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Sunday February 13, 2022
Death on the Nile
So Poirot has reined in the controversial moustaches (seen in Murder on the Orient Express) - maybe too hot for Egypt. It was all beautifully acted out by a star-studded cast, and the locations were stunning - well worth seeing on the big screen (or as big as it gets these days). True, there were minor plot alterations to fit in with the history that Brannagh is creating, but none of which I would quibble with. However, excellent though it was, and much as I enjoy watching different interpretations of the same play/material.... it made me feel there is little left to be explored in this story - which is not good. Unfortunately, when making a Christie production, you have a dilemma as to whether perfectly act out her story as told, or make changes about which die-hard fans will inevitably be up in arms. Brannagh has done good work here but whether it proves enough of a success to make a solid franchise is up for debate. Poirot did point the way to a future adaptation in relating his dream of "retiring to grow vegetable marrows" - but will Roger Ackroyd ever make it onto the big screen? It's a hard novel to adapt, having the "unreliable narrator" as fairly key to the plot, so there would be scope for some innovative fresh approach...
[My main regret is that Peter Ustinov played Poirot in the seventies version. Much as I like Ustinov, (as Poirot and otherwise) he cannot help but make the stories much more light-hearted than they should be. I can see Poirot as a somewhat comic character but not a clown; I think David Suchet gets the balance right, where the humour lies mainly in how seriously Poirot takes himself. Even then, the later TV adaptations of the novels did not work anything like as well as the original short stories.]
Posted by Christina at 4:50 PM. Category: Art and Culture
