There’s a complex murder to be solved in Death in the Nile, the latest adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery featuring Hercule Poirot from director and star Kenneth Branagh. This one’s an especially elegant affair, and a mild improvement over Murder on the Orient Express, but let’s get to the real mystery first: just how did Poirot get that fabulous mustache?
While Agatha Christie left the origins of the character purposefully vague, modern filmmakers know better than to leave any element to the viewer’s imagination. Especially when all the talk about their previous film was dedicated to the star detective’s ‘stache.
It’s the same reason every superhero movie is an origin story, and why even iconic characters like James Bond are given a new backstory 25 films into the franchise. Modern audiences cannot be expected to fill in any blanks, and in 2022 we will not even accept that a character has a mustache without knowing how it got on his face in the first place.
And so (spoiler alert) Death on the Nile opens in the trenches of WWI, where a young Hercule Poirot (played by a digitally de-aged Branagh) has his upper lip blown off by an explosive. Cue heartfelt “who-will-love-me-now?” scene in a hospital ward, a suggestion by the love of his life (Susannah Fielding) to grow a mustache, and you can now watch this man solve a mystery without worrying about the fur on his face.
It’s a silly and completely unnecessary aside, but the rest of 2022’s Death on the Nile is a first-rate adaptation, with Christie’s classic mystery left largely intact and some generally successful updates to the supporting characters to fit modern sensibilities.
While on holiday in Egypt, Branagh’s Poirot is convinced by longtime friend Bouc (Tom Bateman, the only returning character apart from the lead from Murder on the Orient Express) to join in the wedding festivities of his family friend and wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) and her humble beau Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer), who are being stalked through their honeymoon by Simon’s old flame Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey).
Poirot politely declines Linnet’s request to help the new couple deal with their stalker, but soon the whole wedding party is on a private cruise down the Nile, a murder occurs, and we have Christie’s mystery staple: an isolated location, a limited number of characters, and brilliant detective to solve the mystery while the audience guesses along the way.
Those characters (and suspects) include Linnet’s maid (Rose Leslie); her accountant Katchadourian (Ali Fazal); Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) and her nurse Bowers (Dawn French); ex-boyfriend Dr. Windlesham (Russell Brand); Bouc’s domineering mother (Annette Bening); and American blues singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okenedo) and her niece (Letitia Wright).
The Salome character is a particular leap from the source material (in Christie’s version, she was a British author), but Okenedo’s soulful performance of multiple authentic blues songs is one of Death on the Nile’s highlights.
Other standouts: an almost-unrecognizable Brand, who underplays his role in an unusually sympathetic turn, and Mackey, who steals multiple scenes away from her more famous costars. Luscious cinematography (by Haris Zambarloukos) on authentic locations down the Nile adds to the atmosphere, though there’s an overuse of artificial CGI effects.
But Christie’s mystery is the real star of Death on the Nile, and it’s a real pleasure watching it unfold in this modern blockbuster. Even old pros who know whodunit going in will be able to take pleasure in working out the intricacies of the plot and timelines, which are expertly woven together by Poirot’s big reveal at the end.
While Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express fell a little short of the 1974 screen version with Albert Finney as Poirot, this take on Death on the Nile is more or less equal to the 1978 film with Peter Ustinov in the lead. The TV series with David Suchet remains the definitive modern version of these stories, but it’s great to have an elegant, adult mystery like Branagh’s Death on the Nile as an alternative to the usual blockbuster at the multiplex.
One Response