new poirot movie reviews

A Haunting in Venice

“A Haunting in Venice” is the best of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot movies. It’s also one of Branagh’s best, period, thanks to the way Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green dismantle and reinvent the source material (Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party )  to create a relentlessly clever, visually dense “old” movie that uses the latest technology. 

Set mainly in a palazzo that seems as immense as Xanadu or Castle Elsinore (it’s a blend of actual Venice locations, London soundstages, and visual effects), the movie is threaded with intimations of supernatural activity, most of the action occurs during a tremendous thunderstorm, and the violence pushes the PG-13 rating to its breaking point. It’s fun with a dark streak: imagine a ghastly gothic cousin of “ Clue ,” or of something like Branagh’s own “ Dead Again ,” which revolved around past lives. At the same time, amid the expected twists and gruesome murders, “A Haunting in Venice” is an empathetic portrayal of the death-haunted mentality of people from Branagh’s parents’ generation who came through World War II with psychic scars, wondering what had been won.  

The original Christie novel was published in 1969 and set in then-present-day Woodleigh Common, England. The adaptation transplants the story to Venice, sets it over 20 years earlier, gives it an international cast of characters thick with British expats, and retains just a few elements, including the violent death of a young girl in the recent past and the insinuating presence of an Agatha Christie-like crime novelist named Ariadne Oliver ( Tina Fey ), who takes credit for creating Poirot’s reputation by making him a character in her writing. Aridane tracks down Poirot in a Venice apartment, where he’s retired from detective work and seemingly in existential crisis (though one he’d never discuss without being asked). He seems resolved to a life of aloneness, which is not the same as loneliness. He tells Ariadne he doesn’t have friends and doesn’t need any. 

Ariadne’s sales have slumped, so she draws Poirot back into sleuthing by pushing him to attend a Halloween Night seance at the aforementioned home, hoping to produce material that will give her another hit. The medium is a celebrity in her own right: Joyce Reynolds ( Michelle Yeoh ), a character named after the untrustworthy little girl in the original Christie story who claims to have witnessed a murder. Reynolds plans to communicate with a murder victim, Alicia Drake ( Rowan Robinson ), the teenage daughter of the palazzo’s owner, former opera singer Rowena Drake ( Kelly Reilly ), and hopefully learn who did the deed.

There are, of course, many others gathered in the palazzo. All become suspects in Alicia’s murder as well as the subsequent cover-up killings that ensue in these kinds of stories. Poirot locks himself and the rest of the ensemble in the palazzo and announces that no one can leave until he’s figured things out. The gallery of possibles includes a wartime surgeon named Leslie Ferrier ( Jamie Dornan ) who suffers from severe PTSD; Ferrier’s precocious son Leopold ( Jude Hill , the young lead in Branagh’s “ Belfast “), who is 12 going on 40 and asks unnerving questions; Rowena’s housekeeper Olga Seminoff ( Camille Cottin ); Maxime Gerard ( Kyle Allen ), Alicia’s former boyfriend; and Mrs. Reynolds’ assistants Desdemona and Nicholas Holland ( Emma Laird and Ali Khan ), war refugees who are half-siblings.

It would be unsporting to say much about the rest of the plot. Reading the book won’t give anything important away because—even more so than in Branagh’s previous Poirot films—the kinship between source and adaptation is a bit like the later James Bond films, which might take a title, some character names and locations, and one or two ideas, and invent everything else. Green, who also wrote the recent “ Death on the Nile ” as well as “ Blade Runner 2049 ” and much of the series “American Gods,” is a reliably excellent screenwriter of fresh stories inspired by canonical material. His work keeps one eye on commerce and the other on art. He regularly reminds nostalgia-motivated viewers in the “intellectual property” era of why they like something. At the same time, he introduces provocative new elements and attempts a different tone or focus than audiences probably expected. (The introduction to the movie tie-in paperback of Christie’s novel has an introduction by Green that starts with him confessing to a murder of “the book you are holding.”)

Accordingly, this Poirot mystery aligns itself with popular culture made in Allied countries after World War II. Classic post-war English-language films like “ The Best Years of Our Lives ,” “ The Third Man ,” “The Fallen Idol,” and mid-career Welles films like “ Touch of Evil ” and “The Trial” (to name just a few classics that Branagh seems keenly aware of) were not just engrossing, beautifully crafted entertainments, but illustrations of a pervasive collective feeling of moral exhaustion and soiled idealism—the result of living through a six-year period that showcased previously unimaginable horrors, including Stalingrad, Normandy, the mechanized extermination of the Holocaust, and the use of atomic bombs against civilians. And so the embittered Poirot is a seeming atheist who practically sneers at speaking to the dead. Green and Branagh even give him a monologue about his disillusionment that evokes comments made about Christie near the end of her life, and in the novel, about what she perceived as increasingly cruel tendencies in humanity as a whole, reflected in the sorts of crimes that were being committed.  

Aside from a few period-specific details and references, the source seems to exist outside of the time in which it was written. Branagh and Green’s movie goes in the opposite direction. It’s very much of  the late 1940s. The children in the film are orphans of war and post-war occupation (soldiers fathered some of them, then went back home without taking responsibility for their actions). There’s talk of “battle fatigue,” which is what PTSD was called during World War II; in the previous world war, they called it “shell shock.” The plot hinges on the economic desperation of native citizens, previously moneyed expatriates who are too emotionally and often financially shattered to recapture the way of life they had before the war, and the mostly Eastern European refugees who didn’t have much to start with and do the country’s grunt work. The overriding sense is that some of these characters would literally kill to get back to being what they were.

Branagh was compared to Orson Welles early in his career for obvious reasons. He was a wunderkind talent who became internationally famous in his twenties and often starred in projects he originated and oversaw. He had one foot in theater and the other in film. He loved the classics (Shakespeare especially) and popular film genres (including musicals and horror). He had an impresario’s sense of showmanship and the ego to go with it. He’s never been more brazenly Wellesian than he is here. This film has a “big” feeling, as Welles’ films always did, even when they were made for pocket change. But it’s not full of itself, wasteful or pokey; like a Welles film, it gets in and out of every scene as fast as possible, and clocks in at 107 minutes, including credits. 

Film history aficionados may appreciate the many visual acknowledgments of the master’s filmography, including ominous views of Venice that reference Welles’ “Othello” and a screeching cockatoo straight out of “ Citizen Kane .” At times, it feels as if Branagh conducted a seance and channeled Welles’ spirit, as well as that of other directors who worked in a black-and-white, expressionistic, Gothic-flavored, very Wellesian style (including “The Third Man” director Carol Reed and “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Seven Days in May” director John Frankenheimer ). Branagh and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos have also mentioned Richard Brooks’s 1967 adaptation of “ In Cold Blood ” and Masaki Kobayashi’s “Kwaidan” as influences. The movie deploys fish-eye lenses, dutch tilts, hilariously ominous close-ups of significant objects (including a creepy cuckoo clock), extreme low- and high-angles, and deep-focus compositions that arrange the actors from foreground to deep background, with window and door frames, sections of furniture, and sometimes actors’ bodies dicing up the shot to create additional frames-within-the-frame. 

Like post-millennial Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh movies, “A Haunting in Venice” was shot digitally (albeit in IMAX resolution) and lets the medium be what it naturally is. The low-light interior scenes make no attempt to simulate film stock, depriving viewers of that “comfort food” feeling that comes from seeing a movie set in the past that uses actual film or tries for a “film look.” The result is unbalancing, in a fascinating way. The images have a mesmerizing hyper-clarity and a shimmering, otherworldly aspect. In tight close-ups of actors, their eyes seem to have been lit from within.  

Branagh and editor Lucy Donaldson time the cuts so that the more ostentatious images (such as a rat crawling out of a stone gargoyle’s mouth, and Poirot and Ariadne seen through the metal screen of a fireplace, flames in the foreground) are on-screen just long enough for the viewer to register what they see, and laugh at how far the movie is willing to go for the effect. Movies are rarely directed in this style anymore, in any format, and it’s a shame, because when they are, the too-muchness can be intoxicating.

Available in theaters on September 15th. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot
• Kyle Allen as Maxime Gerard
• Camille Cottin as Olga Seminoff
• Jamie Dornan as Dr Leslie Ferrier
• Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver
• Jude Hill as Leopold Ferrier
• Ali Khan as Nicholas Holland
• Emma Laird as Desdemona Holland
• Kelly Reilly as Rowena Drake
• Michelle Yeoh as Joyce Reynolds
• Dylan Corbett-Bader as Baker
• Amir El-Masry as Alessandro Longo
• Fernando Piloni as Vincenzo Di Stefano

Writer (based upon the novel "Hallowe'en Party" by)

• Agatha Christie

Cinematographer

• Haris Zambarloukos
• Hildur Guðnadóttir
• Kenneth Branagh
• Lucy Donaldson
• Michael Green

Leave a comment

Now playing.

The Killer’s Game

Girls Will Be Girls

The 4:30 Movie

Sweetheart Deal

¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies

Latest articles.

TIFF 2024: On Swift Horses, Meet the Barbarians, All of You

Natasha Rothwell Finds New Life in Hulu’s Winning “How to Die Alone”

Starz’ “Three Women” Stumbles Through Its Tale of Stifled Female Passion

TIFF 2024: Table of Contents

The best movie reviews, in your inbox.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Movie Reviews

A Haunting in Venice review: Kenneth Branagh scares up his best Poirot film yet

Branagh portrays Agatha Christie's favorite detective for the third time in this supernatural thriller.

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

While Kenneth Branagh 's first two outings as Agatha Christie detective Hercule Poirot were classic murder mysteries, A Haunting in Venice is, as its name suggests, most decidedly a ghost story.

The slight shift in tone and genre, leaning into the supernatural elements of the storytelling, does wonders for Branagh's take on Poirot, elevating the movie beyond the solid, if somewhat bland entertainment of the first two films. Additionally, while Branagh tackled two of Christie's most famous works in his initial efforts, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile , the lesser-known 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party serves as the source material this time, with screenwriter Michael Green diverging even further from the original story. The result is something altogether more inventive, surprising, and engaging.

Poirot — played again by Branagh, with his thick Belgian accent and piercing blue eyes that seem to discern all wrongdoing — has gone into retirement, holing up in Venice and refusing to take another case. As such, he takes a bit of a backseat to the action, which leaves him to do what he does best: solve murders. There's no pesky, overwrought backstory here, no mustache origin stories. Instead, Branagh inhabits Poirot with an affection and lived-in-ness befitting of his third go with a character he can now don like a favorite sweater.

