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I’ve really enjoyed this series of Agatha Christie adaptations from filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. I love how lavish they are, I love a good whodunnit, I love a good all-star cast (even if the previous two had notably problematic participants), I love how cheeky they can be, how theatrical they be, and how earnest they can be. Whether they are 100% faithful to the source material is another question all together, I am by no means an expert in that realm, but Branagh has utilized this space as a pretty compelling playground, and that playfulness hasn’t been more felt with this latest installment.
Like a classic TV show doing their Halloween episode, A Haunting In Venice is another murder mystery, but explored with a horror lens. Adapting the 1969 novel, Hallowe’en Party, the film follows a now retired detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh), who is living a solitary life in post-WWII Venice. Or at least attempting to live a solitary life when not mobbed up by people who are looking to hire him for his services. He even has a guard, a former cop, Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio) that stays close by in order to keep solicitors away. But Poirot’s quiet retirement doesn’t stay quiet for much longer when he is paid a visit by an old friend, the famous mystery novelist – and notable Christie self-insert character – Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey).
Oliver has become fascinated with Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), a medium she has yet to debunk, and she wants Poirot to accompany her to a seance that Reynolds is performing after a Halloween party at a palazzo owned by Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), a former opera singer haunted by the apparent suicide of her daughter Alicia a year prior. Poirot is very much a skeptic, but reluctantly agrees to join the party and attend the seance, which is also attended by housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), a troubled doctor named Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan), his weirdly mature-for-his-age son Leopold (Jude Hill), Alicia’s ex Maxine (Kyle Allen), as well as Reynolds’ assistants Desdemona (Emma Laird) and Nicholas Holland (Ali Khan).
As one would expect, a murder occurs following a rather dramatic seance that doesn’t have Poirot fooled, but it also may hold the key to helping figure out who may be behind the crime. If it sounds like I’m being vague, it’s because unlike the previous two films, the book that screenwriter, Michael Green, is adapting here is nowhere near as popular and well known. In fact, it was considered lesser work, and it was only relatively recently that the critical reception of the book has swung to be more positive. So, the less you know, the better, and the more surprising you’re overall experience will be.
As a horror film, I wouldn’t necessarily call it “scary,” but it has plenty of atmosphere, especially in terms of capturing the Halloween spirit. Ultimately, the mystery is more the forefront of the story’s concerns, while the horror is more of an occasional flourish dictated by the state of the characters’ minds. It’s genuinely really fun, and it’s obvious that Branagh is having a lot of fun behind the camera, probably the most he’s had in a very long time. From the often distorted and tilted cinematography from Haris Zambarloukos (who now probbaly has the record for capturing the most ominous shots of a cockatoo), the punchy editing from Lucy Donaldson, and the subdued yet haunting strings heavy score from Hildur Guðnadóttir. It’s a lively production that is rich in details and texture and it heightens all of Branagh’s sensibilities in a way that compliments the work itself.
Thematically, there is a lot of interesting stuff at play in regards to the effects of war. Even though we don’t see anything from WWII, we see how it has impacted the lives of the characters. The Halloween party is for orphans who lost parents during the war. Dr. Ferrier is struggling with a severe case of PTSD from his time serving in the war. Desdemona and Nicholas are refugees who were displaced by the war, and trying to earn their way to a ticket to America. And of course, as we saw in the opening sequence of Death On The Nile, Poirot is by no means a stranger to war, and how his experience with it lingers long after he was out of the trenches.
To say A Haunting In Venice is the best of these three would be stating the obvious, and this is coming from someone who has enjoyed them all. The genre shift breathes so much new life into the formula that we’re all familiar with. It gives Branagh and co. opportunities to zig when you expect them to zag, and the cast is fully game with the new approach to the formula. The visual flourishes are enthralling to see on the big screen, it’s such a delight to see a seasoned player like Branagh still experiment and find new ways to tell stories in this medium. What few flaws the film has, such as a couple undercooked characters and Poirot’s arc generally being rather predictable, are not enough to take you out of the overall experience. I think a lot of big franchises can take a few pointers from this, in terms of how it manages to keep in line with the kind of stories you’d want from this series while also bringing fresh and exciting stylistic elements that add a new dimension to the expectations audiences may have had. It’s a blast, and I hope – if we are to get more of these – that the filmmakers lean on this approach in telling these stories as a way to keep things interesting.
A Haunting In Venice is now out in theaters.