A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Hercule Poirot returns to catch a murderer. Kenneth Branagh again stars and directs.

Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh and Kenneth Branagh face a peril they can’t quite fathom

A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Now in theaters

Reason defeats evil in all three of Kenneth Branagh’s portrayals of Agatha Christie’s meticulous, unerring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

In Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and in Death on the Nile (2022), he gave an authoritative vigor to a character whose formidable prissiness seemed built into the interpretations of other fine actors.

But Branagh has dug up a surprising layer to Poirot in the new A Haunting in Venice.  

As director and star, he’s deepened his commitment to making Poirot “personal”.  This sadder, more jaded Hercule is closer to us, for all his Olympian brilliance.

Of course, Poirot remains the sleuth who sniggers at alibis, shreds fabrications, and, shaking his head at mankind’s perfidies, retreats back into his comforting eccentricities.  And why not?  He’s long since earned his place out of the sun.

But a distaste for the dirty business of detecting has now crept into Branagh’s conception of Poirot, and the detective’s weariness is more pervasive here than in the two earlier movies.  He seems to have grown ruefully incurious about human skullduggery.

In the movie’s early scenes, homicide is the last thing on Poirot’s mind.  It’s 1947 and the master unraveller has quietly retired to post-war Venice to savor peace and Italian pastry.

When American mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) invites him to a seance on Halloween, enlisting his aid in exposing a fake medium, Poirot makes clear that he’s never been interested in mere fakery.  Vulgar duplicity is beneath the art of detection.

But he reluctantly attends the seance in a dark gothic palazzo, and informs the medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), that the “spiritual”, whether religious or self-concocted, holds no fascination for him.

He’s witnessed enough evil, plus two world wars, to conclude that human vileness is inbred and beyond redemption.

But when the first murder is sprung, Poirot can’t help himself.  The dogged detective’s wiliness kicks in.  You don’t go knocking off people with Poirot in the house.

The hostess is opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), and she’s entreated Reynolds to evoke the presence of Alicia, Rowena’s recently deceased daughter who, after a rapidly debilitating illness, committed suicide in her early 20s.

Kelly Reilly as Rowena Drake, a mother obsessed with the memory of her deceased daughter

Also present is the doctor (Jamie Dornan) who attended Alicia in her final hours, and, disquietingly, the doctor’s spookily precocious ten-year-old son (Jude Hill).

Shockingly, the late Alicia’s husband (Kyle Allen) crashes the party.  He’s no believer in mystic invocation, but he suspects Rowena unjustly turned Alicia against him and he wants to know why.

There’s also a young couple in love and two teenage refugees on hand, all of whom Rowena has agreed to help find safety abroad.  Coolly on alert is Poirot’s Italian bodyguard Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio), who finds his way around the palazzo with suspicious ease.

Branagh the director has cooked up just the right amount of mayhem to make the “haunted” palazzo seem to be hiding dark secrets.  And all the actors pitch in beautifully.

The building’s foundation seems shaky, lights suddenly flicker, a wide-eyed bird coos ominously.

The housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin), who was at the failing Alicia’s bedside, can’t give a coherent account of the night the young woman took her own life.

And what’s the source of the faint wailing of a young child that seems to come from the basement – when Rowena insists that the palazzo has no basement?

A second murder occurs, and on this rainy night the steadily rising water in the canals has isolated the palazzo so that rescue by boat is impossible.

Poirot orders the doors locked, and vows to expose the killer before anyone has a chance to leave.

But no one is out of our sight long enough for us to pin down who might have committed the murders.  The ultimate revelation of the killer’s identity eluded me, and once we learned who did it, there were no less than three further plot revelations that startled and gratified me.

Cagey screenwriter Michael Green unspools events in swift, unsettling turns and devises a byzantine plot that can’t be predicted but, we realize by the end, coalesces into a neat pattern of deception.

Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, production designer John Paul Kelly and editor Lucy Donaldson have dreamed up enough creepily ornate interiors, scare cuts and bizarre camera angles to keep us off balance and always one step behind Poirot.

More so than in the previous two Branagh movies, Poirot is relying on his nimble instincts because in this story he’s truly frightened.  

And for good reason:  someone tries to off the master detective himself, and Poirot actually seems pleased that the police can’t reach the scene because it squares him off with the killer.

It’s not a question of the law or of justice.  It’s a matter of:  Who dares to make a fool – and possible victim – of Poirot?   There is no “retirement” from his reputation.   

This pulls the character slightly away from stock heroism – showing him not just puzzled but also mad as hell – and it’s a bold twist.  It makes Branagh’s Poirot more resilient yet easier for us to identify with.

It pays to keep in mind that throughout his career Branagh’s bearing as an actor, for all his imposing skill, has been quite modest.  He’s not a vain performer, so his Poirot can take us by surprise because he’s super smart but never talks down to anyone.

Aside from the florid mustache and the dramatically arched eyebrows, this Poirot is most adept at verbal proficiency.  In a showdown, he aims words like daggers. 

But oh, so sorrowfully. Branagh’s portrayal here reveals the melancholy in Poirot with a depth that no other actor who’s ventured into the part has tried.

Branagh gives us an expectedly brilliant Poirot who’s also newly touched with traces of woe

I agree with the consensus that no player has captured the little Belgian’s foibles – his obsession with his wardrobe, his loathing of human cruelty and his delight in hot chocolate – more ripely than David Suchet.

But Suchet had years of televised episodes to shape his Poirot.  Unlike the stately Branagh, Suchet as Poirot was a fussy actor.  He didn’t just play Poirot, he was a student, almost an engineer, of mannerisms, and far from disguising, he showed off his minute character building.

Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov, both excellent, fairly quickly within each mystery’s plot grew suspicious and got down to exposing who was up to no good.

But Branagh, surely the least vain Shakespearean actor we’ve had in the generations since Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson, never towers as Poirot.  He glowers, and under that lush mustache forms his lips into a deeply dolorous “smile”.

He’s shrewd enough to solve the dastardliest crimes, but not wise enough to save malicious mankind from itself.  And he’s battle-scarred enough to understand the difference.

He’s not just clever.  He also feels like a good guy to have around in a tormented world.