A Haunting in Venice (2023) – 3/5

Roughly what I expected quality-wise, one for the gloomy days inside

„A Haunting in Venice“ is a co-production between the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Italy and the latter has of course to do with the city mentioned in the title, which is also where the film was shot and from what I saw here, despite some of the horrific contents, it is a really nice place to travel and seeing some of the scenery and the water of course, I felt a bit of an urge to get there at some point. Anyway, this is once again based on an original story by Agatha Christie, maybe one of the most famous writers of all time, and the protagonist is, also once again, Hercule Poirot, even if you will not see his name in the title here. Or in any of the other films. There I am referring to Sir Kenneth Branagh who is the director here once again and also plays Poirot, the Belgian detective who is now enjoying his retirement in Italy, but a writer friend comes to see him and gets him involved in a new murder mystery that he eventually of course can impossibly stay away from. Branagh has written screenplays in the past too, such as the one for the recent big success „Belfast“, but here he left that aspect to Michael Green again who also worked on the previous Poirot films. It’s not like Branagh did not have enough else to do. You have to give him props for making these films interesting enough to general audiences to become really popular, regardless of how much you like them. This film being number four on the imdb MOVIEmeter is telling enough and the material is nothing that really made this an obvious turn of events really. This film could have gone way more under the radar. Of course, if you have the name Ridley Scott as your producer it always helps. Another producer has a really fitting name too given the story and atmosphere. Check it out for yourself if you want to know more.

And surely it is no coincidence that the film got released around October/November as the original story from Christie even carries the word Halloween in its title. Ghosts are a constant factor here from beginning to end, even if the eventual explanation what happened and who killed who and why is expectedly very earthly. The film’s only awards attention so far went to the composer, a previous Oscar winner and it is definitely possible that this is where the film gets an Oscar nomination, but we will see about that. Much more is probably not going to happen. Speaking of Oscar winners, Michelle plays a supporting character in the first half of the film or even a little bit less than that. Kelly Reilly is maybe the second somewhat big name. As for the males, one thing that caught my eye is how Branagh again cast Jamie Dornan and child actor Jude Hill, who had both been key reasons for the success of „Belfast“ of course. And they are doing fie here too, even if I must say that Dornan did not have the material to really shine again, but oh well. Most of the other cast members have names that maybe do not sound familiar to you at all, so even bigger props to Branagh to turn the outcome into a success with, if we are a bit mean, a bunch of nobodies, but yeah, eventually it is just all about Poirot and maybe even more so about the solution of the whodunnit. The word is even used by him on one occasion when he explains to another character (and the audience) what he is doing.

Oh and of course I totally forgot about Tina Fey, who initially merely plays a character that seems a bit of a sidekick, but also gets her twist towards the end then and we understand why she got in touch with Poirot in the first place and it was not her friendship. Here and there, her comedic background comes through and she has three or four moments where she developed a bit of a punchline that also could have been on „30 Rock“. But as this film is not a comedy by any means, these moments are the exception. I still struggle a bit with taking her seriously as a dramatic actress. Maybe she is a better writer herself than an actor. The perhaps funniest moment involved her too, but really just her job, when another supporting character wonders if Poirot follows her character’s writing, the detective she wrote about, when establishing his modus operandi. Now that was somewhat hilarious I must say, also Branagh’s/Poirot’s face expression that follows immediately when he hears it. Besides the key story, there is also a minor frame plot you could call it where we are also given a very general solution in the end that the doctor must be evil. Not Dornan’s character and we never see said doctor. We only hear one character talk to Poirot to find help at the very beginning and very end of the film. As the camera moves away from the rooftop on which the two men are talking. This is a film that is predominantly in the English languages and inclusions of French, Italian and Latin are very rare and you do not need subtitles particularly for these.

I know some are not too fond of Branagh’s Poirot, but I just like the actor in general, which surely helped in my case. I would still say that this was not my favorite film from the series. Another one I really adored, so this one is maybe second place or, more likely, third place. But it is still good enough for a positive recommendation and that was never in doubt for me. I just caught myself here and there thinking that I really did not care as much as I cared in the past with the previous film(s) about the question who committed the murder. Or murders. Of course, as usual, I also had no clue who would it be, even if in terms of the actors‘ popularities and fame, the solution is not totally out of nowhere. But also in terms of the first murder victim or you could say second murder victim, even if she is really the first one in fact if we look at the solution in the end, it came a bit out of nowhere and I did not think it would be this character, but surprise is never a bad thing and it also was not unrealistic or so. Another scene that stayed in the mind here was surely the moment in which Poirot himself is almost killed, drowned by the killer and the reason there is just the clothes he is wearing and that said killer mistakes him for somebody else. Perhaps the way it is done there, in terms of physical strength you could guess that it might not be a male, but maybe that is a bit too far-fetched and easy to say now knowing who was behind all this. The revelation about what happened to the young girl who died first, quite a while before the action of the film, was really tragic though what the mother thought about her and what she did there with the tea she gave her and also how an unlucky coincidence resulted in the killing. This is also why I was wondering if the „killer“ would really kill somebody else afterwards, because she was not a murderer by definition. Not yet. But the line would get crossed.

So yeah, this is it then. We get the usual scenes in which Poirot talks to the suspects about who they are and their motives while placing them on a chair. There are moments where you might smile like a reference from one character about Charles Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe or rather a comment from a child character about Dickens that Poirot cannot really disagree. Once again, funny face expression and reaction. So we have Christie, Dickens and Poirot combined if you wanna say so. The film starts a bit more on the light side with the first meeting between Fey’s and Branagh’s characters and also with a Halloween party for kids we got afterwards, but things do get considerably more serious soon. What is finally worth mentioning is that locked doors, almost a prison, once again mean that the cast list is relatively small and almost every character contributes something crucial to the story as it had been on previous Branagh/Poirot films as well. This is good. Things do not get too confusing this way. Exactly the right approach from my perspective. Overall, this film does not really have any major flaws and felt like a nice watch. The good is definitely way more frequent than the weak, even if there is no true greatness either, so a 60% approval rating sounds accurate. Maybe in the middle, the film did have some minor lengths, but as a whole I like that it did not get stretched (closer) to the two-hour mark for no reason with the help of pointless filler scenes. The haunting atmosphere at times is another pro and I liked how they depicted ghosts and spirits. Not too little. Not too much. I am sure you do not need a recommendation from me here as you have probably seen at least one of the two previous films and can make up your mind yourself, but if I had to give on then it would certainly be on the positive side and my suggestion is that you go see this film. Perhaps for Halloween 2024 then. It does not need to be in a movie theater. Or maybe see it before the next Poirot film gets its theatrical release. Or I know something even better: Watch it a few days before an upcoming travel to Venice. It might get you in the right mood.