Movie Review: A Haunting in Venice

October 20, 2023

By Bessy ADUT

I am excited to write about this movie because when I was growing up I used to be a book worm and Agatha Christie has been one of my favorite authors. I had a period in my life I would read at least one of her books a week; I guess that was the way of binging at the time. This is going to give my age away but I was only 16 years old when Google was born. Let me put it that way. And it was exciting trying to solve murder mysteries in the books. Hercule Poirot is one of the most famous detective characters in literature history. This is a good movie to watch; particularly in the month of Halloween in October but of course, it can be watched at any time.

When I saw the trailer of ‘A Haunting in Venice’ I immediately wanted to see it. However with a critical thought on my mind, at the end of the day, they were all alike and redundant. However, the movie turned out to change my opinion with the interesting paranormal twist it took. This makes the film stand out and very original. However, I did read some reviews about this movie and in comparison to the book except for the names of the characters there have been many changes in the storyline. I believe the story was quite original and interesting on its own. Pretty much murderer turns out to be the least expected character as it should be.

A Haunting in Venice is a great mystery film of this year, it is produced and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Screenplay is based on the 1969 Agatha Christie novel "Hallowe'en Party". The cast collective includes Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, and Michelle Yeoh.

The film established generally upbeat reviews from critics and has grossed $90 million worldwide.

This is a period piece and takes place in 1947. Hercule Poirot is an unwilling hero as he is enjoying his retirement in Italy and he gets a ‘call to adventure’ by his good old friend who is a mystery writer, representing Agatha Christie herself no doubt, Ariadne Oliver. She convinces Poirot to join her at a séance at Palazzo, to expose that famous opera singer Rowena Drake is a fake.

According to the subplot Alicia committed suicide after her fiancé broke up with her. Rowena hires Joyce to help her communicate with her dead daughter. There is the housekeeper Olga, family doctor Drake, Leslie Ferrier and his young son Leopold as well as Joyce’s assistant Desdemona.

After the kids' party the séance begins. Joyce starts speaking in daughter Alicia’s voice and says that she was murdered by one of the guests. Poirot tries to confront Joyce but she tells him to wear a mask and a robe and not to spoil the séance. Shortly after, Joyce is found dead as well by the statue.

A storm begins outside the palazzo, Poirot tells them nobody gets out until he finds the killer. He himself witnesses Alicia’s ghost and hears the humming.

Poirot thinks Maxime broke off the engagement because her mother did not approve of him and the daughter was fascinated trying to keep her mother happy.

It also turns out that Nicholas and Desdemona were stealing from Joyce to be able to go to Missouri after watching the movie ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.”

According to Leopold people hear voices of the ghost children who were abandoned during a plague. They were to haunt and kill the doctors or nurses as they were left to die.

When they come underground and find the skeletons, Leslie experiences an anxiety attack. He locks himself into the music room to calm down. Later on, Leslie is found stabbed as he was one of the suspects, he turns out to be a victim.

After a good while of “who dun it?” Poirot points his finger at Rowena as the murderer. He claims that the mother was obsessed with keeping Alicia to herself and cut her off from the world and Maxime. Alicia was planning to reconcile with her fiancé. Rowena used poisonous hallucinogenic honey extracts to weaken her so she can take care of her. One night, Olga without knowing the side effects of the honey, accidentally kills Alicia giving her a fatal dose. Rowena starts receiving blackmail shortly after and she suspects Joyce or Leslie. That’s why she pushes Joyce and gets Leslie into staving himself. Rowena tries to convince people that these are ghost children’s curse-doing. When Poirot finally confronts Rowena on the roof, Alicia’s spirit comes for revenge and pulls her from her feet and they drown together right by the canal.

During the break of dawn, Poirot decides to end his friendship with Oliver. Poirot also figures out that Leopold, the young boy, was the blackmailer in private and he explains that he did it for his father. Leopold and Olga decide to help the assistants from Holland start their lives in America to feel better.

Hercule Poirot’s perspective still changes with a probability of an afterlife and he returns home to accept new mysteries to solve again which opens the door to a new sequel in the works.

‘A Haunting in Venice” is a good supernatural thriller even though it turns out most of the paranormal events were staged. Filming was mostly done in Venice, Italy and premiered in England with positive responses from the reviewers and the critics.

Jason Zinoman, writing for The New York Times, called the film a "whodunit with a splash of horror" and wrote: "In straddling genres, Haunting can get stuck in the middle. But there's fun to be had there. What's consistent is the elegant visuals — striking cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos — which mark this movie's real genre as lavish old-fashioned Hollywood entertainment.

Similar sentiment was echoed by Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post who described the film as "moody", they both praised the cast's performances.

My review is similar to these critics; I think it was a good film after all with the ensemble of a very good cast and a well-done screenplay for meeting and exceeding its genre’s expectations. However, the film might slightly disappoint the readers as it is very different than the original novel. I don’t agree with the Rolling Stones review calling the film “anemic and sluggish” claiming audiences would be bored. I heard people who were bored watching it but it did keep my interest at peek the whole time making me wonder who the killer is and if the supernatural events were true or not. I would recommend this film to the audience who like dark mysteries spiced with some paranormal and horror elements to it. There is a lot of psychological character analysis as well. A Haunting in Venice continues to haunt after watching the movie. These are my thoughts dear readers; feel free to share your comments after watching/reading.

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Movie Review: A Haunting in Venice

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