)
That one was a household favorite. My mom always watched “Hallowe’en Party” and the Marple episode, “The Pale Horse,” several times throughout the extended Halloween season. Even my children loved the beginning of “Hallowe’en Party.”
I’ve been excited for Kenneth Branagh’s next Poirot adventure. I got even more excited when I saw trailers and realized he was making atmospheric horror just in time for Halloween (which around our house usually starts in mid-August). I thought, “I’m not familiar with A Haunting in Venice.”
There’s an early scene in this film in which we find Poirot in costume bobbing for apples. I thought, “Good grief! How many Agatha Christie stories feature apple bobbing as a plot point?! Did someone try to drown her in a vat of apples when she was a child? Does this stem from an early trauma like when Alfred Hitchcock’s dad made the police lock him up in jail?”
Then, during the closing credits, I discovered A Haunting in Venice is an adaptation of Hallowe’en Party. Without being told, I wouldn’t have known. Granted, I have never read Agatha Christie’s novel, so I don’t know how much of a departure the David Suchet version is from the source material. But it looks like Michael Green has really mixed things up. Essentially, this has nothing in common with the “Hallowe’en Party” Poirot episode except a collection of plot elements. For example, it’s Halloween. Someone is (in this case almost) murdered while bobbing for apples. There’s a garden. After the war (i.e. World War II), people are fine-tuning their identities, trying to readjust. (There are a couple of other things I won’t mention because they’re major spoilers.)
I like Michael Green as a screenwriter. I think his Poirot collaborations with Branagh have all been highly entertaining with great re-watch value (which would have been important to my mom. She’s probably up in heaven watching Poirot right now). I’m kind of thrilled with the way this story is scrambled and repackaged. I especially like the decision to keep certain themes and plot elements while radically changing the setting and the story. A Haunting in Venice is wonderfully atmospheric, full of spooky, deathly fun. And the story feels fresh. Watching this does not feel like watching “Hallowe’en Party” again. In fact, I didn’t even realize I was watching “Hallowe’en Party” again. I just thought Agatha Christie had a quirky lethal apple-bobbing fetish. This feels like a completely different story. It’s like Michael Green was given a writing prompt that said, “You must use the following elements.” It’s like an adaptation of each individual plot element. It’s quite well done.
Strangely, I spent a sizeable portion of the drive home talking about Bergen-Belsen with my husband while inadvertently humming and singing snatches of “The Trolley Song.” I can’t think of any other movie that’s elicited that reaction from me! (I can’t bear to think about Bergen-Belsen anymore, but I still can’t help bursting out, “He asked my name! I held my breath! I couldn’t speak because he scared me half to death.” I’m no singer, but I’m pretty good at mimicking Judy Garland.) (My husband’s never seen Meet Me in St. Louis, but at this point, he’s heard half of it.)
The Good:
Atmosphere is this movie’s most conspicuous strength. It’s like they asked themselves, “How could we put Hercule Poirot in a horror movie?” and decided, “I know! It will take place at a Halloween party for orphans in a haunted former children’s hospital in Venice where a bunch of kids were left to die. Then a creepy medium will show up to lead everyone in a séance until there’s a murder and Poirot starts hallucinating! Or is he seeing ghosts…?”
This atmosphere is so over-the-top. It’s like when TV shows have a Christmas special. This could be called The Hercule Poirot Halloween Extravaganza.
My kids love scary stories, ghost hunting, any method of creating our own atmospheric horror. (Although I do believe in ghosts, most of our ghost hunts are pretend, designed to be fun for them.) There’s a part of me that always wants to have a séance. (If I did that, my mother would show up just to yell at me, like the way Samuel scolds Saul for consulting the Witch of Endor.) Honestly, what I want is to have a pretend séance, but I still think I probably shouldn’t lead my kids in a séance, even if I’m just kidding. (They still call me a pyromaniac because of the time our Dorito fire got out of control. Who knows what they’d tell the neighbors about me if I led them in a séance!) (Besides, what if the spirits who show up aren’t kidding?)
I love the whole spooky vibe of this movie, though. We are fans of that exact sort of spookiness in this house. I wanted to say that A Haunting in Venice feels like a tamer version of a horror film. But I’m not sure this material isn’t deeply horrifying with reflection. (One character’s backstory includes liberating Bergen-Belsen and accidentally killing people by giving them milk when they’re not able to digest it.) For the audience, the mood is one of spooky fun, but most of the characters are trapped in a genuinely horrifying, waking nightmare.
I’m not sure why they’ve transplanted the story to Venice, but, of course, it looks great. It’s like they say, “Everything looks better in Venice.”
Okay, to borrow my favorite line from the movie, “That’s not an expression in any language.” Still, Venice dresses up any story.
