MOVE OVER SUCHET, There’s a new Poirot in town
Murder On The Orient Express C ert: 12A 1hr 54mins ★★★★★
David Suchet played Hercule Poirot, the much-loved Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie, for an extraordinary 24 years, delivering a performance that eventually felt so definitive – albeit on the small screen – it was difficult to imagine any other actor even daring to have a tilt at the role.
So, as a new version of Murder On The Orient Express arrives in cinemas, it’s important to remember that there have been other Poirots; good ones, too. Death On The Nile would not be Death On The Nile without that great polyglot and raconteur Peter Ustinov, while Albert Finney secured an Oscar nomination for the star-festooned 1974 version of Murder On The Orient Express. Even if it was his legendary co-star Lauren Bacall who actually won.
And now the baton – plus the moustache and cane – pass to Kenneth Branagh, who has already had a go at one overseas detective – the gloomy Swede Kurt Wallander – and clearly likes the challenge of another. He likes the challenge so much he’s not only playing Poirot but directing the film as well.
The result is a gorgeous-looking and thoroughly entertaining period delight, a riot of crystal glassware, mahogany-lined railway carriages and pyrotechnic flambé pans; not to mention the most extravagant moustache since Kerryman General Kitchener. Suchet’s Poirot favoured modesty and waxed precision when it came to facial hair but Branagh’s goes all out for size.
Cast-wise, it doesn’t quite rival the 1974 version, when Finney and Bacall were joined by Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery and John Gielgud. But the likes of Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer, as well as Branagh’s old Renaissance Theatre colleagues Derek Jacobi and Judi Dench, certainly run them close, even if the inadvertent result is an actress as well-known as Penélope Cruz having a justifiable claim to feeling under-used.
I loved the opening, which – helped by impressive, if never quite invisible visual effects – does an outstanding job of evoking the pre-war Levant of 1934, that golden era when a gentleman, or dowager duchess or gung-ho governess, could travel from London to Baghdad by train, changing in Paris and Istanbul.
Poirot, however – having got the film off to a great start by harnessing those ‘little grey cells’ to crack a case in Jerusalem – is travelling in the opposite direction, boarding the train in Turkey after an urgent telegram summons him back to London. But it is not just an avalanche that derails his journey; this being Agatha Christie, murder very clearly lies ahead.
The obvious difference between Branagh’s Poirot and Suchet’s is that Branagh’s is less camp. Along with that macho moustache, he’s even been given a beautiful and unmistakably female ex. ‘Ah, Katherine,’ he sighs over an old photograph, ‘Mon amour.’ As for the detective’s famous fastidiousness, that’s now evolved into a variety of what might be lazily dubbed OCD. It’s not dirt that upsets this Poirot but disorder, a point cleverly underlined when he steps into a pile of horse-muck. The new Poirot doesn’t shriek and demand a new pair of clean shoes; he simply steps into the muck with the other shoe as well. Order, symmetry, has been restored.
This near-phobia for disorder, he explains, makes most of his life unbearable: ‘But it is useful in the detection of crime,’ a line emphasisingthefactthat American screenwriter Michael Green, who, with both Blade Runner 2049 and Logan to his name, was an unlikely candidate for a Christie adaptation, wants to take his source material seriously rather than send it up. Which is to be admired. Even the
rather contemporary sounding but box office-boosting points he brings in about race (of the 13 suspects, one is black, another Hispanic) fit well. Belfast-born Branagh the director eventually over-indulges Branagh the actor, particularly as the climactic reveal of whodunit, nears. But he draws an unexpectedly decent turn fromDepp, and the best performance for a while from Pfeiffer, who may not win an Oscar for her work here (she’s in Bacall’s role) but does enough to extend her already long career.
Shot in 70mm – possibly just to capture the full magnificence of that moustache – some of the cinematography is dazzling. Look out for a fabulous tracking shot as Branagh and Pfeiffer meet for the first time and make their way through the train. At other times, however, the combination of the widescreen, highresolution format and swooping camerawork somehow inadvertently reveals the artifice – model-making and visual effects – that lies beneath. We’re always entertained by this filmbut we never forget that it’s not real.
Story-wise, it’s hampered only by the towering improbabilities of the tangled plot and the fact Christie clearly found inspiration in the real-life tragedy of the Lindbergh kidnapping – in which 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr, son of aviator Charles Lindbergh, was abducted and murdered – which occurred barely a year before she sat down to write her book. In these more sensitive times, such overt commercial exploitation would draw censure not admiration.
But, eight decades on, I think we can safely let that pass. The presence of Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley in the supporting cast signals an Agatha Christie for a new generation. With a sequel clearly in the offing if this is a success, we may not have seen the last of those super-sized whiskers. Or those little grey cells, come to that.
A gorgeous-looking and thoroughly entertaining period delight… plus a most extravagant moustache