Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Lighten up, pal. You might have fun.”
That’s the word of advice a medium gives to the famous French detective Hercule Poirot in the 2023 thriller “A Haunting in Venice.” And as a viewer, you could use the same advice if you really want to enjoy this film, because it’s slow, atmospheric and relies on old school theatrics to keep viewers engaged.
Inspired from an Agatha Christie novel of the same, “A Haunting in Venice” has been written for the screen by Michael Green and directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays protagonist Hercule Poirot. The film begins with Poirot getting an invitation by his crime author friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) to attend a seance and help explain the supernatural trickery of a medium called Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) because her methods seem legitimate. The seance takes place on Halloween night at the haunted crumbling mansion of Opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) who lost her beloved daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson) to suicide. Joyce spooks everybody by speaking in dead Alicia’s voice, claiming to have been murdered, and in a twist, the medium is found impaled on a statue not too later. It’s up to Hercule Poirot to unravel not one, but two murders now.
The cinematography and screenplay of “A Haunting in Venice” is meticulously impressive, if the postcard-like visuals of Venice from the opening scenes do not make you want to add the historic city to your “to-do” list (unless you’ve already been), then nothing else will. Set in the 1940s, most of the story unfolds in Rowena Drake’s sprawling mansion, which is decked in old world trinkets and looks a bit like a neglected museum. However, Kenneth Branagh and team often play with the camera, with slant or askew angles, that might impress some viewers and annoy others.
Michelle Yeoh is dramatically magnetic in her small supporting role as the eloquent medium Joyce, who used to be war nurse and has seen much of the world. She stirs up a hornets nest by claiming Alicia didn’t voluntarily die to her death & her own murder convinces Hercule that someone did murder Alicia and must’ve been rattled by the medium’s meddling. The list of suspects includes Joyce’s assistants Desdemona (Emma Laird) and Nicholas (Ali Khan), who are also siblings, Alicia’s former fiancé Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), Rowena, Rowena’s resident family doctor Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan), and his nosy preteen son Leopold (Jude Hill), as well as her housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin) and author Ariadne.
Kenneth Branagh makes an excellent Hercule Poirot and looks like he practically jumped out of an Agatha Christie novel to solve a murder mystery. Tina Fey is amusing in her portrayal of a witty-sassy author looking to write her next bestseller, while the rest of the cast swings between memorable to un-impressionable in their roles. Throughout the runtime, there’s sufficient intrigue and suspense over whether the story is going to turn out to be a regular whodunnit with a clever murderer, or an actual supernatural thriller. While the plot deviates a lot from the original novel, “A Haunting in Venice” does have all the classic Agatha Christie mystery ingredients, including a wealthy family and multiple suspects/motives for murder. If you can have the appetite for grandiose gestures and slow, dramatic theatrics, then you’d definitely enjoy “A Haunting in Venice”, which blurs the lines between real and imaginary worlds.
Rating: 7 on 10. Stream the film on Disney Hotstar.
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