Both the cinematography and the art direction are stunning. I love the color scheme and angles of certain shots. Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos works with Branagh a lot. He’s done all three of his Poirot films, which gives them a consistent look.
Maybe the alluring title is meant to go well with Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party takes place in England. Maybe Branagh didn’t deem that exotic enough to follow the Orient Express and the Nile.
I’m thinking of how Hitchcock told Truffaut that he liked to bring aspects of the setting into the story. I try to do that with my own work. If we’re in a place, the story should rely on elements uniquely tied to that place. (My daughter recently noted how often the characters are eating in my novels. That’s why.) I like what Green and Branagh are doing here, keeping elements of Hallowe’en Party and mashing them up with elements of Venice. On the screen, the results look fabulous, highly atmospheric.
Venice is always a romantic locale, a place whose austere beauty pairs well with themes of death. I mean, the city is beautiful, but you know the water is rising. That tension creates a certain level of uneasiness. I’ve never been to Venice, but I did enjoy reading Life and Death in a Venetian Convent, one of my favorite necrologies. (To be honest, I don’t associate necrologies with any other city (but I would like to go to a rave in the Parisian catacombs).)
Venice is inexorably linked with death in the public imagination (or at least, in my imagination). I kept accidentally calling the movie Death in Venice. I suppose it does share a “disturbing obsession with a beautiful youth” theme with Thomas Mann’s novel, but it’s hard to explain why without spoilers.
The other conspicuous strength of the film is the inspired casting of Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver. (I say that, but my initial reaction was, “Really?” She’s almost too perfect for the part. I doubt my mother would have approved since she had an (adorable) outright obsession with Zoe Wannamaker. When I initially watched the trailer, I couldn’t tell if Fey as Ariadne Oliver made me skeptical or delighted. (It was a weird mix of both. I wanted to ask, “Why hasn’t someone cast Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver before now?” But at the same time, I kept thinking, “Are you sure she’s not too obvious a choice?”)
Fey is fantastic as Ariadne Oliver, as it turns out (though, like my mom, I will always have a weakness for Zoe Wannamaker in the role (partially because my mom’s adoration of her was so adorable) (even my mom found it cute herself and often played it up for comic effect). The only thing I found myself wanting was more of Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver. I would have liked to see her in the role longer, to watch her settle into it. Maybe she’ll be back in another film. She’s effortlessly convincing in the role because she brings her own established public personality into the part.
Michelle Yeoh also appears in the film as the deliciously creepy medium. Just before heading to the movie, I’d started seriously contemplating the idea of teaching high school. Watching Yeoh, I thought, “On second thought, I’ll become a fake medium.” (That’s the best method for happening onto real ghosts, after all. It happens in all the movies!) At the conclusion of Yeoh’s performance, I decided, “Never mind. I don’t want to be a fake medium.”
Yeoh is great in the role. I think it’s delightful that after their Oscar wins for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Yeoh is playing a medium in a Poirot movie at (basically) the same time as Jamie Lee Curtis is playing Madame Leota in The Haunted Mansion.
The other huge standout of the cast is Jude Hill as Leopold Ferrier, the son of the broken Dr. Ferrier (Jamie Dornan). Throughout the movie, I kept thinking, “That kid has a lot of screen presence.” I didn’t even realize until the end credits it was Jude Hill. (Slap a pair of glasses on somebody, and I gasp to learn his true identity! I’m the type who would never have recognized Clark Kent.) I loved watching Hill excitedly experience his first Oscar season a couple of years ago when his performance in Belfast drew such acclaim. I started jabbering about this to my husband immediately as we walked out of the theater. (“Of course, it makes sense that Jude Hill would be in the movie. Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed Belfast.”) It wasn’t until just a few minutes ago that I suddenly realized, “Right! And Jamie Dornan also played his father in Belfast.” (I got obsessed with the grandparents in Belfast. When I think back on the movie, they’re what I remember first.)
Best Scene Visually:
My favorite scene is the séance. (I love that typewriter! I’ve got to get one of those!) We get a magical blend of arresting camera angles, fun special effects, and great acting by Michelle Yeoh. (It can be tricky to act like someone who’s acting—especially if she may not be acting, and some doubt is supposed to remain in the audience’s mind). Yeoh’s presence greatly enhances this film. The subsequent scene she plays with Branagh is fantastic, too, and her exit is visually memorable.
I also like a later moment when the telephone rings, and we see a call answered from a captivating angle.
Best Scene:
I found the scene when Jamie Dornan starts opening up about his past surprisingly moving. Sometimes I get annoyed when movies co-opt genuine human tragedy to elicit an emotional response from the audience. This can feel really lazy and unearned. But here I think this works. We see that Dornan’s character truly is haunted. Up to this point, I had found his performance a bit over-the-top, but the story he shares here completely changed my view of the character.
