So here’s a mystery: why has Kenneth Branagh, in fashioning this handsome adaptation of Agatha Christie’s beloved Hercule Poirot whodunnit, opted to make so many changes to the source material?
The much-delayed sequel to 2017s enjoyably naff (and hugely profitable) Murder on the Orient Express seems less interested in foul play than deconstructing Poirot’s famously persnickety persona. In Michael Green’s screenplay our moustached hero is scarred, in every sense, by his experiences in WWI. He falls for a world-weary blues singer, wields a revolver and continually cries over spilt blood. Hercule get your gun? Poirot in pain? Whatever way you spin it, this is the Belgian detective as we’ve never seen him before. And, frankly, as I have no wish to see him again.
With possibly the best intentions, Branagh and Green have buggered up all that is good about Christie’s subtle comic creation. What they offer instead are endless close-ups of Branagh’s Jean Gabin-like mug and endless opportunities for the 61 year-old to Act, with a capital A.
For those not familiar with the plot, loved-up heiress Linnet (Gal Gadot) and her brand new husband Simon (Armie Hammer) take a cruise down the Nile to escape Linnet’s jealous bestie, Jacqueline (Emma Mackey). The ship heaves with Linnet’s friends and family, plus the aforementioned singer, Salome (Sophie Okonedo; excellent) and Salome’s savvy niece, Rosalie (Letitia Wright). When Linnet gets murdered, the obvious suspect is Jacqueline. Yet the latter has a perfect alibi.
Gadot, Mackey and Wright are darned cute. So is Hammer, though if you’re up to speed with sex scandals, you may be disturbed by his pretty face - last year, accused of sexual assault by a number of women, he became the subject of a police investigation. As yet, he’s not facing charges and history will decide if it was wise or wrong of Branagh not to reshoot Hammer’s scenes (the trailer is a masterpiece of obfuscation - he doesn’t appear once). Either way, as Simon engages in two bouts of dirty dancing in London, and some Shakespeare-tinged lust in the dust in Egypt, all Hammer needs to do is look vaguely dodgy. On that front, at least, he cannot be faulted.
As Linnet’s one-time fiancé Linus Windlesham, on the other hand, Russell Brand growls the word “Dignity!” like a man with diarrhoea who’s just realised he’s out of bog paper. Only a few of Brand’s lines could be classified as self-aware (Windlesham gets stuck “in the freezer with the hams”). It’s cruel, really. How we laugh, as the comedian is forced to play it straight.
Also cackle-worthy is Annette Bening’s snobby painter, Euphemia Bouc. In her recent drama Hope Gap, Bening stunk it up with her abysmal “British” accent. News just in: nothing’s changed.
So does Death on the Nile qualify as dumb fun? Alas, no. While too dim to be a revisionist masterpiece, it’s mostly too earnest to cut it as a guilty pleasure. You can see (bear with me) how this project paved the way for Branagh’s brilliant Belfast (the scenes in the WWI trenches are also shot in pulchritudinous black and white). But the difference between the two films is stark.
Belfast is all about Branagh, yet feels universal. Death on the Nile is meant to be universal, but feels narrow in scope. It’s Branagh’s valentine to himself. Who says romance is dead?
