When Kenneth Branagh began his quest to bring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot back to the big screen, I was happy but discouraged.  Happy because Poirot is an amazing, complex, fussy character who deserves more big screen attention than he has received (although on television, David Suchet has made a career out of his Poirot portrayals).  Discouraged because both of Branagh’s first two Poirot mysteries are revivals — Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978).  I’ve liked both of those newer versions, more than the originals, but I don’t understand why Branagh felt the need to update that which was already filmed (and both of those early movies are of good quality).  But now Branagh has entered uncharted territory, and the result is even better.

Kenneth Branagh’s film finds Hercule Poirot retired in Venice, content to shop for pastries and amuse himself.  Author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) challenges him to accompany her to a Halloween party to help her expose a spiritualist (Michelle Yeoh) as a fraud.  Poirot reluctantly agrees and finds himself in a supposedly haunted palazzo with a dozen or so people, attending a séance regarding a young girl who died one year previously.  Although the detective is able to divine some subterfuge, there are things he cannot logically explain — and people begin to die.  Poirot locks the doors and determines to uncover the truth during that one stormy, scary night.

The one thing I’ve learned during these three Branagh / Poirot adventure mysteries is that no one is innocent.  It helps feed the mystery, of course, for the legion of suspects to have various motives and rationales for crimes, but in these dramas it’s not just red herring provocation.  Everyone, it seems, is guilty in some way of extending or embellishing the central crime, or the next one in line, or the one after that.  No one who attends the train ride, or the cruise, or the Halloween Party (the original title of this Agatha Christie tale) is there by chance.  Everyone plays a part.  Which makes fingering the guilty person a difficult task at best.

I did not guess the identity of the killer.  Nor did I guess the secondary crime which led to the secondary death of the story.  (And I read the book, albeit in 1985, and don’t remember it at all).  What does matter is the manner in which director Branagh tells his tale, with dark interiors, odd and sometimes awkward camera angles and movements, whispery voices and music, all framed by Poirot’s steady, structured, open-minded approach to the investigation.  When he begins to question his most basic beliefs, the drama catches fire, aided by the general tumult and panic of everyone else in the creepy palazzo.  The supernatural element is handled adroitly, perhaps even brilliantly.  This is the Branagh / Poirot movie I have been waiting for.  ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2.  17 September 2023.