Change Your Image
leekier
Reviews
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Fun film but totally unrelated to the original book, a part from a coincidence of names
It's a perfectly good film, atmospheric, well acted and with beautiful sets, allegedly based on Agatha Christie's "Hallowe'en Party", though there were hints of "The Pale Horse".
Kenneth Branagh is quite good as Poirot, if a rather more introspective and less humorous than the original. Tina Fey is excellent as an American author, though nothing like the good natured and rather vague Ariadne Oliver of the books. Similarly Michelle Yoeh is almost 50 years older than the character of the same name in the novel. The lawyers clerk is now a doctor and the first victim's brother is now his son. The 1960s country house is now a 1940s Venetian palace, the motivation has changed, the plot is very, very different, even the timescale has altered.
All in all, I have to wonder why they used the names of the book characters if they didn't like the plot? There are plenty of original films (and TV shows) based on an established character, just like A Haunting in Venice, however they don't pretend to be based on an specific novel.
Dalgliesh: Shroud for a Nightingale - Part One (2021)
For Citizencairparavel
This is the first episode of a two parter so the killer and the motive have yet to be revealed. I read the book about 40 years ago and recall the overall plot but don't recall the fine details, so much of who is happening is as much of a surprise to me as to you. I don't want to put any spoilers in so I'll just say that all will be revealed next week and I'm pretty sure it'll be a surprise!
This is well cast and well acted; the plot seems to follow the book well and doesn't reveal too much too soon. I'm really looking forward too to the other episodes.
So far it's excellent, although the hospital seems dated for the 1970s; I'd be interested to hear the opinions of nurses who trained then. Certainly my memory of hospitals at the time is quite different.
The Canterville Ghost (1985)
Only worth it for the housekeeper's peripatetic accent.
Mrs Unmey's accent, which wandered the length of the U. K. before crossing the Atlantic and then swinging back and forth between the various different countries, is the most amusing and exciting aspect of the entire film.
I'm guessing this is made for TV/video film as it's fortunately very short. The acting isn't bad, it's just not very good. All wit and humour has been sucked out of the original story and all unpleasantness removed to leave a dull and saccharine mess.
Cider with Rosie (2015)
Could have done better
SOME SPOILERS
I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't recently listened to the BBC radio version or read the book.
I understand that books and films are very different media but this is a very adaptation indeed and wastes some very useful actors. I recall watching a exterior version, possibly a BBC serial as a teenager.
It was very sanitised; the menace of the boys lurking in the woods planning to attack a girl in the earlier version has become a banal incident of adolescent confusion. The children's ages were all wrong, some siblings no longer existed, while another, who'd died before they came to the village, was miraculously resurrected only to be killed off again. The constant jumping back and forth in time was badly done and confusing too.