When an old acquaintance, mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver ( Tina Fey ), visits Poirot, she invites him to attend a Halloween party and seance at the Palazzo of famed opera singer Rowena Drake ( Kelly Reilly ). Some months prior, Rowena's daughter, Alicia (Rowan Robinson), committed suicide by jumping from the balcony into the canal below. Desperate to hear her daughter's voice, Rowena recruits famed medium Mrs. Reynolds ( Michelle Yeoh ) to contact Alicia's spirit. But when the evening goes drastically wrong, the ensemble — which includes housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), shell-shocked doctor Leslie Ferrier ( Jamie Dornan ), his precocious son Leopold ( Belfast's Jude Hill), and Reynolds' assistant Desdemona (Emma Laird) — find themselves locked in a house that boasts all manner of horrors.

Branagh, teaming with cinematographer and frequent collaborator Haris Zambarloukos, transforms the Palazzo into an off-kilter haunted house and relies on canted angles to indicate the unbalanced state of Poirot's mind. While Orient Express and Nile were designed to showcase the opulence of their settings, here Zambarloukos is much more inventive with his shot set-ups, using fish-eye lenses, tilted frames, darkness, shadow, and severe high and low angles to thrust the audience into this unsettling world.

Poirot and, by extension, the audience are never quite sure whether what they're seeing is real or not — and much of the film is built upon the legacy of ghost stories and how and why we choose to believe them. The design, from the cinematography to the art direction, enhance this sense of supernatural unease. We trust Poirot to have an explanation for everything, but what happens when he simply does not? That's the question at the heart of the action, a ghostly war between Poirot's reliance on deduction and logic and the far more human, irrational foibles of loss, greed, obsession, and the unexplainable.

Branagh leads a strong ensemble here. Yeoh is satisfyingly mercenary and chilling as Ms. Reynolds, toeing the line between canny businesswoman and purveyor of spiritualism in a way that keeps us guessing. While Cottin, largely unknown to American audiences, is inscrutable in the best way, her stern exterior belying her kindly heart.

Fey offers some of her strongest work in years. Generally, she plays a heightened version of herself, but here she is a heavily fictionalized play on Christie, a mystery novelist responsible for Poirot's fame. As Oliver, she is spritely, a tad vain, and a mercurial presence that keeps Poirot and the audience on their toes. At first glance, Fey seems an odd fit for a period piece; she's so firmly associated with a specific brand of modern comedy. But she sinks into the world with gusto, complete with a believable, delightful transatlantic accent.

Dornan, who Branagh featured so exquisitely in Belfast, is a bit underused here as a doctor coming apart at the seams. But his chemistry with Hill, who reprises the father-son relationship with Dornan after Belfast , is perfection — and Hill continues to grow as a natural actor who pulls your eye straight to him in every scene. Branagh has found a real talent in the young performer and continues to mold him admirably.

Perhaps what is most satisfying about A Haunting in Venice is the ways in which it continually surprises. Where the previous Christie adaptations felt by the book, Venice startles at every turn and isn't afraid of jump scares and genuine moments of horror. It is more mystery or thriller than scary movie — and it effectively takes up the themes of the greatest mystery writers, the ways in which grief, trauma, and loss defy even the most rational of brains. The most frightening thing of all isn't the prospect of ghosts, but the ways in which our choices and our pasts haunt us more effectively than any supernatural specter could.

Amidst all this, Venice is also just a heck of a lot of fun, from its eerie Venetian mask costumes to the intriguing ways in which its central mysteries unfold. With heaps of atmosphere and a general spookiness, it's the perfect choice for a Halloween party. Grade: B

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly 's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• Kenneth Branagh surprised A Haunting in Venice actors with effects on set: 'They had no warning'
• Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, and Michelle Yeoh can't hide from their ghosts in A Haunting in Venice teaser
• Kenneth Branagh wins his first Oscar for Belfast after 8 career nominations

Related Articles

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

The big twist in 'A Haunting in Venice'? It's actually a great film

Justin Chang

Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh join Kenneth Branagh in A Haunting in Venice. Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection hide caption

Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh join Kenneth Branagh in A Haunting in Venice.

You can always count on Agatha Christie for a surprise, and the big twist in A Haunting in Venice is that it's actually a pretty terrific movie.

I say this as a die-hard Christie fan who didn't much care for Kenneth Branagh 's earlier adaptations of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Charming as he was in the role of Hercule Poirot, the movies themselves felt like lavish but superfluous retreads of two of the author's best-known classics.

One of the lessons of A Haunting in Venice is that sometimes, it's a good idea to go with weaker source material. Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party is one of her thinner whodunits, and Branagh and his screenwriter, Michael Green, have smartly overhauled the story, which is now set in 1947 Venice. They've also gleefully embraced the Halloween theme, taking the cozy conventions of the detective story and pushing them in the direction of a full-blown haunted-house thriller.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'murder on the orient express' and cozy murder mysteries.

OK, so the result isn't exactly Don't Look Now , the most richly atmospheric horror movie ever shot in Venice. But Branagh and his collaborators, especially the cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and the production designer John Paul Kelly, have clearly fallen under the spell of one of the world's most beautiful and cinematically striking cities. While there are the expectedly scenic shots of gondolas and canals at sunset, most of the action takes place after dark at a magnificent palazzo owned by a famed opera singer, played by Kelly Reilly.

She's hosting a lavish Halloween party, where Poirot is one of the guests, tagging along with his longtime American friend, Ariadne Oliver, a popular mystery novelist played with snappy wit by Tina Fey . Also in attendance are Jamie Dornan as a troubled doctor and an entrancing Michelle Yeoh as a medium, known as "the unholy Mrs. Reynolds," who says she can speak to the dead.

Case Closed: Agatha Christie's Detective Poirot Solves His Last TV Mystery

Mrs. Reynolds performs a séance, hoping to contact the spirit of the opera singer's daughter, who died under mysterious circumstances at the palazzo a year earlier. Soon another death will take place: One of the party guests turns up murdered, and while Poirot is officially retired, he decides to take on the case. He even asks his mystery-writer friend, Miss Oliver, to help him interview suspects, though not before first questioning her about her whereabouts at the time of the killing.

As Poirot, Branagh is clearly having so much fun wearing that enormous mustache and speaking in that droll French accent that it's been hard not to enjoy his company, even when the movies have been lackluster. For once, though, the case he's investigating is just as pleasurable to get lost in.

Book Reviews

2 books investigate the mysteries of agatha christie and the golden state killer.

It's an unusually spooky story: The palazzo, we find out early on, is rumored to be haunted by the vengeful ghosts of children who died there years ago during an outbreak of the plague. Branagh piles on the freaky visuals and jolting sound effects, to the point where even a supreme skeptic like Poirot begins to question what's going on. These horror elements may be unabashedly creaky and derivative, but they work because the movie embraces them to the hilt.

A Haunting in Venice sometimes feels closer to the work of Christie's undersung contemporary John Dickson Carr, whose brilliant detective stories often flirted with the possibility of the supernatural. That said, the actual solution to the mystery, while clever enough, isn't especially ingenious or complicated.

Here are the movies we can't wait to watch this fall

What gives the story its deeper resonance is its potent sense of time and place. It's just two years after the end of World War II, and many of the suspects have witnessed unspeakable horrors. The medium, Mrs. Reynolds, was a nurse during the war, which may account for why she feels such an affinity for the dead. Everyone, from the grieving opera singer to the doctor traumatized by his memories, seems to be mourning some kind of loss.

In Branagh's retelling, Poirot is himself a World War I veteran. One of the reasons he's such a staunch atheist is that he's seen too much cruelty and suffering to believe that God exists. He doesn't exactly change his mind by the end of A Haunting in Venice . But it's a testament to this movie's poignancy that Poirot emerges from his retirement with a renewed belief that he can still do some good in the world. He's eagerly looking forward to his next case, and so, to my delight, am I.

‘A Haunting In Venice’ Review: Kenneth Branagh Brings a Supernatural Dimension to His Hercule Poirot Series

Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh are among the latest additions to the ever-expanding ensemble of stars beset by mystery, as Poirot investigates the possibility of ghosts.

By Todd Gilchrist

Todd Gilchrist

• Russ Meyer’s Sexploitation Trilogy ‘Vixen,’ ‘Supervixens’ and ‘Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens’ Set for Blu-ray Release From Severin Films (EXCLUSIVE) 6 hours ago
• ‘Transformers One’ Review: Animated Origin Story Reveals There’s More to the Series’ Central Conflict Than Meets the Eye 1 day ago
• Ed Burns Reflects on Gen-X Stories, From ‘The Brothers McMullen’ to ‘Millers in Marriage’ 4 days ago

An adult-oriented crowd pleaser of the sort that seldom gets made any longer without superheroes being involved, and better than that, is quite entertaining, “ A Haunting in Venice ” extends 2023’s streak as the Year That Hollywood Lured Grown-Ups Back To Theaters. Less prestigious than practiced in spotlighting the star wattage of its pedigreed cast, Kenneth Branagh ’s third Agatha Christie adaptation offers a nimble stopgap between drier art-house fare, traditional studio tentpoles and scrappy genre material leaching ticket sales from their pricier competitors — while satisfying all three potential audiences.

Related Stories

Summer Box Office Success Stories Weren’t Just Tentpoles

Michael Keaton Says He 'Sucked' in 'Dumbo' and It's the 'One Movie' Where He Let Tim Burton Down: 'It Bugs Me to This Day. I Was Clueless'

Popular on variety.

As with the previous films in this series (and indeed, in ensemble films like this in general), the casting is key to the success of the story, even more than the resulting solution (or solutions) to its mystery. For better or worse, the star-director takes his foot off the accelerator just a bit to play a slightly less sexy Poirot than in previous outings (that said, get someone who looks at you the way that Branagh looks at Kenneth Branagh). But his comparatively more sober take on the character is born naturally from his circumstances at the beginning of the film, even if Daniel Craig’s resuscitation of Benoit Blanc in “Glass Onion,” who was similarly smarting from inactivity before being called back into service, eats more than a little bit of Poirot’s lunch here.

