“A Haunting in Venice” Review
Kenneth Branagh returns as famed detective Hercule Poirot in “A Haunting in Venice,” the third film in a series of ongoing adaptations of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novels.
As a fan of the murder-mystery genre, I’ve really enjoyed seeing Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptations of the famous Hercule Poirot novels by Agatha Christie. While I can’t say that “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile” are the best cinematic versions of Christie’s books (since I hold the 1974 and 1978 versions, respectively, in high esteem), Branagh has made incredibly entertaining films that suck you into these period-piece environments and keep you excited for how Poirot is going to figure out “whodunnit.”
Unlike his first two Poirot stories, which were based on Christie’s most famous novels, his third film, “A Haunting Venice,” takes a new approach by loosely adapting a more obscure Christie story. This approach has paid off significantly as “A Haunting in Venice” is not only a very compelling gothic tale, but it’s definitely Branagh’s best turn at bringing the famous Belgian literary detective to the big screen.
Set in the titular Italian city after WWII, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) has all but retired from solving cases, convinced that death follows him wherever he goes. When he’s tracked down by Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a famous mystery novelist and old friend of Poirot, she invites him to a creepy palazzo on a stormy Halloween night where a seance will be conducted to commune with the deceased daughter of opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), whose daughter died under mysterious circumstances. When one of the attendees is gruesomely murdered, Poirot locks the doors and resolves to find out who in the house is the killer all the while contemplating if something more supernatural is at play.
When you go into a Kenneth Branagh film, you know that you’re going to see something grand. Branagh makes films that feel so massive in scale while also having a quality of gentle intimacy. His style has translated to a variety of genres, including Shakespearan dramas like “Hamlet” and “Henry V,” superhero films like “Thor” and the historical coming-of-age film “Belfast,” exceptionally well. But Branagh hasn’t made anything resembling horror since “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” in 1994. “A Haunting in Venice” proves that he still knows how to make a well-crafted gothic story and how to make your hair stand up just from being in a house. While not a horror film, there’s no doubt that classic gothic tales like “The Haunting” and the work of Edgar Allen Poe bled their way into this film’s production.
The film is loosely based on the novel “Hallowe’en Party,” one of the last novels Christie wrote about Poirot that isn’t well-known and not especially beloved. By choosing this as the source material, Kenneth Branagh and Michael Green, the film’s screenwriter, are given much more freedom with the story they can tell. They don’t have to worry about angering book purists or being compared to previous adaptations and this is arguably what makes “A Haunting in Venice” the best Poirot story these two have worked on. It stands well on its own and can just focus on creating an eerie experience.
As Poirot, Branagh is his usual kind of incredible. Whenever he is talking, your attention is completely devoted to him and you have no doubt that the gears in his head are always turning as he tries to solve this case. He may want to be retired but he also has this deep pride in his skills of deductive reasoning and intelligence that he can’t help but show when he figures something out.
The film’s ensemble cast works pretty well throughout the film with notable performances by Kelly Reilly, as this woman tortured by the apparent ghostly cries of her daughter from beyond the grave, and Michelle Yeoh as the medium who Poirot distrusts due to his disbelief in ghosts. It’s also good to see the young Jude Hill, the star of Branagh’s Academy Award-winning film “Belfast,” in another Branagh production giving another engaging performance as this intelligent and somewhat macabre child. But it’s Tina Fey that really shines as Poirot’s friend whose loyalties are suddenly blurred when, like the rest of the guests in Rowena’s home, she’s considered a suspect.
Some might have doubted Fey’s capabilities in a mystery thriller given her extensive background in comedy but I wasn’t worried. I honestly think it’s much easier for comedic actors to transition to drama as opposed to dramatic actors becoming comedians. They just have this natural understanding of character and Fey brings that to her performance as a charming friend and foil to Poirot. She fits in so well to this environment and gives off a Katherine Hepburn quality in her performance that was quite compelling.
As for the mystery, it feels pretty standard at first until you realize that the real death Poirot is trying to unravel isn’t the one that happens at the party, it’s the death of Rowena’s daughter which weighs heavily on many of the people trapped in the palazzo. When this plot element comes into play, you grow very invested and are drawn to Branagh’s commitment to logic, especially when he begins to see and hear things that begin to prey on his belief, or lack thereof, in the supernatural. While I never expected a Poirot mystery to be something of a ghost story, I welcomed this change in tone.
I think that “A Haunting in Venice” is going to be entertaining for those who love these kinds of classic murder-mysteries. It builds upon the storytelling skills of the previous installments and offers a far more gloomy look at this detective’s world. It’s also going to be surprising for fans of Agatha Christie's books as they’re going to be going into this film and not be sure what’s going to happen since this is a loose adaptation. However, I can’t see many newcomers to the series being enticed in the same way that “Glass Onion” awakened people’s love for crime caper pictures. This is more of a film for people who already are invested in the genre.
