New Murder on the Orient Express (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

For some time now David Suchet has been playing Agatha Christie's most famous (and eccentric) detective, Hercule Poirot.  Along the way he has actually revisited several tales that had been filmed previously--The ABC Murders (in which Tony Randall played the great detective) as well as Evil Under the Sun and Death on the Nile (starring Peter Ustinov).  Now a new version of what is arguably Dame Agatha's most famous mystery--Murder on the Orient Express.  No small feat, given the reputation of the star-studded first version, with such luminaries as Albert Finney, Lauren Becall, Ingrid Bergman and John Gielgud.

This version, like many of the current versions, takes a different direction than previous ones.  One trope common to most Christie adaptations is shredded away almost instantly.  Like a real train, this Orient Express is in fact crowded.  Trapped in a snow drift, they lose power and passengers are soon huddling together for warmth, visible only by candlelight.  The comfort of these drawing room murder mysteries is gone--bringing into sharp relief the emotional turmoil inherent in the tale.  Not merely for witnesses, but for Poirot himself! 

Of course the basis story is essentially present.  The Calais coach en route to Paris from Istanbul is surprisingly full for winter.  At the last moment the director of the train line insists upon finding Poirot a berth.  Passengers include a Russian Princess and her maid, a Missionary, a British Army Officer, a Hungarian noble couple, a physician, a car salesman, etc.  One passenger, the unpleasant Mr. Ratchet (Toby Jones--you might know him as the Dream Lord from Doctor Who) wants to hire Poirot as protection--against what specifically he refuses to say.  Poirot refuses and within a day Ratchet is discovered dead, stabbed to death in the middle of the night.  Meanwhile, the train has hit a snow drift trapping and the passengers for at least a day or two.  Poirot, at the director's insistence, investigates--and comes across one of the most startling solutions in his career.  Much centers around the true identity of the victim--a vicious criminal named Cassetti, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Daisy Armstrong five years earlier.  This crime set off an avalanche of tragedy.  The mother miscarried and died upon news of her child's corpse being found.  The father, a war hero, killed himself--as did a French maid who fell under suspicion but was later proven totally innocent.

What fascinates is how this version really plays up the moral ambiguity.  Nowhere more in the short-lived relationship between Poirot and the person who proves his true antagonist--Miss Debanham (Vanessa Redgrave in the 1974 film, now played by Jessica Chastain).  Before the train departs, Poirot and she are both witness to a terrible sight--a man leading a crowd to chase down, then stone to death his wife whom he claims to having been unfaithful.  Poirot, having just left a case wherein a man committed suicide after having been proven a liar (he panicked when someone he knew was killed in an accident) agrees this was "unpleasant" but also "she knew the rules."  Miss Debanham sees further, that even if guilty that poor woman killed no one.  How could that have been justice?  Later in the story Poirot also meets Greta Ohlsson,  who is his own morality taken to extremes.  Slightly unstable, clearly traumatized, she proclaims Catholic doctrine wrong with its redemption and forgiveness--there are some crimes, she insists, God CANNOT forgive.  And top of the list she puts violence against children.

Poirot's own Catholicism is on display in this film.  Interestingly, he prays at the same time as does the victim.  The Detective utters some homilies which seem sincere, while Ratchet/Cassetti almost weeps--but with more fear than contrition.  Or so it seems.

Almost everyone reading this realizes who killed Cassetti.  Everyone did it--all but Poirot himself and the director of the train line.  Friends, relatives, loyal members of the Armstrong household--each had resolved to hunt down the man who murdered a child and destroyed so many lives.  The gentle-seeming Governess, Miss Dabenham, is the ringleader--and her motivation, like the others', is so clearly an attempt to ease the horrible pain of an evil that shredded their lives.  She herself was left with a useless right arm (from being bludgeoned the night of the kidnapping).  Yet even this, a kind of vigilate's fantasy, is not so clear-cut.  Princess Dragomiroff, beloved godmother to the late Mrs. Armstrong, recounts the murder in a way that both excites and chills.  In this version, Cassetti was conscious for his murder--and the Princess' words "You will soon be in Hell...did you think we would not hunt you...?" were the last he ever heard.

The conflict treaded upon so carefully in the 1974 motion picture presents itself here as far more raw.  Poirot does not wish to let these people get away with it.  He makes an impassioned case.  Without law, he says, we are barbarians.  When the law and justice fail, that is the time to raise them even higher--not abandon them in the name of vengeance!  Colonel Abuthnot (Sean Connery in 1974, David Morrissey now) actually draws his gun to insure keeping the secret, until Mary Debanham (whom he loves) virtually throws herself on the gun to stop him.  Likewise, the others will not hear of it.  They executed a guilty man.  They will not slaughter someone else to keep a secret.  Bad enough to have to live with committing one murder, however justified!

In the most famous film of this story, Poirot is troubled enough to let  someone else make the decision.  But in this version, allowing anyone else to do that is unthinkable.  He will either tell the authorities the truth, or go along with the lie--and that he even considers the latter hits him like an earthquake.  The straightforward, even ruthless man who begins this journey to Paris is not quite the same person who emerges from Orient Express a few days later.  And he knows it.  We can see it in his haunted eyes.

