A Haunting In Venice (2023)

Review: written Sept 2023

Spooked sleuth solves séance mystery

Branagh as Poirot is back. In Venice, yes, but not on a train this time – this time first seen enjoying his hand delivered pastries on a scenic rooftop, before a visit from a friend (Tina Fey) persuades him to come help her debunk a visiting medium (Michelle Yeoh). The setting for the séance he is to attend is Rowena Drake’s (Kelly Reilly, from Yellowstone) crumbling and neglected palazzo, a former orphanage which has a reputation for being haunted. When one of the guests is murdered, Poirot is once again required to stimulate his grey matter and uncover the secrets and sinister plans of the attendees. This time however, his reliance on science and deduction is challenged by the apparently supernatural events around him.

After the glossy and superficial previous entries in the series, this is a marked change in tone. Branagh’s depiction of Poirot is dialled down from its previous excesses – and while the movie continues the trend of being highly stylised, instead of gloss and opulence, we now experience decay and some disturbingly effective scenes which might not have been out of place in one of the Paranormal Activity movies. After an initial introduction on a sunny rooftop, much of the movie takes place locked up in the palazzo during a night-time storm. Increasingly expressionistic mise-en-scène challenges not just Poirot’s sense of what is going on, but ours too. The style here doesn’t distract in the way it did in Orient Express, but tangibly adds to a sense of claustrophobia and menace. (Dis-Orientation, if you will..)

The cast are almost uniformly excellent, with Kelly Reilly a standout showing she is capable of more than her sweary petulant role on Yellowstone, and Tina Fey surprising in a role which turns out to be more than just ‘the funny sidekick’.

I, for one, am delighted with the recent resurgence of the “whodunnit”. And while I thought the previous two Branagh outings as Poirot to be gloriously glossy but more than a little too heavy on cgi, this for me is the best of the three. It was stylistic and convoluted, yes – but it also merged surprisingly satisfyingly with the gothic horror genre, in a way that seems to have brought out the best from Branagh as both director, and Poirot. The claustrophobia and production design somehow make the experience more tangible, so that even if the denouement isn’t as gasp-inducing as Christie at her best, we do feel more connected to the result.

If he can keep the movies genre-hopping like this then I’m definitely up for more..