Does Agatha Christie classic make the leap from novel to big screen?

Film review: A Haunting In Venice (12A)

Starring: Kenneth Brannagh, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Kelly Reilly and Jude Hill

Director: Kenneth Brannagh Run time: One hour, 43 minutes

With estimated book sales exceeding two billion and plays selling out the West End for decades, Agatha Christie has quite rightly been dubbed the ‘Queen of Crime’.

‘Murder on the Orient Express’ is one of the best reads of its genre and the legendary ‘Mousetrap’ provides a wonderful night at the theatre.

But, for me, Christie’s fantastic stories just aren’t making the leap to cinema… and perhaps that’s because the adaptations are not faithful enough to the original novels.

I missed Kenneth Brannagh’s first Hercule Poirot directing and acting effort - the aforementioned ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ in 2017 - and ‘Death on the Nile’ just didn’t do it for me last year.

Sadly, this latest effort falls a little short too. The trouble is, rather than faithfully recreate a successful novel - 1969’s ‘Halloween Party’ - for the big screen, Branagh changes too much.

There are plus points. Wet, dark Venice is an ideal setting for this Halloween horror and the large mansion house is a great location for all the death and danger we know is coming.

Brannagh’s Poirot leans just on the right side of ridiculous too and I was delighted to see he’s reunited Jamie Dornan and child actor Jude Hill from their star turns for him in 2021’s Belfast.

Dornan is hauntingly impressive as Dr Leslie Ferrier, a once-fantastic family doctor who is suffering from World War II PTSD. Just as in Belfast, 13-year-old Hill plays Dornan’s son - the precocious Leopold, and once again his performance is magnificent.

But some of the other characters are just too one-dimensional. The normal Christie gathering of suspects goes on longer than normal in this film and when the murderer is finally revealed, the motive is weak.

Christie’s stories are superb and so are some of Brannagh’s movies, but the two just don’t seem to go together.

By Jeremy Ransome

Rating: 6/10