Hercule Poirot is back, baby! Having wowed us in Murder on the Orient Express and passed a couple of hours with us in Death on the Nile (it was a marked step down, c’mon) the moustachioed Belgian detective born from the brain of crime writing legend Agatha Christie returns for the third time under the stewardship of star and director Kenneth Branagh. A Haunting in Venice sleuths its way into New Zealand cinemas on September 14.
Based on Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party, A Haunting in Venice sees Branagh’s Poirot in the waterlogged Italian city and reluctantly attending a séance when—wouldn’t you know it—a young woman turns up dead. Once again, the big-brained, bushy-lipped Belgian must unravel the circumstances of her death—including, of course, whodunnit.
Which might be any of the film’s cast of colourful characters. A Haunting in Venice has a tighter ensemble than the previous two instalments, but an impressive one, including Michelle Yeoh, Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Kelly Reilly and Camille Cottin. Excitingly, we also get 30 Rock’s Tina Fey as recurring Christie character Ariadne Oliver, mystery novelist and friend to Poirot. Watching Fey and Branagh trade quips sounds like a fine evening’s entertainment, and we are here for it.
What’s interesting is that A Haunting in Venice is being billed as a supernatural thriller, a genre that Branagh is more than passingly familiar with (there’s even a ghost in Hamlet) but one that isn’t normally associated with Agatha Christie’s intricate murder plots. Has Branagh gone off book on this one, or will this prove to be a bit of strategic misdirection in the marketing materials? It’s hard to say at this juncture. But we’re sure Poirot will get to the bottom of it, and we plan to be right there with him when he does.
