What Is the Story About?
Loosely based on the 1969 Agatha Christie novel Hallowe’en Party, A Haunting in Venice is a sequel to Death on the Nile (2022) and follows Hercule Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world’s most glamorous city suffering from PTSD and war memories. Upon his acquaintance writer Ariadne Oliver’s insistence Poirot reluctantly attends a seance at Rowena’s decaying, haunted palazzo. Things get further complicated as the woman aka medium hired for seance gets murdered.
Performances?
Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot is obviously the main man of the movie. He plays the guarded, skills up his sleeves detective Hercule Poirot with ease. He clearly has so much fun with the part and his popular mustache.
Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver adds the right amount of comedic punch to the spooky, glim and dim-lit murder mystery unraveling as the famous crime novelist who is funny and also picky about critical reception of her works. Kelly Reilly as Rowena Drake, a retired opera singer and Alicia’s mother churns out a moving performance.
Jamie Dornan, very visibly tries as Dr. Leslie Ferrier, a practicing doctor who also suffers from PTSD. Another stellar performance but sadly underused, comes from the magnanimous Michelle Yeoh who plays Joyce Reynolds, the psychic medium. Jude Hill plays the peculiar character of Leopold Ferrier, the most striking performance in the film – Dr. Ferrier’s precocious son effectively.
Analysis
A Haunting in Venice, directed by Kenneth Branagh, from an efficient and smartly written screenplay by Michael Green is a fusion of the supernatural and the mystery and oozes so much mood and spookiness unlike earlier Agatha Christie adaptations by Branagh.
Loosely based on Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party, A Haunting in Venice is an empathetic dissection of the trauma and horrors people carried within them as an aftermath of war. The film takes a look at the death of human mind, the haunting of the fallout of a terrible war for generations, PTSD and a lot more on mental Health.
A Haunting in Venice opens to Hercule Poirot waking up to terrible dreams, probably war memories associated with him or what is being referred to as ‘the follow-up of death’ in the film further. Living a life of self-imposed exile, he meets an old friend crime novel writer Ariadne Oliver who invites him to a Seance, to expose a self-proclaimed medium-to-ghosts, an ex-army Nurse, the Unholy Ms. Reynolds.
As someone who is been followed by death wherever he went, Poirot was never a person who trust the supranatural over reason. So, he expectedly. agrees to Oliver’s request. Upon reaching the old palazzo, where Rowena Drake hosts the Seance to contact her dead daughter Alicia Drake, Poirot starts sensing abnormalities and also hear them.
After an unlikely encounter with Joyce Reynolds, Poirot and the entire set of guests witness unbelievable occurences where Reynolds gets possessed by what seems like Alicia’s ghost and the next moment she is murdered. Now it’s all upon the voice of reason – Hercule Poirot to wear back his detective gloves to solve the mystery.
Without spoiling much, A Haunting in Venice works as a fun and largely engaging piece of hollywood entertainment that tackles mental health as a thing, very important. Be it Alicia Drake, Rowena, Joyce Reynolds, Dr. Ferrier Or Poirot himself, the psychological torment and ghosts of war haunt each one of them throughout their lives and that makes for a mysterious case of introspection than the murder itself.
A Haunting in Venice is so captivatingly shot. It’s not pretentious, but equally gothic and gels with the times the story is set in (quite earlier than Agatha Christie novel timelines). A Haunting in Venice is unarguably the best Agatha Christie adaptation that Kenneth Branagh has directed with an exceptional screenplay by Michael Green.
In short, A Haunting in Venice is a very good watch. The writing has very sensibly tackled under spoken themes of mental health, devastating war-time memories and generational trauma. Add to it, the very mainstream spin to it’s treatment. Fans of Branagh’s earlier Agatha Christie adaptations or mystery fans in general can check this one out.
Music and Other Departments?
Haris Zambarloukos’s cinematography is one of the biggest assets of A Haunting in Venice. The frames are a right mix of gothic and spooky and acts as an essential character in itself, rightly aided by Hildur Guðnadóttir’s music. Lucy Donaldson’s editing is crisp and makes the movie even more engaging.
Highlights?
Writing
Performances
Camera Work
Mood Building and Score
Emotionally rooted
Drawbacks?
Underused Cast
Doesn’t work as a horror
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes.
Will You Recommend It?
Yes.
A Haunting in Venice Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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