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A HAUNTING IN VENICE
Director: Kenneth Branagh Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Kelly Reilly, Jamie Dornan, Camille Cottin, Kyle Allen, Michelle Yeoh, Ricardo Scamarcio, Jude Hill, Emma Laird, Ali Khan, Rowan Robinson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:43 Release Date: 9/15/23 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 14, 2023 Director/star Kenneth Branagh continues to show his admiration for mystery writer Agatha Christie and her most famous character, the eccentrically mustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, with A Haunting in Venice. After the expensive but unfortunately cheap-looking and dour Death on the Nile last year, the filmmaker clearly has pared down on the scope, as well as the budget, of this new Poirot mystery, focusing more on the atmosphere and style of the tale with decidedly mixed results. This one is based on a late-period Christie novel entitled Hallowe'en Party, and as both the book and movie's respective titles suggest, Branagh leans into the potential horror trappings of this story. It's set in what's essentially a haunted manor in the eponymous city, and from the start, Branagh establishes a stark and grim air to canals and plazas and rows of buildings of place, framing establishing shots in Dutch angles and using the old architecture of the city to suggest decay, ruin, and ghosts from long ago. The director once again plays the curious and dogged Poroit, who, some years after his last mystery, has also become a figure of decay and ruin, haunted by the ghosts of old crimes, two world wars, and his former belief that there must be some order and justice in the world. One of the miscalculations of the previous movie was the portrayal of the detective as a tragic figure, compared to his introduction in Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, where Poirot possessed some comedic charm to be juxtaposed with the severity of the crime he was investigating. Here, at least, there's a solid excuse for our man to have a moodier and more serious manner. He's exhausted from everything he has experienced, even in the midst of a lengthy retirement, and his tired, haunted face matches the darkness and starkness of his surroundings. It's 1947 in this tale, and along with everything else in this new post-war era, the United States military and representatives have brought Halloween to the country. There's to be a party for the city's children at the manor where most of the plot takes place, and Poirot's old friend, the mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), has come to Venice to invite the retired detective to the party—with an ulterior motive, of course. She has been studying a self-proclaimed spiritual medium for an upcoming book, and much to her surprise and frustration, Ariadne cannot figure out who this alleged psychic performs some of the tricks she does. It's one of two things: Either Ariadne isn't clever enough to determine the methods, or this medium is the real deal. If anyone besides her can figure out what's happening, it's Poirot, who grudgingly accepts the invitation to the party, being held by the grieving Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), a singer who has given up her career after the apparent suicide of her only daughter. Once again, Branagh has assembled an impressive cast for this tale, although it definitely doesn't match the prestige of the previous two movies in this franchise. There's Branagh and Fey, of course, with the latter being just plucky enough to play a tonal opposite as the worn-out Poirot's sidekick in the forthcoming investigation. Michelle Yeoh plays the "unholy" psychic Mrs. Reynolds with a layer of existential melancholy for all the tragic spirits she purports to have communicated with over the years. Reilly is also convincing as the devastated mother to a dead daughter, and Jamie Dornan plays the family doctor, a man who saw too much just after the war ended and has yet to recover from the horrifying shock. Someone's murdered, obviously, and given the date and the occasion of trying to speak to the dead daughter's ghost, some in attendance are convinced the killing is supernatural in some way. Poirot's old investigatory spark returns to him, and the rest is, well, the stuff we pretty much expect. That's fine, in theory, because a good mystery can be its own reward, and this one, which involves more than one murder—in addition to a couple attempted ones—on the night and in the past, is sound enough, even if the third act seems a bit too eager to throw more complications and crimes into the mix as a kind of anticlimactic deflection. The actors echo the chilly, anxious mood of the piece, although it's difficult not to notice that both the plot and the characters are overshadowed by Branagh's directorial flair for the spooky and macabre. It's not necessarily a criticism, because the movie possesses such a clear sense of tone and formal method. Branagh and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos channel the look and feel of a classic horror movie, from an eerie bit of shadowy puppetry involving dead children (The first murder is shown in silhouette, too, as a clever callback) to ghostly visions that even the logical Poirot cannot explain for a while—if at all, by the end. If the plotting and characters have to suffer on account of such a striking sense of stylistic purpose, that's both for good, because the movie has a personality, and for ill, because the personality of the style overtakes some of the basic elements of the mystery at hand. A Haunting in Venice, then, might be better as an exercise in atmosphere than as a whodunit, which is equally refreshing and disappointing. Copyright © 2023 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements)