Even so, who better than Tina Fey to play a self-important, slightly bullying know-it-all who conceals her questionable competence behind a thin layer of condescension? It’s a role that was seemingly born for the actress who brilliantly played Liz Lemon for seven seasons. Meanwhile, a fresh-from-her-Oscar-win Michelle Yeoh beautifully navigates a crucial but sometimes invisible line between empath and charlatan in her limited screen time as Mrs. Reynolds. Jamie Dornan probably qualifies as the next-biggest star in the cast, and he delivers more PTSD than is really required to sell his character Leslie Ferrier’s wartime field surgeon bona fides, but the intensity of his performance provides a nice counterpoint to the turn given by Jude Hill, once again playing Dornan’s onscreen child (after leading Branagh’s “Belfast”) as Leslie’s morbid, precocious son Leopold.

Gifted as they are, Reilly and Scamarcio — along with Kyle Allen as Maxime Gerard, Alicia’s former lover, Camille Cottin as Rowena’s housekeeper Olga Seminoff, and Emma Laird and Ali Khan as Mrs. Reynolds’ assistants Desdemona and Nicholas Holland — show that they understand their respective assignments enough not to stand out, except when necessary as suspects (or red herrings). Conversely, Branagh counts on his longtime cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos to emphasize the space, especially the subjective terror of being in a building whose inhabitants may not all be among the living. Although the duo don’t fully return to the comic-book dutch angles of their work on “Thor,” Zambarloukos’ extensive use of anamorphic lenses (imagine a film shot with your iPhone camera constantly set at .5 distance) amplifies the sensation of something scary lurking in the shadows or just around the corner.

Reviewed at El Capitan Theater, Sept. 6, 2023. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 103 MIN.

• Production: A 20th Century Studios release and presentation of a Kinberg Genre, The Mark Gordon Co., TSG Entertainment, Agatha Christie Limited, Scott Free production. Producers: Kenneth Branagh, Jody Hofflund, Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott. Executive producers: Mark Gordon, Louise Killin, James Pritchard
• Crew: Director: Kenneth Branagh. Screenplay: Michael Green, based on the book “Hallowe'en Party” by Agatha Christie. Camera: Haris Zambarloukos. Editor: Lucy Donaldson. Music: Dara Taylor.
• With: Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Camille Cottin, Riccardo Scamarcio, Kelly Reilly, Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Rowan Robinson, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Laird, Kyle Allen, Ali Khan.
• Music By: Hildur Guðnadóttir

More from Variety

Helen Mirren Inches Closer to EGOT After Being Submitted for Spoken Word Grammy for ‘Moriarty: The Silent Order’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Annapurna-Remedy Deal Is Smart Solution to Gaming’s Funding Woes

Lionsgate Partners With StoryCorps, USC Shoah Foundation to Amplify Message of New Film ‘White Bird’

Dissatisfied With Its Rate of Erosion, DVD Biz Fast-Forwards 2024 Decline

More from our brands, nick lowe throws a rockabilly party on ‘indoor safari’.

The Biggest Suiting Hits and Misses at the Venice Film Festival

Tagovailoa’s Concussion History Clouds Contract Guarantees

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Was Only Murders’ Retro Theme Song ID a Stretch? Did Power Book II: Ghost Evoke OITNB? Is SNL Cut Curious? Did Kite Man Choir Sing? More TV Qs!

Review: With ‘A Haunting in Venice,’ Kenneth Branagh’s Agatha Christie series hits its stride

• Copy Link URL Copied!

Early on in Kenneth Branagh’s delectably creepy “A Haunting in Venice,” as gondolas cut through waterways and the sun sets on one of the world’s most impossibly beautiful cities, there arises a melody that you might recognize as “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis.” It’s a welcome if incongruous choice of music, evoking a bright, cheery vision of early 20th-century America that is otherwise absent from the movie, which is set over a dark and stormy Halloween night in 1947 Italy. In time, though, the allusion will click into place, when a character reminisces about a time during the war when she sought refuge in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis” over and over again — a poignant testament to how movies can sustain us through our darkest hours.

But there’s more to the allusion than the usual fusty Hollywood nostalgia. “Meet Me in St. Louis,” rightly hailed as a Christmas classic, also happens to feature one hell of a Halloween sequence, where unruly, unsupervised children attack their neighbors, build bonfires in the street and at one point nearly derail a trolley car. That spirit of youthful anarchy makes it a clever reference point for “A Haunting in Venice,” which is very loosely adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1969 novel “Hallowe’en Party,” and which is particularly concerned with the mischievous doings of children, alive and dead.

The action unfolds at a crumbling Venetian palazzo that’s rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of girls and boys who perished years ago during an outbreak of the plague. That makes it a supremely atmospheric setting for a children’s All Hallows’ Eve gathering, though the main event here is the (mostly) adults-only after-party. The owner of the palazzo, a grieving opera soprano named Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly, a master of melancholy), has invited a famous medium, Mrs. Joyce Reynolds (an entrancing Michelle Yeoh) to perform a séance. Their hope is to establish contact with the spirit of Rowena’s daughter, Alicia, who plunged to her death in the canal a year earlier, a tragedy that dovetails with the many before it and portends still more to come.

Into this house of horrors comes the famed Belgian detective and designated party-pooper Hercule Poirot (Branagh), who’s retired from official duty but still willing to take on cases that interest him — or, in this case, offend his strict rationalist instincts. Tricks and treats for the entertainment of small children are all well and good, but for Poirot, the notion of actual occult phenomena is as intolerable as an asymmetrical breakfast spread or an unkempt mustache. And the filmmakers seem to take a particular joy in irritating him this time around, seizing on the cozy tropes of the classical detective story and steering them, with jolting sound effects and grisly imagery, in the direction of full-throttle supernatural horror.

The pleasure proves infectious. Gorgeously shot on location by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, “A Haunting in Venice” is easily the best of Branagh’s three big-screen Christie adaptations, largely because it is also the most flagrantly unfaithful. If the earlier “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) and “Death on the Nile” (2022) felt like lavish but superfluous retreads of beloved Christie classics, here, Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green have wisely dispensed with, and ultimately improved on, one of Poirot’s least memorable cases. In “Hallowe’en Party,” a 13-year-old girl is found drowned in an apple-bobbing tub; for the movie, it’s Poirot himself who is nearly pomme -eled to death, assailed from behind by a killer whose ruthlessness is less surprising than their identity.

Why Agatha Christie’s mousetraps still beguile us, even if the films aren’t always killer

With the release of ‘A Haunting in Venice,’ two Christie obsessives weigh in on the enduring appeal of an author who’s been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Sept. 13, 2023

The victims, suspects, motives and complications pile up swiftly but lucidly. Rowena’s guests, not all of whom were invited, include an angry chef (Kyle Allen), a watchful bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio), two shifty Hungarian travelers (Ali Khan and Emma Laird), a troubled doctor and his precocious son (Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill, poignantly updating their parent-child dynamic from Branagh’s “Belfast” ). There’s also an intensely religious housekeeper (a tremulous Camille Cottin) who, like Yeoh’s wide-eyed mystic, mounts a fervent, faith-based explanation for the eerie goings-on at the palazzo, where children’s singsong voices issue forth from the darkness and chandeliers fall and windows burst open of their own accord.

Poirot reacts to all this legerdemain with a disbelieving scowl, even when he can’t fully explain the hair-raising tricks his eyes and ears are playing on him. He is joined in his skepticism, up to a point, by his longtime friend Ariadne Oliver (a very welcome Tina Fey), a successful mystery novelist who functioned in the books as a self-parodying avatar for Christie herself. That dynamic plays out differently here, partly because the character has been recast as an American. Enlivened by Fey’s vinegary wit and Green’s acerbic dialogue, this Miss Oliver is a snappier, more sardonic presence, keeping Poirot’s sizable ego in check even as she tries to lure him out of super-sleuth retirement. She wants to reawaken his sense of purpose and also perhaps her own, to find fresh creative inspiration in an adventure replete with violent death and gothic splendor.

Branagh certainly succeeds in finding his, as do his gifted collaborators (they include production designer John Paul Kelly and costume designer Sammy Sheldon). Filming on location in Venice, of course, has long been a reliable source of cinematic ensorcellment; if it is possible to shoot an unattractive or unevocative frame of this city, Zambarloukos hasn’t managed it. He and Branagh retain their fondness for extremely canted angles, but here those visual flourishes — a sideways-slanted shot of a piazza, an upward-gazing shot of an open doorway — serve to underscore the spookiness of the setting, the sense of madness that seeps into the air like poison. This is a world whose secret passageways and pitch-black shadows you can get all too happily lost in.

With its paranormal activity and seemingly impossible crimes (including a murder in a locked room), “A Haunting in Venice” sometimes feels closer to the work of the great John Dickson Carr than Christie, even if the solution to the mystery, though clever and convincing, falls short of those authors’ signature ingenuity. What lingers from this movie isn’t the usual assemblage of clues and red herrings — a child’s doll, a jar of honey, a hidden telephone — but a free-floating air of grief, much of it rooted in the characters’ turbulent memories of the war just a few years earlier.

Branagh’s Poirot, himself a World War I veteran, has bared his own physical and psychological scars in this series before. For the first time, though, his backstory doesn’t feel concocted for effect. Instead, it subtly resonates with a case whose rich human dimensions — deferred dreams, unshakable traumas, grieving parents and children — sound a grim echo of the world beyond the whodunit. For all the creakily derivative supernatural hokum on display, the ghosts that haunt this movie turn out to be all too persuasively real.

'A Haunting in Venice'

Rating: PG-13, for some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes Playing: Opens Sept. 15 in general release

More to Read

Review: A nightmarishly good character actor obscures everything else about ‘The Front Room’

Sept. 6, 2024

Midsummer Scream scares up a horror-filled fright fest for every level of Halloween fanatic

July 26, 2024

Review: ‘Ghostlight’ makes an expressive, subtle argument for the healing power of theater

June 14, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for work published in 2023. Chang is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Chad McQueen, ‘Karate Kid’ actor and son of legend Steve McQueen, dies at 63

Sept. 13, 2024

Review: A remade ‘Speak No Evil’ is less evil, swapping out Euro-bleakness for a family’s bonding

Sept. 12, 2024

Three finalist cities announced to host Sundance Film Festival in 2027

Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Al Pacino lead an all-star Beyond Fest lineup

Most read in movies.

