Watching almost back-to-back with
Murder On The Orient Express the continuity is a little confusing. At the end of the earlier film Poirot was summoned to Egypt to solve a murder, teasing the sequel. But the story begins again here. Oh well.
Like the previous film, it’s a glossy-but-safe affair.
The cast of faces is familiar but rather more distracting here. Most distracting are the British comedians. French & Saunders are here, as is Russell Brand. Any one of them would have been fine and they do all perform well enough. But all three...?
Jen does the stock American accent she’s used since the Eighties and steals every scene in which she appears with her brilliant little looks. Dawn is simply Dawn. She doesn’t attempt any accent (thank goodness). French & Saunders are nearly always together so one just thinks of French & Saunders. Lovely as it is to see a favourite comedy pairing (I was a huge fan back in my schooldays) still together and still giving such great chemistry, it did affect my investment. It’s telling that perhaps the best moment for either was one in which they were separated: Dawn being interrogated by Poirot. I suddenly noticed that Dawn’s features are a little similar to Barbara Bel Geddes (her blinking in disbelief drew my attention to it). As the scene went on, I found myself thinking she was giving a pretty decent performance. But I never stopped seeing Dawn French.
I didn’t recognise Russell Brand until nearly the end. He certainly sounded different, though he still sounded rather more contemporary than a man of his position and time probably would. Despite the era, as played by the always-stylish Brand he ended up looking rather more like a 21st Century hipster than one might expect, and that was what I noticed in the character before I even realised who was playing him.
In terms of 21st Century inflections, Emma Mackey was the film’s biggest culprit. There’s no mistaking that she is anything but a Millennial. There was a lot of the contemporary RP/South-East UK mixed vowel thing going on (where the vowel sound of “you” has more of an “e” sound; or the “o” in “know” has more than a touch of an “i” sound).
Looking at the cast list I’ve just noticed that Armie Hammer was one of the leads, and now all I can think about is last year’s fabulously-titled thread from
@Alexis
This was all too much for me to wake up to this morning! Imagine, without even as much as a cup of coffee or piece of toast to start the day. And just after I had finally given in and watched Call Me By Your Name and realised that Armie's character in that was really Jeff Colby and what he was...
www.tellytalk.net
Another presence to have previously made headlines for their off-screen conduct was Letitia Wright. She was fine, but the scene in which her character “called out” Poirot for his idiosyncrasies felt particularly skewed through a Twenty First Century prism as played here.
Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot was fine, though this is a more emotional and tortured Poirot than previously seen, with a more in-depth backstory that, as shot, felt almost like a superhero origin. For me, less is more with Poirot and our knowledge thereof and since Branagh is Producer and Director as well as leading actor, the bigger, more “powerful” emotional moments for the character can’t help coming across as an indulgence rather than an authentic interpretation of the character. During a moment near the end where Poirot paused, mid-monologue as he unsuccessfully fought back tears in extreme close-up I found myself feeling irritated and moved at the same time.
The character’s obsessive-compulsive behaviours continued here and I noticed this extended to Branagh’s direction. Many scenes -particularly those featuring Poirot had a sense of order and symmetry, with characters and backgrounds very centred and even. At first I appreciated this psychological touch but, once noticed, it became distracting because it was done so darned much. While an occasional shot of symmetry gets the point across, after a certain point it felt too scientific and lacking in creativity and imagination. Almost anyone who takes even holiday photos knows after that first set that having every shot centred isn’t the best way to do things because it gets tediously samey. I found myself placing an imaginary grid over these numerous symmetrical shots and noticing when the shot was slightly off. And I don’t want to watch this kind of film with a technical eye. It was yet
another unnecessary distraction from Agatha Christie’s wonderful story.
