Kenneth Branagh Paddles Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, and More Through an Eerie Whodunnit
DIRECTOR: KENNETH BRANAGH/2023
Hercule Poirot is back, which can only mean one thing: There’s been a murder!
We’ve seen Kenneth Branagh’s version of Poirot investigate on the Orient Express and on the Nile, but now he’s digging into a deeper cut from Agatha Christie’s ouvre, her 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party. While on an extended vacation in Venice, he receives a visit from Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a Christie-esque author who uses Poirot as an inspiration for her best-selling detective novels. She invites him to join her for a midnight seance led by Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), hoping he can spot a flaw that will reveal the ritual as a fake. Rowena Drake’s (Kelly Reilly) palazzo has a reputation for hauntings, but she is hosting the ceremony to reconnect with her daughter Alicia, whom she lost a year ago when she fell from a window into the canals. Also in attendance this Halloween night: the Drakes’ family doctor and his son (Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill, reuniting as father and son after Branagh’s Best Picture nominee Belfast), the housekeeper (Camille Cottin), Alicia’s ex-fiancé (Kyle Allen), Joyce’s assistants (Emma Laird, Ali Khan), and Poirot’s bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio). But before the night is over, a guest is dead, and our famous Belgian detective has his newest case: Which party guest committed the murder—or was the killer something more supernatural?
Unlike Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile, A Haunting in Venice is being advertised as a slasher-meets-occult horror movie. There’s some logic to that marketing since it’s a September release with a Halloween setting and horror fans are some of the most loyal (and youngest) theatergoers. But this Haunting is not nearly as scary (or as otherworldly) as its trailers would suggest, perhaps because this series has a reputation for attracting older viewers. Because I am horror-averse and 83 years old at heart, it’s good news for me there’s only one true horror scene and the spooks elsewhere stay minor, but that may be a disappointment to the demographics the advertising is searching for.
As a documented fan of murder mysteries, Haunting is closer to my speed than a horror fan’s, which, to put it nicely, is deliberate. To use a Moneyball metaphor, if Knives Out and Only Murders in the Building are hitting grand slams and home runs, these Agatha Christie movies are focused on getting on base. It’s too strong to call them “thrilling,” but they are always engaging. They may not win Oscars like the ‘70s versions did, but you never want to miss the starting lineup Branagh assembles. Venice stars our reigning Best Actress Academy Award winner, a lead in one of the few cable TV shows growing in viewership, as well as a recurring guest on Only Murders in the Building—talk about people who get on base! Haunting is like watching your favorite team win 1-0—you may not remember the game the rest of your life, but it’s still a win.
The real step up for this sequel is it’s the best-looking one yet. Branagh appears to have heard the criticism about the quality of the CGI in Nile and responded with the ethereal location shooting you’d hope for in Venice. Fey sports a coat worthy of her Only Murders co-star Selena Gomez, and the rest of the costumes and interior production design fit both the 1940s time period and the eerie tone with a touch of glamour befitting Venice.
TBD if we need to thank the Pitch Clock, but Haunting‘s biggest win is that it gets on base in shorter time than either of its predecessors. Perhaps that’s why it feels the most assured yet in its storytelling, or perhaps that’s because it’s not as beholden to its source material. Screenwriter Michael Green has been responsible for all three of these films, but a quick Wikipedia search reveals this episode has scant in common with the novel that inspired it, and moviegoers don’t have expectations for an adaptation of Hallowe’en Party because this is Hollywood’s first attempt. (Green also wrote Logan, Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049, The Call of the Wild, and Jungle Cruise—he gets on base, too!) I did successfully guess the murderer, their motive, and their means well before the finale, but that’s coming from someone currently watching season 11 of Murder, She Wrote, so take my whodunnit-addled experience for what it’s worth.