The 15 movies we’re most excited about this fall

Julian Schnabel on the new black-and-white ‘Basquiat,’ plus the week’s best movies

Tyrese Gibson says ‘arrest’ after being found in contempt of court was ‘very traumatic’

Sept. 11, 2024

What if you could call your younger self? ‘My Old Ass’ bridges two generations, wisely

• Things to Do
• Travel & Explore
• Investigations
• Advertise with Us
• Newsletters
• AZ International Auto Show & New Car Buyer's Guide 2020 Model Year
• Connect With Us
• For Subscribers
• Contributor Content
• Home & Garden Ideas

'A Haunting in Venice' might be the best Agatha Christie adaptation yet

Exhausted, depressed and demotivated is how we find Monsieur Hercule Poirot at the start of " A Haunting In Venice. " In a phrase: He's burned out. And who can blame the world's greatest detective since Sherlock Holmes? After seeing the worst side of humanity for years, Poirot decides to retire in Venice.

A desperate line of people lingers at his palazzo doorstep each day, hoping to convince him to take on their cases. He ignores them all, and his bodyguard, Vitale Portfoglio ( Riccardo Scamarcio ), makes sure the pitiful crowd keeps its distance.

More reviews: Nightmare fuel for parents

But rest and relaxation do not last long for the detective. An acquaintance arrives with a case sure to stir up his interest. It involves a house with a terrifying legend of murdered children. The question is, was it the dead murdering the living, or is something even more sinister at play?

Kenneth Branagh reprises his role as both Poirot and film director. He does a fine job, as usual.

While the previous film adaptations of Agatha Christie's hero felt blasé (perhaps Christie's books are more engaging, but Poirot's adventures always feel ponderous on screen), "A Haunting in Venice" is anything but boring. In fact, it's the best of the Poirot movies so far.

Which Agatha Christie is 'A Haunting in Venice' based on?

This film is adapted from Christie's book "Hallowe’en Party.” So if you've read the book, you'll know where the story goes. Even so, the introduction of supernatural horror elements adds a layer of delicious suspense.

We get to see our hero question everything he knows. Are ghosts real? Did they really kill? And are they still murdering people?

Poirot hears the voices of children and even sees what can only be described as apparitions. But are they really there? Or a trick of a mastermind? Or possibly a trick of the mind?

Poirot's dilemma echoes the plight of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" episode. There's something satisfying about seeing geniuses like Poirot and Sherlock get their stoic and reason-bound minds disturbed.

Is 'A Haunting in Venice' worth watching?

The cast in this film is also top tier. Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh assumes the role of the medium, Mrs. Reynolds. Every moment she's on screen is pure gold. Tina Fey is fabulous as the story-greedy author Ariadne Oliver. She claims that it was her books that made Poirot famous.

Jamie Dornan, Kelly Reilly, Jude Hill and Dylan Corbett Bader, along with Ali Khan, Emma Laird and Camille Cottin, round off the crew of suspects. Each actor is fully committed and engaging to watch.

The cinematography and production design are also superb, and plenty of horror film tricks are deployed in this whodunit.

If you're not one for horror stories, this film will still suit you. Despite a tale buzzing with ghosts, it's more of a thriller than a true horror story. And clever minds may even spot the murder weapon and maybe even the guilty party or parties.

If you're looking for a fun movie to start the spooky season, this is the perfect film for you.

'A Haunting in Venice' 3.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Kenneth Branagh .

Cast: Kenneth Branagh , Michelle Yeoh , Jamie Dornan , Tina Fey .

Rating: PG-13 for some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements.

How to watch: Opens in theaters on Sept. 15.

Contact Kaely Monahan at  k [email protected] . Follow her on our podcasts Valley 101 and The Gaggle , and on Twitter  @ KaelyMonahan .

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Fitness & Wellbeing
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance Deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Climate 100
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Wine Offers
• Betting Sites

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

A Haunting in Venice review: Poirot meets the supernatural in Kenneth Branagh’s third middle-of-the-road chiller

Michelle yeoh comfortably steals the show in this starry adaptation of lesser-known mystery ‘hallowe’en party’, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

If there’s anything to be gleaned from A Haunting in Venice , it’s that Kenneth Branagh should make more horror movies. His quasi-notorious allegiance to cinematic trickery – lopsided Dutch angles, unusual POVs, and frenetically edited sequences – has often felt out of step with the subjects depicted on screen. It proved a distraction from the glossy adventures of Marvel’s Thor , the domesticity of Belfast , and the elegant logic of his previous Agatha Christie adaptations: 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express and last year’s Death on the Nile .

But, for his third film based on Christie’s Poirot novels, Branagh has turned his attention to one of the author’s lesser-known stories, Hallowe’en Party . Its humdrum, English hamlet locale has been swapped for the fog-choked canals of Venice, and a crumbling palazzo with death in its walls. As it turns out, it’s fairly unsurprising that an artist with roots in the illusionist, symbolic world of Shakespearean theatre, who’s already adapted Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , would turn in a capable, classic chiller that’s actually quite scary when it needs to be. Finally, all of his gimmicks have found their home.

Christie’s original story has been entirely refurbished by screenwriter Michael Green, embellished now with the series’s continuing obsession with trauma and psychoanalysis – Poirot, of course, can only be Poirot thanks to a baptism-by-fire-approach to tragedy and loss. To know how death operates, one must be familiar with its stench. After a valiant attempt at retirement, Poirot is apprehended by his old friend and celebrated author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a recurring character in Christie’s work who essentially serves as her stand-in. She’s convinced she’s found someone who can finally stump the great detective: the “unholy Ms Reynolds” ( Michelle Yeoh ), a medium.

Reynolds’s presence has been requested by a local Venetian, Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). Her daughter died by suicide, drowned in the canal after leaping from her bedroom balcony. The au pair, Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), speaks of ghosts in hushed tones and vengeful spirits of the children locked away, left to starve during the plague. But this, of course, is a Poirot mystery, and Reynolds’ séance ends with a body impaled on one of the statues in the vestibule.

A Haunting in Venice largely does away with the overstuffed, CGI bombast of Branagh’s earlier Poirot tales. John Paul Kelly’s production design and Sammy Sheldon’s costumes are immaculate. There are fewer A-listers in the cast (it does feature a reunion of Belfast stars Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill), and the performances lean occasionally into heightened dinner theatre, with lines delivered out and towards the audience. Yeoh is the exception and, unexpectedly, the contrast works – she’s the centre of every scene she’s in, that unplaceable quality of movie star charisma here given a paranormal sheen. Branagh’s Poirot continues to be a welcome presence: a slightly romanticised depiction of the detective, who’s self-aware enough, with his accent and his double-decker moustache, not to feel too pompous.

A Haunting in Venice ’s conclusion, entirely different to Christie’s, is perhaps the least satisfying of the three films; the individual clues aren’t quite prominent enough to register, nor is the logic tight enough, to incite that satisfying “a-ha!” moment. But the director’s haunted spaces have a touch of 1961’s The Innocents to them, while his off-kilter camera allows the typical frights – disembodied lullabies, figures in reflections, mysterious patterns on walls – to feel strange and hallucinatory. I’m sure Branagh could happily keep making these Poirot mysteries, but, after A Haunting in Venice , he should instead consider giving Blumhouse a call.

Dir: Kenneth Branagh. Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Michelle Yeoh. 12A, 103 minutes

‘A Haunting in Venice’ is in cinemas from 15 September

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Death on the Nile

While on vacation on the Nile, Hercule Poirot must investigate the murder of a young heiress. While on vacation on the Nile, Hercule Poirot must investigate the murder of a young heiress. While on vacation on the Nile, Hercule Poirot must investigate the murder of a young heiress.

• Kenneth Branagh
• Michael Green
• Agatha Christie
• Tom Bateman
• Annette Bening
• 1.2K User reviews
• 293 Critic reviews
• 52 Metascore
• 1 win & 9 nominations

Top cast 92

• Euphemia Bouc

• Hercule Poirot

• Private Laurin

• Captain Rens
• Sergeant Verhaeren

• German Soldier 1

• German Soldier 2
• German Soldier 3

• Syd (Photographer)

• Monsieur Blondin
• Maître 'D Chez Ma Tente
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Salome and Rosalie Otterbourne, a romance novelist and her daughter, become a singer and her niece/manager.
• Andrew Pennington becomes cousin Andrew Katchadourian.
• Marie Van Schuyler, a socialite and no relation to Linnet, becomes Linnet's godmother who has the ideals of Mr. Ferguson, the aristocrat turned socialist.
• Windlesham, a character mentioned in the first chapter, is combined with Dr. Bessner to become Dr./Lord Windlesham.
• Bouc, a character who appears only in Murder on the Orient Express, takes on elements of Col. Race, while his choice of traveling companion, his mother Euphemia, is reminiscent of the relationship between Tim and Mrs. Allerton.
• Goofs Poirot grows a mustache to hide the scar tissue that covers most of his upper lip and cheek. Scar tissue cannot grow hair at all, as it does not contain follicles or sweat glands; it is a connective tissue that grows between the dermis after it is split. Poirot's mustache could therefore never be as full as depicted, and should have several holes or irregularities.

Marie Van Schuyler : You accuse me now of murder?

Bouc : Oh, no, he accuses everyone of murder.

Hercule Poirot : It is a problem, I admit.

• Connections Featured in Chris Stuckmann Movie Reviews: Death on the Nile (2022)
• Soundtracks That's All (Live) Written and Performed by Sister Rosetta Tharpe Courtesy of Institut National de L'Audiovisuel

User reviews 1.2K

• fischer_patrick
• Apr 4, 2023

Everything New on Paramount+ in September

• How long is Death on the Nile? Powered by Alexa
• Is this a remake or new story?
• Is this based on a book?
• February 11, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Studio Website
• Muerte En El Nilo
• Aswan, Egypt (Second unit)
• 20th Century Studios
• Kinberg Genre
• Scott Free Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $90,000,000 (estimated)
• $45,630,104
• $12,891,123
• Feb 13, 2022
• $137,307,235

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 7 minutes
• Dolby Atmos

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed.

A Haunting in Venice: release date, cast, plot, trailer and everything we know

A Haunting in Venice stars Kenneth Branagh in his third Poirot mystery.

A Haunting in Venice is the third Hercule Poirot mystery starring Kenneth Branagh as Agatha Christie's brilliant Belgian detective.

