Whodunnit worthy of Christie
Crooked House (M, 115 mins) Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner ★★★★
A couple of months ago, a friend made me laugh hard when she told me her grandmother had said, ‘‘You know that Graeme Tuckett don’t you. Tell him he’s a bloody idiot’’.
The idiocy I had committed – of course – was writing that the Kenneth Branagh-directed adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express was a smug vanity project that bored me senseless for two interminable hours back in November.
So I didn’t walk into Crooked House with any great enthusiasm. Whodunnits strike me as a nearredundant genre. The solution is too obvious and we arrive at the conclusion before the film does. Or it is too unlikely and we leave feeling cheated. And large ensemble casts usually mean whatever tension is built quickly dissipates as the screen is shared around characters who are mostly surplus to the plot.
But, Christie isn’t the world’s third best-selling author ever for no reason. And Crooked House was one of Christie’s own two favourites among her novels. The other was Ordeal by Innocence. Neither featured Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.
This Crooked House updates the action to 1957. In his country pile, magnate Aristide Leonides has been poisoned. Three generations of the Leonides wha¯ nau, along with the old man’s very young widow, are gathered to grieve and point the finger. Into this setup walks young investigator – and admirer of Leonides’ granddaughter – Charles Hayward.
With – deep breath – Gillian Anderson, Glenn Close, Christina Hendricks and Stefani Martini
(Luther) as the dominant wahine, director Gilles Paquet-Brenner
(Sarah’s Key) wisely keeps the male characters – including Terence Stamp and Julian Sands – in the background until they are needed. Max Irons (son of Jeremy) plays Hayward by looking credibly overawed early on, but more confident as the film progresses.
Helping Crooked House home are Sebastian Wintero’s superbly unshowy cinematography and a soundtrack put together with real love and care. Donald Byrd’s rendition of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child dropped my jaw. Billie Holiday’s Solitude kept it there.
I’d say this is exactly the way Christie deserves to be done. Among all the expected humour, frocks and settings there is some grit and resolve about this film. It may or may not please your Gran, but I think this Crooked House is the best Christie I have seen in years. Bravo.