Just as we can see her knowledge that they have done this to him in the gaze of Miss Debanham.

"Five Little Pigs" (Review)

Spoilers ahoy!

Growing up, I shared with my Mum a pleasure in reading the mystery novels of Agatha Christie. She enjoyed Miss Marple but my own tastes ran to Hercule Poirot and his "little grey cells." Years then decades passed, so my tastes altered and my reading partook of what (by virtually any standard) more sophisticated fare.

Yet I never ceased feeling nostalgia for Poirot and his cases.

Some years ago, David Suchet was hired in a brilliant bit of casting to portray the Great Belgian Detective (he himself would insist upon the capitals) and watching the shows in which he solved those cases was ever a delight. My darling, late fiancee shared a love of those programs and we started collecting the DVDs. And we agreed on which one was best.

Five Little Pigs was written and set in the 1950s but the filmmakers wisely took the story back to Poirot's more natural heyday, the 1930s. If one looks carefully, there are references to the growing crisis in Poland in a headline, which makes 1939 a good bet. A young woman hires the detective to solve the murder of her father--a crime for which her mother was executed fifteen years earlier. She needs to know the truth. It gnaws at her, poisons her life. She needs to know. Here the show makes another welcome change from the novel. On the written page, this young woman is engaged and seeks to soothe her fiancee's doubts that he is wedding the child of a murderer. Not a very loving fiancee, in my opinion--on top of being fairly stupid to boot. After all, the whole human race can call saints and sinners kin, of every description. Much stronger to make the motive behind young Lucy's actions her own pain, her own doubts about the memories she had of loving parents.

The whole structure of the case gives the story a lovely symmetry. Five people other than the victim and his wife were present that weekend. If the wife is innocent, it follows one of them must be the murderer, hence the title. Poirot interviews each in turn, and amid flashbacks we see them then as well as now.

What is so amazing about Five Little Pigs is how utterly and totally routed everything is in the emotional lives of the characters. Poirot's entire case depends upon understanding that, so what we get are amazingly nuanced performances in a top-notch script with superior actors. And a beautiful stylistic choice is made because the film involves really two sets of flashbacks. One is the very summer the crime took place, filmed in a golden haze. But then there are a few memories going further back, when the artist victim was an adolescent and friends with three people who would be present at his death. These memories are more disjointed, with an almost colorless palate.

But on to our suspects...

Elsa Greer, the victim's model and mistress, now a Lady but then the teenager who caused such a huge fuss by proudly announcing he was going' to leave his wife and marry her. Played by Julie Cox as an odd combination of fierce and fragile.

Philip Blake, the artist's best friend who was clearly devoted to him and cannot stop loathing the man's wife. Now a brittle but charming man, given to drinking much too much, but not to the point of actual drunkeness. Yet another marvelous performance by Toby Stephens.

Meredith Blake, Philip's brother and the victim's neighbor, not-so-secretly in love with both the wife and also with Elsa! Marc Warren did a wonderful job of portraying this oddly sensitive man with far more steel than others suspect, but also frankly less feeling (in clear contrast to Philip, who pretends to a stiff upper lip but sometimes seems on the verge of tears). These days a recluse.

Miss Williams was the governess of both young Lucy and the wife's younger sister, Angela. Played by Gemma Jones as almost the perfect Nanny/Dragon of the stereotype, yet with a tender regard for some that leads her to some beliefs she doesn't quite succeed in reconciling with her firm principles. Currently living uncomplaining in reduced circumstances.

Angela, the wife's young sister played by a relative uknown, Sophie Winkleman (been following her career ever since watching this movie). Of all those interviewed, the one other person utterly convinced of her sister's innocence. Her teen self was played by Talulah Riley, a highly intelligent but tempestuous girl who later grows into a very accomplished scholar.

The rich interplay of these characters is part of what makes the movie so engrossing. Philip, for example, with his oft-stated loathing of his best friend's murderer--it becomes clear this is a much more complex thing. In truth, he actually liked her very much but was jealous, and he spends rather a lot of time smothering the liking he still feels for her. Meredith, on the other hand, seems to have already figured out what really happened--or been on the verge putting it together but refusing to take the final step and see the implications. Elsa, despite being a middle-aged wife of a peer and a scandal magnet in her own right, remains at heart a girl out of her depth putting on a brave face.

On top of all this, the lines are witty, the photography gorgeous and the production design pretty much perfect. The tiny details are part of what makes it all work so well. Lucy, the girl who so needs to be able to feel her memories are not a lie, drives a convertible with the top down. Well of course. She is her father's daughter after all, a man who reveled in life. And equally naturally, when giving a ride to Poirot, her speed inspires him to hold his hat on with the tip of his elaborate cane! Marvelous!

More than that, I was left with a genuine desire to know what happened next? Will Angela and her old Governess now remain in contact? So much of Meredith's and Philip's emotional lives are pulled out from under them--how will they cope? The blitz is only a year or so away--I keep imagining Elsa refusing to go into the shelter, wanting to see the explosions and hoping one of the bombs will find her. And Lucy--what does her life hold now that she knows the truth of precisely how both her mother and father came to die?

Really, this movie is a gem. I cannot recommend it enough.