Best Action Sequence:
I do love the “bobbing for apples” drowning scene, even more now that I’m aware I was watching an adaptation of The Hallowe’en Party.
Best Joke:
Best I love the quick exchange between Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver, when she tells him, “That’s not an expression in any language.” I laughed.
The Negatives:
At a few points during the movie, I thought to myself, “I like this, but…how is it different from something you would watch on TV?”
It’s not. It’s gorgeously shot and probably has some pricey special effects, but it looks no different from a well-done Netflix show. A streaming service, in fact, seems a perfect platform for watching and enjoying this film. Maybe it will come to Disney Plus. I’m sure when it is available to stream, it will find a much larger audience, eagerly waiting.
These movies must be doing well enough, though. Sequels keep getting greenlit. I, for one, would be thrilled to watch more of these. I like Branagh’s take on Poirot. I like the way he plays the character as if he’s in a Shakespearean tragedy. My husband pointed out that there’s always a key virtue or concept he’s struggling with in each new story. Branagh makes the character his own without trying to compete with Suchet’s version or do anything too strange and experimental. (My mom couldn’t stand the mini-series with John Malkovich. She loves John Malkovich, but in her words, “That wasn’t Poirot.” I thought it was kind of interesting, but she found that take too dark and too much of a departure from the traditional character.)
But The ABC Murders (that Malkovich one) premiered on TV, and this would be an easy watch on TV, too. I’m not sure that’s exactly a criticism, though, just an observation that these days, there’s little discernable difference in quality between television and cinematic releases. There’s something oddly low-key about this presentation, though. In a story that begins so flamboyantly, it proceeds in such a methodical, procedural way. What makes it different from…a standard TV procedural? (I guess the popcorn. I enjoyed mine.) (For what it’s worth, I would pay to see this movie a second time.)
My other slight complaint is that it’s not at all hard to figure out the murderer. Admittedly, this is an adaptation of a known story I’ve passively watched billions of times. Maybe even though I didn’t consciously realize it was Hallowe’en Party dressed up in disguise, some part of me did know. Still the guilty party seems so guilty. I suspected the person from the start, and their guilt seemed more and more obvious as the story progressed. Maybe that has more to do with the performance. It is a good performance, but to me it telegraphs, “I’m the murderer,” with increasing obviousness. Then again, Branagh always plays his Poirot mysteries as character-driven tragedies. So that is a different approach to the material. Whodonnit is never as important as why. In some ways, his Poirots focus more on how the murderers get found out and why Poirot cares, what’s at stake for him emotionally each time. And, to be fair, I was totally blindsided by two little mini-mysteries. (I probably would have seen the second one coming if I’d had sense enough to realize I was watching The Hallowe’en Party. This final mini-mystery is yet another play on an element of the story.) The identity of the murderer is not that hard to call, though.
Also, I’m just tired of films depicting writers as scheming, self-centered, and morally bankrupt. If someone wrote a book about me, I’d be flattered. But I constantly worry that writing about anyone else makes me a debased creep, and I think it’s because of these movie portrayals.
“A writer wrote that,” my husband pointed out. “And both Kenneth Branagh and Tina Fey are writers.” (I’m aware of that. I remember once trying to get into some great work of literature, getting distracted, and accidentally reading the entirety of Bossypants.)
“Well sure!” I scoffed. “Kenneth Branagh can write whatever he wants, and whether it works or not, I’ll still watch it. He knows that by now.” (I’m sure he makes a note of it every time I buy a ticket to one of his movies.) “But if I write about my friends, I’m a manipulative, sociopathic extortionist.”
“Who says that?” my husband wondered.
“Me!” I sobbed. It’s all because I watched Absence of Malice in high school. That traumatized me forever, I guess. Honest question, though. If it’s okay to make observations in the moment, why is it wrong to write down events that actually happened? I need time to process my observations, but why should that make me less sincere?
Movies like this aren’t good for my paranoia. Writers are always demonized for wanting to write things.
“Socrates didn’t trust writing,” I sometimes remind myself, and then I answer myself, “Yeah, but when everybody was like, ‘Here Socrates. We brought you this getaway car. Let’s break out of jail and live,’ he was like, ‘Umm…no.’” So I don’t know why anyone should listen to Socrates!
Overall:
I’d like to watch the film a second time to 1) Pay more attention to Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score, 2) Appreciate how cleverly key elements of The Hallowe’en Party are reimagined and mashed up with atmospheric “ooh, Venice” material. I really like the way this film is written. Were my mom living, I’m sure it would become a Halloween staple around our house. I may have to make it one, anyway. I’m pretty sure my daughter would like it. If you love Poirot, and you’re curious to watch his insertion into a macabre, atmospheric horror film, A Haunting in Venice is worth watching in the theater.