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Seldarius
Reviews
Marple: Endless Night (2013)
Missed opportunity
I first watched this episode before so much of hearing of the book, and now years later revisited it after finishing the novel.
The first thing any avid follower of the series must notice is the shift of format. The story, rather than following Miss Marple, is narrated by Michael Rogers. While that perspective is a vital part of the book, it makes it quite obvious that this is not a Miss Marple story. Naturally she needed to be in it though, since she is the protagonist of the series; which reduces her to be a nosy old woman constantly chasing after the unimpressed narrator and popping up out of the blue. Apparently she's in town for a visit and decides to stay for a few months, with a trip down to Italy thrown in the mix so she can nose in on the happy couple's honeymoon, too.
The makers of the series have at times been quite successful in shoehorning the elderly lady sleuth into adaptations she had no business being in (Towards Zero comes to mind), in other cases less well, but here she really stands out like a sore thumb.
In direct comparison to the novel another problem becomes rather glaring. The adaptation feels rushed. Neither the romance nor the building threat are allowed enough time to develop naturally.
On the other hand, it looks great. It's moody, the actors are well cast, the costumes are beautiful, the locations well chosen. It sounds good, too.
It's rather a shame that this adaptation of a largely neglected Christie novel had to fit into a format. I can't help but wonder if, had it been told its original form, it might've been marvellous.
Innocent Lies (1995)
Towards zero is only the amount of sense here
I believe Towards Zero to be one of Christie's best and when I read there was an adaptation that her usually quite tolerant estate had declined any involvement with (an extremely rare occurrence to the chagrin of some Christie purists), I went out to search for it.
The setting is both beautiful and poignant. An Art Deco Villa on a clifftop in 1938 France, undercurrents of the coming war rippling even through the lives of the well-off family at the centre of the story.
British detective Adrian Dunbar, along with his small daughter, visits to bury his old friend, a fellow cop, who apparently and very suddenly has committed suicide. It appears said cop came to investigate the death of a young member of the aptly named Graves family many years ago and never left. What his relationship with the Graves' exactly entailed we never find out (the matriarch insists they had an affair, but her word is as good as anyone else's in this movie, which is no good at all). I guess it would count as a spoiler if there was anything to spoil, that we also never find out what happened to him.
Two things are quite clear from the start. The slimy Oxford student son Jeremy is the most likely suspect and his relationship with his sister is not sisterly in the least. Again, no surprises will reveal themselves on either account.
The hard boiled detective naturally falls immediately under the spell of the beautiful daughter Celia and risks his career to help her escape - from what exactly, not even she herself seems to know. Numerous other storylines are woven (and mostly dropped without any resolution). Various females are upset with the detective, but since they won't tell him why, the film also doesn't care any longer. Motives of anyone are foggy at best and often change from scene to scene. Some sequences are almost Lynchian in their absurdity and their lack of any connection to the plot, but feel much more accidental. The most consistent part is the camera following around young Celia to expose her body from every angle possible.
The ending scene wakes memories rather more of Dial M for Murder than Towards Zero, but I doubt either would like to be associated with this film. In fact, despite some effort, I could find no traces of the intricate plot Christie had woven for Towards Zero. No perfect alibi, no sinister end goal, no double bluff. Instead we get to see Gabrille Anwar's breasts under a variety of semi-translucent fabrics. I guess that counts for something.