Film Review: "A Haunting in Venice"

Branagh's third Agatha Christie outing is baroque and cynical, and all the better for it.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

---

Warning: Full spoilers for the film follow.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been the biggest fan of Kenneth Branagh’s adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie. For me, David Suchet will always be the OTP (One True Poirot), and I will never tire of telling this to the world and to anyone who will listen. Despite this, I have striven to give the director the benefit of the doubt, and I have generally found his films to be entertaining if largely forgettable adaptations of my beloved Christie’s works. I thus went into A Haunting in Venice with some trepidation. I’m not a huge fan of the novel on which it’s based, either–Hallowe’en Party, if you’re interested–and I suspected that Branagh and his screenwriter Michael Green were going to take some major liberties with the source material. 

It turns out I was right. While the film does have at least a few connections to Christie’s book, it changes almost everything–including the setting, the relationship between Ariadne Oliver and Poirot, the identities of the murder victims and, most notably, the perpetrator–and it makes no apologies about this. Thus, as an adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel it’s something of a failure. As a work of horror filmmaking, however, I actually think it’s a success, so for the purposes of this review that’s what I’ll focus on (though I reserve the right to sprinkle in references to the novel as I go).

As the film opens, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is living as a recluse in Venice, haunted by a profound sense of nihilism. The arrival of famed novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), shakes him out of his torpor by inviting him to a children’s party and subsequent seance, where he encounters a psychic who may or may not be in touch with the spirits, a shellshocked doctor and his mysterious sun, a maid with a religious background, and sundry others. When the psychic ends up dead–followed, in short order by the doctor–it’s up to Poirot to figure out who did it and why.

The performances are a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve never really bought Branagh as Poirot, mostly because he always seems to be Kenneth-Branagh-as-Hercule-Poirot, rather than really losing himself in the Belgian detective. Tina Fey is her usual ironic self, and while I was skeptical at first that she was going to work but, while there is still the problem of an overwhelming star text (you can never quite forget that this is Tina Fey), I rather enjoyed the way that Fay’s rather acidic take on the character made for a fascinating foil for Poirot. Michelle Yeoh was fantastic, of course, though underused, playing duplicitous psychic Joyce Reynolds, and Kelly Reilly is sublime as yet another damaged female character, in this case Rowena Drake, an opera singer whose daughter’s death casts a very long shadow. The male members of the cast–particularly Jamie Dornan and Kyle Allen–are serviceable if not extraordinary. 

A Haunting in Venice is the type of film which succeeds or fails depending on how much stock you put in style. If you’re someone like me who loves baroque stylistic flourishes, then this is the film for you. The film’s score combines with the sumptuous and unsettling visuals to immerse us in this palazzo, with all of its haunted and troubled history. There are numerous jump scares, and Branagh is frequently troubled by the sounds of children singing. It’s all very The Haunting of Hill House, and the ostentatious camerawork, though distracting at times, is nevertheless effective at keeping as on edge and rattled as the characters. This is a world that, to paraphrase Matt Zoller Seitz, is perpetually askew and grappling with the aftermath of a cataclysmic war, and the disorienting nature of the camera reflects this.  

This isn’t to say that there isn’t substance here, because there is. At the beginning of the film Poirot has been so defeated by his constant witnessing of murder that he has ceased to believe in God or, really, much of anything. Again and again throughout A Haunting in Venice, we’re told that he is the type of person who seems to attract death and darkness, and Ariadne in particular seems to delight in needling him. In fact, the entire seance was her own little machiavellian plot to discredit Poirot and use it as the plot for her next book. It’s a jarringly cynical moment, but it’s in keeping with the rather somber and anguished ambience of the film as a whole. 

It’s this pervasive darkness that, I think, sells the film. While Poirot and the others try to determine who was responsible for the murders–and whether the palazzo is indeed haunted by the spirits of children left there to die years earlier–a vicious storm rages outside, the turbulent weather matching the hero’s own tormented psyche. This is a man who, throughout his life, has seen too much death, whether on the battlefields of World War I or the many murders he’s solved. Everyone else trapped in the palazzo also has their own demons to contend with, whether it’s Rowena’s grief for her daughter or Jamie Dornan’s Leslie and his attempts to grapple with the horrors of the Second World War and the concentration camps. Even children aren’t immune, and Jude Hill gives a suitably chilling performance as Leslie’s precocious (and unnervingly intelligent) son Leopold. 

Ultimately, it’s revealed that the perpetrator of all three murders was none other than Rowena. Tormented with the idea that her daughter might leave her, she slowly started poisoning her with honey–the same honey which has been responsible for Poirot’s delusions–only for the housekeeper to accidentally overdose her, after which Rowena staged her daughter’s death as a drowning. Fearing that Joyce knew the truth, she murdered her, before blackmailing the tormented Leslie into taking his own life. This is a far cry from the novel which, if anything, is even more convoluted, and this plot turn (which seems like something from a Law & Order: SVU episode) works only because of Kelly Reilly’s soulful performance a wounded tormented siren, someone whose love for her daughter and success as an opera singer just aren’t enough to assuage the emptiness roaring inside of her. 

Fortunately for Poirot (and for us), light is ultimately restored. A new day dawns, and though Rowena has fallen to her death from the top of her palazzo–possibly due to her daughter’s ghost–those who are left behind are free to rebuild their lives in the bright Italian sunshine. Though his relationship with the backbiting Ariadne might be over, Poirot is now free to resume his murder-solving ways, presumably paving the way for another Branagh outing.