Death on the Nile (2022) Director: Kenneth Branagh
A strange mix of surrealism, modern CGI, and cheap contemporary dialogue, Death on the Nile was an extraordinary disappointment for me. It reminded me a great deal of the bizarre cinematic interpretation of The Great Gatsby in 2013. As a great lover of Agatha Christie, this brand of digital ironic detachment does a great disservice to the source material. At least, Kenneth Branagh delivers a great performance as Hercule Poirot, even if this interpretation of Poirot transforms him into a wounded, tragic hero in the modern sense.
With every scene featuring video game-level graphics, this film presents some unique flashbacks which show Poirot inside the trenches during World War I, instances which explain the origins of his famous moustache (a tale of dark emotional trauma). Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey) are lovers, and very comfortable publicly displaying their erotic obsession with each other, but Simon suddenly falls in love with Jackie’s friend, a wealthy heiress named Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot). In a whirlwind, the two are married six weeks later, and Poirot is invited to join the wedding party in Egypt. A murder takes place, suspects begin to emerge, and Poirot ultimately solves the case.
Maybe it was due to a messy movie release thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, or maybe it was tainted by a recently-surfaced avalanche of bizarre sexual abuse allegations against Armie Hammer, or controversial statements made by Gal Gadot regarding Israel-Palestine, or ongoing controversies regarding Russell Brand’s ill-informed opinions on vaccines, or maybe it was due to a lack of chemistry between lead actors Armie Hammer and Gal Gadot, or maybe we can blame it on all the stilted lifeless CGI effects in the film –but this version of Death on the Nile feels more like an infantilizing millennial fever dream, rather than a truly inspiring period piece-murder mystery. True fans of Agatha Christie should look elsewhere for a quality movie version of Death on the Nile.
Quite the change from the Peter Ustinov version that I originally enjoyed. Thank you for your review.
Yes, a disappointment!
I can at least appreciate how Gal Gadot made Linnet more sympathetic and likeable for this remake than Lois Chiles in the 1978 film.
I enjoyed the movie but was disappointed by the book when I read it this year. I didn’t like the parts with the trenches at the beginning for some reason.