Having already cracked Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Death on the Nile (2022) , Poirot will this time use his famous "little grey cells" in Italy.

Billed as "an unsettling supernatural thriller", the makers say the tale is inspired by Christie's novel, "Hallowe’en Party". 

Speaking about the movie, star and director Kenneth Branagh says: "This is a fantastic development of the character Hercule Poirot, as well as the Agatha Christie franchise. 

"Based on a complex, little-known tale of mystery set at Halloween in a pictorially ravishing city, it is an amazing opportunity for us, as filmmakers, and we are relishing the chance to deliver something truly spine-chilling for our loyal movie audiences."

Christie's great-grandson and A Haunting in Venice' s executive producer James Prichard told Total Film he welcomed the move into the paranormal in the new movie. He said: "If we are going to continue to make these films, we can't do the same thing over and over. A departure at this point is possibly risky, but it also has the potential to keep it alive, bring in a different audience, and so do something interesting that will hopefully surprise and delight."

A trailer and a fab poster have now been released for the movie.

In our A Haunting in Venice review , we concluded: "Drawing inspiration from a collection of Christie short stories that touch on the supernatural, The Last Seance, Branagh and Green create nerve-tingling tension from the clash between Poirot’s world of logic and a very different world that may contain ghosts and ghoulish goings on. 

"Add director of photography Harris Zambarloukos’s titled camera angles and it’s no wonder we feel eerily off balance. The film’s Venetian backdrop works superbly, too, and is a lot more convincing than Death on the Nile’s fake-looking blue-screen Egypt. Rowena’s palazzo may have been created in a Pinewood studio but, like the film itself, it is effectively creepy and chilling. Woo-woo? Maybe. Whoo-hoo! Definitely." 

Here's everything we know about Poitot number 3, A Haunting in Venice …

 A Haunting in Venice release date

A Haunting in Venice was released on September 15, 2023, in the US and UK. See our new movies in 2023 guide for more films coming soon.

A Haunting in Venice plot

The plot is inspired by Agatha Christie's 1969 novel, "Hallowe'en Party", which is one of her less well-known works. Having previously adapted classics Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile , the makers have opted to bring to screen something much less familiar to audiences. It feels like the makers are comfortable that movie-goers have grown used to Branagh's Poirot and therefore they can twist Christie's work more than before.

Set in Italy after World Two, a largely retired Poirot attends a seance with his friend Ariadne (Tina Fey). Needless to say, Poirot is unimpressed with the seance conductor, Miss Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), who he sees as a fraud preying on the vulnerable. But Rowena (Kelly Reilly) believes Reynolds can help connect her to the daughter she's lost.

When one of the guests is murdered, Poirot faces a chilling and terrifying case. It's clear the makers plan on playing up the Halloween theme and the movie is likely to have a scary tone. Plus his legendary mustache is back in full bushy mode!

Kenneth Branagh returns as Poirot. Joining him among others is Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Kyle Allen, Emma Laird, Michelle Yeoh, Camille Cottin and Jamie Dornan. 

Is there a trailer?

Yes and the trailer sets the movie up wonderfully...

Get the What to Watch Newsletter

The latest updates, reviews and unmissable series to watch and more!

David is the What To Watch Editor and has over 20 years of experience in television journalism. He is currently writing about the latest television and film news for What To Watch.

Before working for What To Watch, David spent many years working for TV Times magazine, interviewing some of television's most famous stars including Hollywood actor Kiefer Sutherland, singer Lionel Richie and wildlife legend Sir David Attenborough. 

David started out as a writer for TV Times before becoming the title's deputy features editor and then features editor. During his time on TV Times, David also helped run the annual TV Times Awards. David is a huge Death in Paradise fan, although he's still failed to solve a case before the show's detective! He also loves James Bond and controversially thinks that Timothy Dalton was an excellent 007.

Other than watching and writing about telly, David loves playing cricket, going to the cinema, trying to improve his tennis and chasing about after his kids!

Lonely Planet: release date, cast, plot, trailer and everything we know

Juror No. 2: release date, cast, plot and everything we know about the Clint Eastwood movie

What if Taylor is right about Hope on The Bold and the Beautiful?

Most Popular

• 2 Will Mellor 'honoured' to be part of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office amid NTAs triumph
• 3 Emily in Paris season 4 episode 8 recap: getting back in the saddle
• 4 General Hospital spoilers: has the perfect fall guy for John Cates’ murder been staring us in the face?
• 5 How to watch Nightsleeper online: stream the real-time thriller from anywhere

Advertisement

Supported by

‘Death on the Nile’ Review: Dead in the Water

Kenneth Branagh’s second adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about.

• Share full article

By Nicolas Rapold

The trickiest part of a murder mystery isn’t solving the crime. It’s keeping the intrigue and fun alive until then. “Death on the Nile,” Kenneth Branagh’s second adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories, forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about.

After Poirot’s lavish origin story set in World War I, we’re whisked away to a London music club with some spicy dancing, and then to an Egyptian wedding holiday. There, a love triangle fans the flames for a blowup. The preening heiress Linnet (Gal Gadot) and her beau, Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) can’t shake Simon’s lurker ex, Jacqueline (Emma Mackey), who follows them onto the fateful Nile riverboat.

As in many Christie screen adaptations (this one written by Michael Green), a motley bunch awaits accusation on board. The former comedy duo Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French reunite as Linnet’s socialite godmother and companion. Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright play Salome, a blues singer, and her business-savvy daughter (a nice reimagining of Angela Lansbury’s Salome, a tippling erotic novelist in the 1978 version ). There’s also a criminally underused Annette Bening as a painter, and Russell Brand as a doleful doctor.

But their byplay remains rather airless, except for Okonedo, Mackey and Thomas Bateman as Poirot’s hapless, vaguely Wodehousian pal. Round and round Poirot goes, as does the circling camerawork, before he performs the reliably satisfying triple-axel-twisty feat of exegesis in front of the suspects.

More often than not, Branagh’s Poirot simply lacks personality, and the film’s absolutely smoldering epilogue oozes more mood than all the rest put together.

Death on the Nile Rated PG-13 for violence (it’s a murder mystery) and sexual material. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 87% Speak No Evil Link to Speak No Evil
• 77% Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Link to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
• 95% Rebel Ridge Link to Rebel Ridge

New TV Tonight

• 80% How to Die Alone: Season 1
• 59% Emily in Paris: Season 4
• 50% The Old Man: Season 2
• 13% Three Women: Season 1
• -- Universal Basic Guys: Season 1
• -- My Brilliant Friend: Story of the Lost Child: Season 4
• -- Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy: Season 1
• -- The Circle: Season 7
• -- Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father: Season 1
• -- In Vogue: The 90s: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 93% The Penguin: Season 1
• 60% The Perfect Couple: Season 1
• 85% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
• 75% Kaos: Season 1
• 57% The Old Man: Season 2
• 100% Slow Horses: Season 4
• 100% Dark Winds: Season 2
• -- Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter: Season 1
• 93% Bad Monkey: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 93% The Penguin: Season 1 Link to The Penguin: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

50 Best New Horror Movies of 2024

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Transformers One First Reviews: The Best Transformers Movie Yet

The Penguin First Reviews: Colin Farrell’s Wild Performance Makes the Series a Must-Watch

• Trending on RT
• Best Horror Movies
• Top 10 Box Office
• Toronto Film Festival
• Free Movies on YouTube

Death on the Nile

Where to watch.

Watch Death on the Nile with a subscription on Prime Video, Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Apple TV.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

John Guillermin

Peter Ustinov

Hercule Poirot

Bette Davis

Mrs. Van Schuyler

David Niven

Colonel Race

Jane Birkin

Louise Bourget

Lois Chiles

Linnet Ridgeway

More Like This

Find anything you save across the site in your account

How “A Different Man” and “The Substance” Get Under the Skin

Horror movies have taught us to shudder before a bathroom mirror, lest an assailant suddenly appear, looming behind an unsuspecting protagonist, as the medicine-cabinet door swings shut. But not all reflections are jump scares in waiting, and not all victims and predators are distinguishable. This week brings two pictures, each a conceptually bold, mordantly funny cautionary tale, in which a mirror bears witness to an astonishing transformation—a miracle, or so it seems, that gradually curdles into a nightmare. In “A Different Man,” a disfigured face is peeled off, revealing smooth skin and chiselled features just underneath. In “The Substance,” a woman’s dream of eternal youth is fulfilled as she gives violent birth to her own younger, shapelier doppelgänger. You needn’t be a David Cronenberg fan (though I suspect one of the filmmakers is) to find yourself murmuring his most famous mantra: “Long live the new flesh.”

In “A Different Man,” a thrillingly mercurial third feature from the writer and director Aaron Schimberg, Sebastian Stan plays Edward Lemuel, a mild-mannered New Yorker with a genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis. With bulging tumors above the neck, he’s “facially different,” in the parlance of a workplace sensitivity-training video in which he appears as an actor. But little such sensitivity greets Edward in the real world. People gawk and flinch on the subway; a comely neighbor, Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), upon meeting him, lets out an involuntary shriek. She and Edward soon strike up a friendship, but the suspicion lingers that Ingrid, an aspiring writer, might be nosing around for good material. Sure enough, she later drafts a semi-biographical play, titled “Edward,” which she keeps shredding and rewriting, struggling to walk an empathetic tightrope over an exploitative chasm.

Schimberg is consciously walking that tightrope himself, though with such assurance and daring that, at times, he’s practically dancing. He has ingeniously structured “A Different Man” around a theme of mutability, with switchblade twists, droll reversals of tone, and a fluid sense of genre. The scenes in Edward’s apartment, a dump with a suggestively rotting hole in the ceiling, are a study in close-quarters paranoia, the camera prowling about like a trapped cat. Later, the movie becomes a mad-scientist fiction: Edward subjects himself to an experimental-drug trial, which proves stunningly successful. Stan, now prosthetically unmasked, projects Edward’s shock and exhilaration as a former pariah who suddenly finds himself an object of admiration, envy, and desire. But there is also a quiet unease in this dewy new skin. Edward, rather than acknowledge his medical miracle, takes on an entirely different identity. His new name, amusingly, is Guy.

