Peter Viney's Blog

Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Produced by Ridley Scott & Kenneth Branagh
Screenplay by Michael Green
Based on the novel by Agatha Christie
Music by Patrick Doyle

Streaming on Disney Plus 2022

CAST

Kenneth Branagh- Hercule Poirot
Tom Bateman – Bouc, Poirot’s friend
Annette Bening – Euphemia, famous painter, Bouc’s mother
Gal Gadot- Linett Ridgeway-Doyle, a wealthy heiress
Arnie Hammer- Simon Doyle, Linett’s husband
Emma Mackay – Jacqueline de Bellefort, Linnett’s ex-friend, Simon’s ex-lover
Russell Brand- Linus Windelsham, a doctor, Linnet’s former fiance|
Ali Fazal- Andrew Katchadourian, Linnet’s cousin and trustee
Jennifer Saunders – Marie Van Schulyer, Linnet’s godmother, and rich socialist
Dawn French – Mrs Bowers, Marie Van Schulyer’s nurse
Rose Leslie- Louise Bourget, Linnet’s maid
Sophie Okonedo – Salome Otterbourne, famous jazz-blues singer
Letitia Wright – Rosalie Otterbourne, Salome’s niece and manager, Linnet’s classmate, Bouc’s girlfriend
Susannah Fielding – Katharine, Poirot’s lover killed in WWI.

We have seen the Peter Ustinov 1978 film version within the last few months, recently enough to remember it clearly. It’s a pity, Agatha Christie works better when you’ve forgotten whodunit.

Kenneth Branagh has directed two films this year. One was, for me the best film of the last year … Best film, Best director. Best screenplay, Best actor, Best actress in a leading role, best supporting actress, best supporting actor. Bring it on, if I were judging it would have swept the Academy Awards.

This, however is the other one.

Belfast (linked) is a masterpiece. I guess Death On The Nile is what finances it. It follows Branagh’s role as Poirot in Murder On The Orient Express (2017), which I thought I’d reviewed, but I haven’t. Astonishingly, it was all filmed in England, so is a triumph of SFX and second unit work.

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed his performance, and as a director you can see how he handles dialogue when other actors are being directed. That takes an accomplished actor. OK, he can’t direct himself, but you’d trust him to get it right.

Poirot is Poirot. You have to accept that this is a character who has a wide vocabulary in English and a total command of the complexities of conditional sentences and reported speech, but doesn’t know the English for excuse me, thank you, please, sir, madam, miss, good night. Alors, let us continue to investigate the virtues and demerits of this film, s’il vous plait. It all comes from Christie. Here we get one I noted I do not normally take l’alcool. And I thank you for your time, mesdames. He reserves French for starts and ends of sentences.

In Murder on The Orient Express, Branagh’s huge moustache needed to be in the cast list as a major character. It was so extraordinary, that in this one the moustache gets its own black and white World War One back story before the opening titles. So many reviews commented on the moustache, that Branagh must have felt the need to justify it. Then maybe every director wants to try doing a remake of 1917.

I can’t remember the previous Death On The Niles in detail, but to me the first ten minutes or so of London night club back story (AFTER the pre-title moustache back story) are an addition. It’s quite lengthy, and watching it with some very steamy dancing started to waken memories of the plot. I though it was dwelled on too long.

I feel Peter Ustinov and David Suchet got the Poirot vanity moustache right. David Suchet played Poirot in SEVENTY productions which means that for most people, he defines the role and the upper lip decoration. Branagh’s ‘tache verges on the ridiculous. He has to take a different angle to Suchet, but then all three … Ustinov, Suchet, Branagh … are confined by the books. Branagh’s Poirot is fiercer. This is one who can drop the facade and get tough.

I can’t do a plot spoiler on a Christie. I’ve seen Murder on The Orient Express in several different versions, but it always takes me a while to remember the perpetrator. So we’ll leave the Death on The Nile story alone.

A Christie classic needs to isolate a group of characters in a fixed location … a train (Orient Express), a boat (Death on The Nile), an island (Ten Little Whatever is PC now), a plane (Death In The Clouds). A third film is in preparation already, based on a lesser-known Poirot novel.

The usual way to do is to cast well-known actors in the bit parts. I thought Branagh went outside the usual remit on this one (though not on the one before (which rolled out the big stars: Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Olivia Colman, Johnny Depp).

Here, Tom Bateman returns as Poirot’s friend, Bouc. We have Arnie Hammer as Simon Doyle. Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) plays Linett. Then there are left-field choices. Emma Mackay, the star of Netflix Sex Education was an astute casting decision. She is brilliant as Jacqueline, who loses her boyfriend Simon to the wealthy Linett.

Then Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, working together (of course) as the communist millionaire, Marie van Schulyer and her maid (and room mate). A far out piece of casting is Russell Brand as Linus windlesham, the aristocrat turned medical doctor. I thought Brand was a “personality” and prat, and always loathed him, but I’ll grudgingly admit that he can act, so perhaps his public personality is an act too.Sophie Okenedo is as much renowned as an award-winning stage actress as for film. She describes herself as a Jewish-Nigerian (and is a CBE).

The music combines the film music, and the blues-jazz singing performances of Sophie Okenedo as Salome Otterbourne. The London sequence is subtitled 1937. Electric guitar blues with solos? Then the lyrics tend to religious gospel rather than secular. Would a blues singer do that in a night club? In that era they seemed obsessed about keeping the two separate. On the lyrics, I will also note that thou is NOT a possessive adjective. That would be THY. It sticks out like … well, a late 40s blues song set in 1937.

Critics were largely sniffy. I was at the start too, but it won me over. It looks great. There are some lovely visual touches throughout- the direction is way above TV Poirot.

It’s Poirot. Poirot was always what you watched on a miserable Sunday evening in front of the fire when there was nothing else to do, and it passed the time pleasantly, if not excitingly.

I’ll go with Rotten Tomatoes summary:

Old-fashioned to a fault, the solidly entertaining Death on the Nile is enlivened by its all-star cast and director-star Kenneth Branagh’s obvious affection for the material.

REVIEWS ON THIS SITE:

KENNETH BRANAGH

Belfast (FILM)(director, writer)
Romeo & Juliet (director)
The Winter’s Tale
All On Her Own & Harlequinade by Terence Rattigan
The Painkiller, by Francis Veber