The real mystery is why this Agatha Christie caper needs Hollywood A-listers
Barring an enforced closure for Covid, Agatha Christie’s country house murder mystery, The Mousetrap, has been running in London’s West End for the best part of 70 years. But, to date, no film version has ever been made, at least not in English.
And strictly speaking that remains the case, despite the arrival in cinemas of See How They Run, a crime caper directed by Tom George, who wrote and directed the brilliant Cotswolds-based television sitcom This Country.
Because what George delivers, in collaboration with screenwriter Mark Chappell, is not an adaptation of The Mousetrap itself but a whodunnit based – very loosely – around the original production. Presumably for copyright reasons, Christie’s play is never actually named, but the one in the film celebrates its 100th performance in 1953 and the first cast includes Richard Attenborough and his real-life wife Sheila Sim. Just like The Mousetrap.
In See How They Run, however, the first victim is not Maureen Lyon, as in the play, but a brash director who wants to make a Hollywood film version of it.
In the first of several ‘meta’ touches, the fact that the unlikeable Leo Kopernick is soon dead doesn’t stop him returning to narrate the action, Sunset Boulevard-style. Or appear in several flashbacks, a device he posthumously describes as ‘crass and lazy’ and almost as unforgiveable as captions that say things like ‘Three weeks later’. Yes, you can guess what’s coming next.
There are definitely laughs to be had here but, for my money, not quite enough. It’s a film that prompts more in the way of chuckles rather than laugh-out-loud moments.
It’s also somewhat unbalanced by the casting of two Oscar-winning A-listers in the shape of Adrien Brody, as Kopernick, and Sam Rockwell, who plays Inspector Stoppard, his character’s surname a reminder that Tom Stoppard did something similarly Mousetraprelated with his play, The Real Inspector Hound.
But despite Brody’s enthusiasm and Rockwell’s deadpan English accent, the only star to emerge with their reputation enhanced is Saoirse Ronan, who is terrific – and funny – as the impetuous and naive Constable Stalker.
Crimes Of The Future, the latest film from cult Canadian director David Cronenberg, is set in a grubby future where pain no longer exists, the risk of infection is zero and incisions can be repaired in seconds.
As a result, not only has surgery, performed with the help of computer-controlled, biomechanical machines that look like outlandish exo-skeletons, ‘become the new sex’, it has also become a form of performance art, with audiences flocking to packed operating theatres.
It’s absolutely bonkers and you will definitely need a strong stomach. But Cronenberg, returning to themes he explored in earlier films such as eXistenZ, Crash and Videodrome, leavens the provocative mix with humour and unfashionable female nudity. He also has some interesting things to say about sex, art and evolution, and draws eyecatching performances from a game Léa Seydoux (from Bond films Spectre and No Time To Die) and Twilight star Kristen Stewart. Bodies Bodies Bodies may be the latest film from the muchhyped distributor A24, but from the moment we see a group of photogenic young Americans meeting up in a big house owned by one of their wealthy parents for a weekend of drink, drugs and general debauchery while a big storm passes overhead, we’re pretty sure we know what we’re in for.
And then someone squeals, ‘Who wants to play Bodies, Bodies, Bodies?’ and we’re certain. Yes, a muchplayed parlour game is about to go horribly wrong. Again. With no likeable characters and some muchneeded humour arriving too late, it’s a long and annoyingly dark slog.
In The Score, Johnny Flynn and Will Poulter play Mike and Troy, a pair of small-time, rurally accented English crooks who are heading to a remote cafe to meet up with some serious criminals to strike a big deal. But then nobody turns up, leaving Troy plenty of time to be seriously smitten with the cafe’s beautiful waitress, Gloria (Naomi Ackie). What on earth is going on?
It’s a good question, but nothing like as good as the other obvious question. Why on earth did director Malachi Smyth feel the need to pepper the film with Flynn’s own folkrock songs, which are sung sporadically by members of the cast? Creatively eccentric or just plain wrong? You can decide but it’s only getting two stars from me.