Even so, his former life beckons. In a Ripley-esque twist, Edward/Guy worms his way back into Ingrid’s life, and into the lead role in “Edward,” a part he was surely born to play. Or was he? Before long, he and the movie are navigating the aesthetic pitfalls of appropriation and authenticity—concepts that the script gets at, shrewdly, without naming them. At every turn, Schimberg unleashes a nervy fusillade of ideas: about the unequal distribution of physical beauty, the social privilege that such beauty commands, the challenge of trying to probe these inequities through art. The director broached some of these in “Chained for Life” (2019), a cool-toned intellectual thriller that prominently features the English actor Adam Pearson, who actually has neurofibromatosis. Schimberg’s masterstroke in “A Different Man” is to deploy Pearson again, casting him as a roving bystander, Oswald, whom he lobs, like a grenade, into Edward/Guy’s path.

Whatever resemblance there is between Oswald and pre-op Edward, it ends at the physical: Oswald, far from being shy or forlorn, is the very picture of self-assurance—urbane, gregarious, effusively charming. Blessed with Pearson’s burbling wit, Oswald swiftly demolishes one of Edward’s foundational lies—that appearance confers destiny—and turns the movie’s very premise on its head. He also allows Schimberg to call his own storytelling choices into question, with delirious abandon.

In the interest of rejecting Hollywood ableism, would it not have been wiser to cast Pearson as Edward 1.0? Perhaps, though doing so might have replaced one variety of inauthenticity with another, denying us the exquisite sad-sack physicality of Stan’s performance: the defeated slump of his shoulders, the twitchy uncertainty over what to do with his hands. But then, in the context of what Schimberg is trying to provoke—a dismantling of conventional standards of attractiveness—does Stan’s slippery triumph here count as a kind of failure? Remarkably, as the movie accelerates into wilder, bloodier terrain, these contradictions don’t tear it apart; they deepen it. Schimberg may have concocted a madly inventive thought experiment, but to say that “A Different Man” merely deconstructs itself would miss how completely and satisfyingly it comes together. It’s a thing of beauty.

The Substance, in “The Substance,” is a neon-yellow fluid that, when injected into your veins, causes you to black out; within moments, “a newer, better you” springs forth, fully formed, from a gaping orifice along your spine. How exactly your body survives this trauma is one of a few questions that the writer and director Coralie Fargeat (“Revenge”) leaves unanswered. (The unseen manufacturers of the Substance, operating behind anonymous lockboxes and a terse customer-service hotline, are no more forthcoming.) But such is the Faustian bargain struck by Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a faded Hollywood star who has just been fired, for blatantly ageist reasons, from an aerobics show she’s hosted for decades. Alone and forgotten, she requires little persuading to try out the Substance and its promise of a second youth.

And so emerges Sue (Margaret Qualley), a citadel of physical perfection who, with taut glutes, voluptuous moves, and perfectly pink-chronized lipstick and leotard, lands Elisabeth’s old job in no time. But the old flesh is not so easily cast aside. The catch of the Substance is that Elisabeth/Sue is now one person in two codependent bodies, stuck in a brutally unforgiving regimen—involving liquid food packs, stabilizer fluids, and a nightmarish kit of intravenous devices—that makes even the fiercest diet-and-workout routine look like a trip to Shake Shack. Most inconvenient of all, only one body can be conscious at any moment, and Elisabeth/Sue must switch vessels at strict seven-day intervals. “Respect the balance,” the hotline intones, warning that the slightest deviation will have dire consequences. How dire? Let’s just say that the Substance is basically the Mixture of Dorian Gray.

Fargeat’s movie can be called many things: a body-horror buffet, a feminist cri de coeur, an evisceration of the sunny, surface-obsessed Los Angeles where it unfolds. It’s also a movie of process, deliberately paced, exactingly observed, and no less gripping for its sometimes gruelling repetitions. Everything is exaggerated, from the cavernous expanse and dark monochrome walls of Elisabeth/Sue’s apartment, which amplify her crushing solitude, to the uniform boorishness of the men on the margins, especially Elisabeth’s former boss (a repellent Dennis Quaid). Most flagrant is the Grand Guignol climax, in which Fargeat’s emphatic allusions to “Black Swan,” “Death Becomes Her,” “Sisters,” and other classics of double-decker female rage (plus a dash of “Vertigo”) pay off in spectacularly sanguinary fashion.

Such exaggeration, of course, is endemic to the language of both horror and satire, though whether it proves the glory or the undoing of “The Substance” is a thorny question. In the months since the movie premièred, at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won a screenplay prize, critics have at once hailed and assailed its value as a #MeToo-era provocation. Fargeat’s consideration of the female form leads her toward unsparing visual extremes, lingering on Moore’s and Qualley’s nude bodies one moment, pushing Moore toward haggard Baba Yaga cosplay the next. In making a near-fetish of both the lovely and the grotesque, does she reinforce the reductive, objectifying imagery that she seeks to call out? For me, the movie’s deeper flaw lies in its scattershot dualism: through no fault of the actresses, the sense that we’re watching one woman divided against herself, the victim of a self-inflicted psychological mitosis, never springs persuasively to life.

Moore, however, is persuasive, and for reasons that are painful to consider. At the height of her nineties stardom, she drew misogynist jabs aplenty from the press, who targeted her movies, her performances, and her personal life. Now sixty-one, and with a quieter Hollywood profile, she is as poignant an emblem of sexist, ageist industry neglect as Fargeat could have hoped to conjure. But Moore’s casting is more than just a symbolic coup. The most shattering moment in “The Substance” belongs to her alone: in a sequence of wrenching simplicity, Elisabeth, preparing for a rare night on the town, stares with utter desolation into her bathroom mirror, and what it reflects is not horror but heartache. Some of us will always see what we don’t want to see. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

They thought that they’d found the perfect apartment. They weren’t alone .

The world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization .

What happened to the whale from “Free Willy.”

It was one of the oldest buildings left downtown. Why not try to save it ?

The religious right’s leading ghostwriter .

After high-school football stars were accused of rape, online vigilantes demanded that justice be served .

A comic strip by Alison Bechdel: the seven-minute semi-sadistic workout .

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

• Login / Sign Up

Netflix’s Uglies is everything wrong with the YA dystopian genre 

Even though Scott Westerfeld’s books did many of these tropes first, the movie doesn’t offer anything new

If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

by Petrana Radulovic

I genuinely think the Hunger Games books are some of the best genre fiction to come out of this century, and that author Suzanne Collins told a masterful story about capitalism, propaganda, and war theory in a way that’s accessible for younger readers. So I’m constantly defending the YA dystopian genre, and pushing back against the reputation it got for being overly dramatic, unrealistic, and full of needless love triangles set against gimmicky action sequences. Movies like Netflix’s adaptation of Uglies make that defense so, so taxing on my soul.

Based on Scott Westerfeld’s 2005 series-launching book of the same name, and starring Joey King ( The Princess ) and Laverne Cox ( Orange Is the New Black ), Uglies is full of slick yet bland CG, stilted acting, and a plot that plays into all the lazy tropes YA dystopian novels are known for. Director McG and screenwriters Jacob Forman, Vanessa Taylor, and Whit Anderson are about 10 years too late to the table: This movie’s themes might have been passable in 2014, but the whole project feels so out of touch in 2024.

[ Ed. note: This post contains setup spoilers for Uglies .]

Uglies takes place in a future world where everyone gets mandatory plastic surgery at age 16 to become “Prettys,” the most beautiful versions of themselves possible. They live in a glamorous city where all they do is party and have fun. Tally (King) is a 15-year-old who dreams of the day she can get her surgery and become a Pretty, like her best friend Peris (Chase Stokes).

While waiting for her birthday, Tally meets and befriends rebellious Shay (Brianne Tju), who tells her about an underground resistance group in the wilderness. Shay runs away to join up with the rebels, and the city’s leaders enlist Tally to find her and take down the renegades. But as Tally lives among the rebels, she starts to learn that there’s a hidden cost to being a Pretty. Oh, and she’s also smitten with the rebel group’s fearless leader, David (Keith Powers).

The biggest problem with Uglies isn’t necessarily that it’s a bad adaptation; it’s just an adaptation that feels so dated, it’s almost like a parody. The original novel actually came out years before The Hunger Games really launched the dystopia fad. So a lot of its tropes — a rebellion led by a suave teenager; a futuristic city where everyone is glamorous and beautiful, save for our scrappy heroine; a society built around divisions of people with Capitalized Adjective Names — actually predate the rancor they eventually drew. But in the time since the Uglies series was a chart-topping bestseller, the frequency of those tropes has become the chief evidence for YA dystopian naysayers.

While Uglies did a lot of these overdone plot elements first, in 2024, the story feels dated and derivative. And the movie has little to offer beyond what’s on the page. The acting is overwhelmingly stilted, though some of the characters’ relationships are more interesting than others. Shay and Tally’s friendship, born out of sneaking away from their dorms together, is compelling. But Tally and David’s romance feels awkward and almost like a genre obligation. It doesn’t help that while 25-year-old King is already pushing the limits of looking like a scrappy 16-year-old, Powers is 32 and looks it. In fact, aside from King, all of the “teenager” characters are showing their actual ages (late 20s to early 30s), which makes the insistence that they’re all freshly 16 really weird.

Visually, Uglies is completely uninspired. The nameless futuristic city is so generic that it feels like a default Windows XP screensaver, and the wilderness where the rebel group hides out is also deeply uninteresting. Nothing about the costume design stands out, not even whatever high fashion the Prettys are supposedly wearing. The only unique set-piece is the rusted remnants of a theme park where Shay and Tally sneak off to ride their hoverboards, but it’s only used briefly. (And even though the Uglies book did it first, a ruined Ferris wheel was a big set-piece in Divergent .)

There is a deeper thread in Uglies , one that could take Westerfeld’s groundwork about conformity from the 2005 novel as a base, and use it to actually say something interesting about Eurocentric beauty standards. That theoretical version of the movie might join the current conversation about cosmetic influencers , plastic surgery , and celebrity culture . But Forman, Taylor, and Anderson don’t engage any deeper than the surface level of the original story, and McG makes no interesting choices in bringing it to the screen. Uglies winds up being yet another uninspired, forgettable entry in the deluge of YA dystopian movies that make my passionate defense of the genre such an uphill climb.

Uglies is out on Netflix now.

• Entertainment

Most Popular

• Game of the Year: The frontrunners, dark horses, and challengers to come
• The Rings of Power episode 5 finally does something with its Rings of Power
• Astro Bot embraces the spirit of ‘good artists copy, great artists steal’
• McDonald’s Genshin Impact collab wants to give you in-game items instead of toys
• Flappy Bird to return a decade after its viral rise and fall

Patch Notes

The best of Polygon in your inbox, every Friday.

