About A Haunting In Venice
Post 1538:
There’s a reason why Agatha Christie sold more books than anyone else in history. Actually, there’s more than one reason. First, mysteries are fun and if not written terribly they are terribly fun to read. Second, she was writing at the perfect time and place, i.e. the British Empire before it started falling to pieces. Their reach was everywhere, and thus, her stories made it everywhere. I’ve enjoyed some of her books more than others, some adaptations more than others, but here I’d like to give my nod to A Haunting in Venice, a movie based on one of Christie’s works.
I should hate this thing. It takes place on Halloween—anyone that knows me knows I have a strange neurotic antipathy for anything Halloween related. It’s weird. Weirder still because I’m mostly incredibly normal.
Anyway, the Halloween crap isn’t all that prevalent. We get old detective Poirot and a bunch of people trapped in a house. There’s a mysterious backstory. Possible supernatural elements. Then characters you might’ve suspected start getting murdered.
This is a very standard template of Christie’s. Isolate, make everyone seem like a bad guy, then watch the bodies drop.
Since it’s a well-worn template, it all comes down to execution. I have to give this one very high marks. The story is finely balanced so we know what’s going on but not enough to make everything obvious. There are proper motivations for all involved, plus some extra twists I never saw coming.
It has a few problems but I won’t go into them now. This is worth a watch. Short. Fun. Creative dialogue, lighting, and direction. This is another one of Kenneth Branaugh’s attempts at Christie. I thought Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile were pretty eh. This is way better than eh. A big jump in quality. Nice surprise.
There’s a little magic that happens when you go from reader or watcher to someone actively trying to figure out the mystery. You can almost touch it. Wait, no—yes—no—maybe—could it be the guy with the thing because of the thing?
I love that crap. Cheers and see you after.