This is the title for the native ad

More in Reviews

The Latest ⚡️

Oscar Isaac Is Jesus! No, Really — Here's When 'King of Kings' Arrives

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

The life and teachings of Jesus Christ will be explored in King of Kings , an upcoming animated feature based on a story written by Charles Dickens . According to The Hollywood Reporter , Blue Harbor Entertainment will release the movie in theaters in the United States during next year's Easter (April 20) weekend. The significant date could motivate faithful moviegoers to enjoy the movie in cinemas. The upcoming project won't follow the premise people are expecting, but it does offer a unique take on the events that took place during Jesus' lifetime .

King of Kings will follow Charles Dickens ( Kenneth Branagh ) and his son, Walter, as a multi-dimensional opening allows them to go back to Jesus' time. The Son of God himself will be voiced by Oscar Isaac , while Dickens and his son get a unique opportunity to meet the person they've worshiped their entire life. But Jesus won't be the only person from Biblical times to appear in the movie. His greatest friends and foes will also be present once Charles Dickens and his son arrive on the scene.

Seong-ho Jang is the director of King of Kings . The filmmaker wrote the screenplay for the movie alongside Rob Edwards . Seong-ho Jang previously worked on international projects such as Hello Mr. Billionaire and The Monkey King 2 . The director is ready to bring the popular Dickens story to the big screen, and the fact that the project is animated opens up many storytelling possibilities that a live-action production wouldn't be able to turn into a reality.

The Voice Cast of 'King of Kings' Includes Big Names

King of Kings will feature a spectacular voice cast that will bring Biblical figures to life on the big screen. Kenneth Branagh will step into the shoes of Charles Dickens after directing and starring in last year's A Haunting in Venice . The book adaptation continued Branagh's tenure as the popular detective, Hercule Poirot. Oscar Isaac will portray Jesus Christ after making his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to Moon Knight . The television series introduced a peculiar hero with multiple personalities living in his head.

The voice cast of King of Kings will also feature Mark Hamill , Uma Thurman and Forest Whitaker . Hamill and Whitaker have both worked in the Star Wars franchise. Decades after Hamill consolidated himself as a star thanks to Luke Skywalker's galactic adventures, Whitaker would join the franchise in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story .

King of Kings will be released in theaters in the U.S. on Easter weekend 2025. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

• Oscar Isaac
• Kenneth Branagh

Review: Sebastian Stan gives award-caliber performance as a struggling actor in 'A Different Man'

Stan plays an actor who reinvents himself in search of a new life.

Talk about coming at you with both barrels. As the head-twisting, heart-piercing "A Different Man" hits theaters after a glorious debut at Sundance , audiences won't know what hit them or where to look first. My advice? Start with the two main actors.

Sebastian Stan, killing it next month as the young Donald Trump in "The Apprentice," is simply astounding as Edward, a struggling New York actor afflicted with neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic condition that caused benign tumors to grow on his face, restricting his acting opportunities to sensitivity-training videos.

2024 fall movie preview: A look ahead at the most highly anticipated upcoming films

After an experimental procedure -- you may want to close your eyes as clumps of skin fall off his face -- Edward emerges looking like -- who else? -- the hunky Stan. What to do? Edward fakes his own death and renames himself Guy, to stroke his latent vanity and fire up his career.

Enter Adam Pearson, an actor born for real with the same facial scars that Stan is playing at, who is equally astounding as Oswald. It turns out Edward's neighbor, Ingrid ("The Worst Person in the World" breakout star Renate Reinsve), has written a play about the late Edward. It's the role of a lifetime, but how can Edward play it as pretty boy Guy?

Oswald, though, rightly considers himself a natural. And his personality charms everyone, way more than Edward/Guy, who has to hide behind a prosthetic mask to resemble his old self. What Edward can't hide is the gloomy, self-loathing introvert that lingers in his DNA.

Editor’s Picks

Review: 'His Three Daughters' is funny, touching and vital

Review: 'The Deliverance' aims for scares, gets laughs

Review: 'Strange Darling' is a cinematic punch in the gut that'll keep you guessing

See what writer-director director Aaron Schimberg is doing here? He's aiming satirical darts at perception and reality. He's also creating a teasing, dark comedy about how appearances screw all of us up, whether we see ourselves as a looker or a troll.

There's also the timely question of cultural appropriation, which Ingrid blithely ignores to tell a personal story that is definitely not her own. Set to Umberto Smerilli's haunting score and wizardly camerawork from Wyatt Garfield, "A Different Man" is different in the best way possible: It keeps springing surprises that you don't see coming.

Schimberg juggles more ideas than he can comfortably fit into a single two-hour film. But his ambition and talent are worth celebrating, and his skill with actors commands attention.

Review: Michael Keaton stars in his funniest role ever as Beetlejuice makes his freak flag fly

Schimberg worked with Pearson in his most recent film, the probing "Chained for Life," and the British actor is even better this time as a man who won't let appearance define him. Pearson brings a captivating spirit and lightness of touch to the role that draws everyone in.

And Stan is just tremendous, giving an award-caliber performance as two sides of his character's personality go to war with each other for control. No spoilers, except to say that "A Different Man" is that rare kind of movie: a psychological thriller that can lift you up with laughter and crush you flat with tears. It's truly something else.

Popular Reads

Schools close after threats in Springfield, Ohio

• 3 hours ago

Teen shot while looking for place to take photos

• Sep 12, 10:58 AM

Earthquake shakes Los Angeles area

• Sep 12, 6:10 PM

Georgia judge tosses 2 more counts in Trump case

• Sep 12, 4:56 PM

4 dead in shooting at Georgia high school

• Sep 4, 10:47 PM

ABC News Live

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events

Screen Rant

10 ways 2024's speak no evil changes the original danish thriller movie.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Geena Davis' 2024 Thriller Movie Role Is Better Than A Beetlejuice 2 Return

Does speak no evil have a post-credits scene, why 2024's speak no evil reviews & rotten tomatoes score are even better than the original movie.

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Speak No Evil (2024)! 2024's Speak No Evil is a remake of the 2022 Danish movie, but it makes several changes to the original film's story, offering a completely different experience. Whenever Hollywood remakes a foreign film, it is common practice for the American version to largely repeat the same beats and decisions made in the successful original film. Changes are typically made on some level, such as altering names and locations, and Speak No Evil 2024 looks to be a standard remake at the start, repeating shots, scenes, and previous dialogue. That all changes as 2024's Speak No Evil ending approaches.

There is the same general setup involved in the 2024 American remake compared to the 2022 Danish film. Speak No Evil 's cast revolves around a family who befriends another on a European vacation and decides to visit the new friends at their home later in the year. However, they quickly realize that the family is not as pleasant as previously believed and uncover the dark truth about them. The broad similarities between 2024's Speak No Evil and the original are evident, but there are also a wide range of notable changes and differences compared to Shudder's Speak No Evil ending .

10 Ben & Louise Survive

They are stoned to death in the original movie.

2024 remake changes the fates of almost every major character, and Ben and Louise's fates are no different. The new Speak No Evil ends with Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis) successfully surviving and escaping from the other family after fighting them in their own house. They do not make it out of the night completely unscathed, as Ben breaks his leg jumping off the roof and Louise is mentally scarred from killing a few people along the way.

This is dramatically different from Ben and Louise's fates in the original. In the 2022 film, Bjørn and Louise are brutally murdered by Patrick and Karin after their attempted escape fails. Patrick and Karin take Bjørn and Louise to an abandoned landfill and force them to strip naked and go down into it. As they stand together in the cold, Patrick and Karin begin throwing large stones and rocks at them, first hitting Louise in the head. Bjørn and Louise die from their injuries in the original film, whereas Ben and Louise manage to be survivors here.

9 Paddy & Ciara Die

The killers survive in the original movie.

Reversing the fates of the main adult characters, 2024's Speak No Evil changes the original by having Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) die. Ciara dies after Louise hits her on the head as she's about to shoot at Ant, Ben, and Agnes, causing her to fall off the roof and die once she hits the ground. Paddy's death is even darker, as he is left immobile on the ground after Agnes injected him with some medicine. While Ben opts not to shoot him, Ant kills Paddy by repeatedly smashing a brick into his face.

2024's Speak No Evil remakes the 2022 Danish movie with Blumhouse and James McAvoy, and here's whether there is a post-credits scene teasing more.

This is again the complete opposite of the fate that Paddy and Ciara's characters receive in the original. The 2022 Danish film makes Patrick and Karin victorious in their plan. They survive after killing Bjørn and Louise , and they are then able to start a new family. It's an incredibly grim conclusion where the evil killers come out on top once again. But, the 2024 version of Speak No Evil goes a different direction by killing Paddy and Ciara.

8 Agnes Remains With Her Parents

She's taken by patrick & karin originally.

Agnes gets a much better ending in Speak No Evil 2024 compared to the original thanks to a major difference. She plays a major role in the conclusion and ultimately winds up being the one to help defeat Paddy before he can enact his plan to groom her to replace Ciara. The end result is Agnes surviving, just as she did in the original , only this time she leaves the movie still with her parents.

The 2022 movie offered a darker future for Agnes as a result of what happened to Bjørn and Louise. She is taken away from them after Patrick and Karin cut out her tongue in the back of a car. The movie ends with Agnes riding in the backseat of Patrick and Karin's car as they arrive at the vacation house again. She has become their new kid, replacing Abel, and she will seemingly be replaced in the near future after the next vacation.

7 Ant Is Saved By The Daltons

He drowns in the original movie.

Ant's fate is also dramatically different in 2024's Speak No Evil compared to the original. This is because Ant survives the movie instead of dying . Speak No Evil sets up a similar fate for Ant by revealing early on that he does not know how to swim, and it appears that he is going to die once Paddy tosses him into the pond as the Dalton family attempts to leave again. Luckily for Ant, Ben rushes to the pond and saves him. Ant then stays with the family through the film's conclusion and goes home with them.

Despite initial skepticism about the 2024 Speak No Evil remake, the reviews and impressive Rotten Tomatoes score exceed those of the original movie.

2022's Speak No Evil gives the Ant character a more abrupt and unexpected ending. Abel dies on the final night of the movie after Patrick drowns him in the hot tub because he won't stop crying at night. Abel's body is only found by Bjørn after he discovers the truth about Patrick and Karin's life. This makes Abel's death the final straw for Bjørn and what motivates him to take Louise and Agnes away to try and find safety.

6 Ant Exposes The Truth About Paddy & Ciara

The son repeatedly attempts to reveal the dark secret.

It is clear in both versions of Speak No Evil that something is not right with Patrick/Paddy and Karin/Ciara, but how the truth is revealed to the characters and audiences is completely different. The 2024 remake makes Ant responsible for exposing the truth about his so-called parents . He repeatedly tries to tell Agnes about what Paddy and Ciara really do, but he is foiled at different turns. It's not until he steals Paddy's keys and takes Agnes to the secret room under the chicken coop that everything is revealed, leading Agnes to share the information with her parents.

Whereas the 2024 movie repeatedly teases the truth about Paddy and Ciara, the original film makes the reveal much more abrupt and shocking through Bjørn's discovery . He finds Patrick's trophy room in the middle of the night because the barn door is swinging open. Even then, Bjørn does not fully understand the extent of Patrick and Karin's plans until they find them again. It makes the 2022 version much more surprising in its big twist, but 2024's version was never going to be able to be as unexpected due to its nature as a remake.

5 Ben & Louise Have A Troubled Marriage

They are not a perfectly happy family this time.

Ben and Louise's marriage is another aspect of 2024's Speak No Evil that is quite different from the original. The new version reveals various difficulties and troubles that Ben and Louise have. Louise resents Ben for moving the family to London and uprooting her life. Meanwhile, Ben doesn't trust Louise because she was caught sexting the dad of another kid at Agnes' school. They have gone to couple's counseling and are trying to work through their issues, but it doesn't always work.

The original Danish film shows Bjørn and Louise's relationship in a different light. They appear to be a mostly happy couple who might not always see eye-to-eye, but they still enjoy being with the other. 2022's Speak No Evil even shows the passion that remains in their marriage as they have sex one night while staying with Patrick and Karin. This is a stark contrast to the 2024 remake, as Louise mentions that Ben is lucky to get laid once a month.

4 Louise Is The One Who Decides To Visit Paddy & Ciara

She is more hesitant in the original.

The invitation from Paddy and Ciara for Ben, Louise, and Agnes to come visit them elicits a new reaction in 2024's Speak No Evil compared to the original. Ben is the one to read the postcard this time around, and he seems interested in going, but also does not want to pressure Louise into going. Although she hesitates slightly at the suggestion of spending a weekend with people they barely know, Louise is ultimately the one who tells Ben that they should go .

This is very different from what happens in the original movie. When Bjørn and Louise get the postcard in the Danish film, they originally decide not to go. But, Bjørn's interest in going continues to grow, leading him to bring the topic up at a dinner with another couple, putting Louise on the spot in public. The other couple suggests it would be a fun experience, and with Bjørn being more in favor of going , Louise gives in. This change is likely why Louise plays more of a heroic role in 2024's remake.

3 Ciara Is One Of Paddy's Victims

She's still complicit in both versions.

One of the biggest changes that comes in 2024's Speak No Evil is Ciara's suggested backstory with Paddy. In the third act, Ciara tells Louise that she is a victim in this situation too, suggesting that she was the first child Paddy ever took . Speak No Evil provides enough clues to suggest that she is telling the truth, even if it does not outright confirm her claim as accurate. While Ciara might still be complicit in helping Paddy's plans come to fruition, this twist is wholly original to the remake.

In the Danish movie, there are no details provided about Karin and Patrick's backstories, much less the suggestion that she was a victim all along. The movie does not give any possible reason to sympathize with Karin's actions ; instead, it treats her exactly the same way as Patrick. By potentially altering Ciara's backstory in this fashion, the 2024 remake completely changes the dynamic she has with Paddy.

2 The Families & Setting Are Updated

The remake changes some basic elements too.

In addition to the major changes that Speak No Evil makes to the Danish movie, there are also basic elements like where the families are from and the main setting that are changed. The 2024 version focuses on an American family who lives in London and an English family they meet on vacation, with a long weekend spent together in the countryside of England. The original movie focuses on Danish and Dutch couples , with the small house in the Netherlands serving as the main location of the film.

1 Speak No Evil's Ending Location Is Different

It all takes place at the same house.

Another notable difference between the two versions of Speak No Evil is where the endings take place. The original film puts Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes in a car for the finale , leading to them getting stranded, found, and split apart. The difference is 2024's Speak No Evil takes place entirely at the English farmhouse. Ben, Louise, and Agnes never manage to get away in the remake and spend the ending trying to survive in Paddy and Ciara's house. It's not until the killers are dead that the Dalton family and Ant get in a car to finally leave.

Speak No Evil (2024)

Your rating.

Your comment has not been saved

2024 UnGala Tickets on Sale

Chicago Reader

Chicago’s alternative nonprofit newsroom

Review: Speak No Evil

Share this:.

• Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Speak No Evil director James Watkins has crafted a remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same name that stands on its own as a tense and well-paced thriller. American couple Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise (Mackenzie Davis), along with their young daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler), spark up a rapport in Italy with another young family—Paddy (James McAvoy), Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their son, Ant (Dan Hough)—who invite them to spend a weekend at their remote country home in England. They accept the offer, and an increasingly strange series of quirks and slight misunderstandings escalates into a terrifying situation.

Speak No Evil is a psychological thriller, avoiding jump scares and gratuitous violence in favor of a steadily looming sense of discomfort. There’s what appears to be a reasonable explanation for nearly every awkward situation. It’s a tightly woven film that doesn’t waste moments and utilizes its runtime efficiently and effectively. The performances across the board are convincing, with McAvoy getting to have the most fun as the truly and wonderfully off-kilter Paddy, sometimes an utterly charming host and other times flying off the rails at seemingly innocuous moments. The tension between Davis and McNairy is fascinating to watch, embodying the convergence of trust in those we know well and the doubt that comes from knowing their weaknesses.

And that’s the essence of the terror of Speak No Evil— the simple expository line “because you let me.” It’s a film that leads us to question the point at which we would simply extricate ourselves from a situation amidst the range of social norms that prevent us from fully leaning into instinct. We want to open ourselves up to new experiences and shift the patterns that sometimes lead us to feel stuck and stagnant, even taken advantage of—but the consequences of doing so can sometimes be far more painful.It doesn’t take familiarity with the original source material to see where things end up, and without being beholden to a hard twist, Speak No Evil thoroughly succeeds in the most basic of horror elements: executing the collapse of a situation we all see going wrong but are far too engrossed in to take our eyes off. R, 110 min.

Wide release in theaters

Reader Recommends: FILM & TV

Our critics review the best on the big and small screens and in the media .

Review: The Becomers

Review: I’ll Be Right There

Review: Strange Darling

Review: Bad Press

Review: Close Your Eyes

Review: The Clean Up Crew

'Something Magical Happening': Mike Flanagan Proclaims The Life of Chuck the Best Movie He's Ever Made

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Mike Flanagan has been behind many successful projects, some of them adaptations of famous classic works like The Haunting of Hill House Netflix show or 2019's Doctor Sleep . A self-proclaimed Stephen King fan, the filmmaker tackled several projects based on King's work, the latest being The Life of Chuck , which he proudly calls his best work ever.

The Life of Chuck adapts the novella from the 2020 collection If It Bleeds , putting Tom Hiddleston in the spotlight as the titular character. The novella follows the eponymous character's life in reverse in three acts. Flanagan wrote and produced the film with Trevor Macy through their Intrepid Pictures banner, and is very proud of the result, and confirmed to Collider he thinks it's the best movie he's done.

Mike Flanagan Reveals Why He Keeps Making Stephen King Adaptations

Mike Flanagan explains his penchant for making live-action adaptations of Stephen King stories.

A departure from their characteristic genre, which is horror , The Life of Chuck is a drama that combines joy, grief, loss, and happiness. His pitch to King noted that "If I could have a crack at this story, it might be the best movie I'll ever make," and the director still feels that way. " I felt that way while we were shooting it, too . I felt that way at the end of the first week ," he explained.

I really like to hope they're gonna let me keep making movies after this, but if this was it, that would be okay with me.

"The dance was first, which is a confident way to start an independent film, but for all the reasons you don't control, that's how it lands. And we watched this happen for four straight days, and I've watched a lot of things happen for many days on a movie — it takes forever to make a movie — but it's the first time in my life that I loved what was on the monitor just as much, in fact, more, on the last take that we did four days in. I knew that there was something magical happening. When that little movie ended, we got to make two more that made me feel exactly the same way."

The feeling stayed with him through the entire film, Flanagan explained. "When Chiwetel and Karen came on set and we were suddenly making a story that on the surface might not feel connected to the experience we had that first week, I had the same feeling. And it stayed with me all the way to the end , watching Benjamin Pajak, Mark Hamill, and Mia Sara." He concluded, "So, yeah, I really like to hope they're gonna let me keep making movies after this, but if this was it, that would be okay with me ."

Mike Flanagan Reveals How Involved Stephen King Was in The Life of Chuck Movie

The Life of Chuck director Mike Flanagan clarifies Stephen King’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the upcoming Tom Hiddleston-led movie.

The Life of Chuck's First Reviews Were Positive

Tom Hiddleston made his debut in the Flanaverse, joining a mix of newcomers and previous collaborators like Mark Hamill, Karen Gillan, Annalise Basso, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carl Lumbly, Jacob Tremblay, Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Violet McGraw, Heather Langenkamp, Matthew Lillard, Mia Sara, David Dastmalchian, Harvey Guillén, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Benjamin Pajak, Cody Flanagan, and more.

The film doesn't have a distributor or a theater release date but made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the first reviews were positive . The movie debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with 80% , a score that allows the film to meet the criteria to be considered "fresh." Since its debut, more reviews came in, lifting its approval rating to 86%. Although the score is high, it only has 21 reviews and doesn't qualify for the Certified Fresh status, as it needs a minimum of 40 reviews since it has a limited release. The rest of the reactions have been encouraging , and even the author himself had nothing but positive things to say.

Stephen King, who attended The Life of Chuck premiere at TIFF, had previously praised the film ahead of its release. King previously told Vanity Fair the adaptation is "a happiness machine."

Source: Collider

The Life of Chuck

• Mike Flanagan