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Spirits in the Material World

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A Haunting in Venice

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

If we’re going to congratulate Rian Johnson for reviving the murder mystery, save a backslap for Kenneth Branagh. His Murder on the Orient Express came two years before 2019’s Knives Out, and though Branagh may be adapting decades-old Agatha Christie classics, he’s proven adept at giving them a stylish and star-studded new sheen.

Branagh also stars again as Hercule Poirot, the legendary Belgian detective who showed a friskier side (probably thanks to Johnson’s sublime Benoit Blanc character) in last year’s Death on the Nile. Now for the third in their mystery series, Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green embrace the season with a gorgeous and frequently engaging update of Christie’s 1969 novel “Halloween Party.”

It is 1947, when the now-retired and war weary Poirot meets up with his old friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) in Venice. Oliver is a famous writer who considers herself quite the smarty, but she needs Poirot’s help to debunk the work of Mrs. Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), a medium whose talks with the dead are pretty damn convincing.

The setting is a Gothic manor with a disturbing past, where Poirot agrees to attend a seance on Halloween night. There, after a children’s party, Mrs. Reynolds will attempt to give Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) the answers she seeks about the murder of her daughter, Alicia (Rowan Robinson).

But another murder soon steals the show, with even Poirot himself questioning his own eyes as things in the night go plenty bumpy.

Branagh again teams with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (Belfast, Death on the Nile), enveloping the film in a haunted house vibe that is wonderfully foreboding. The camera explores the confines of the manor via angles that are often extreme and disorienting, while lingering on cloaks, masks and other various other articles of creep.

Poirot is a changed man since last we met. He’s seen too much evil, and believes in “no God, no ghosts,” as a cloud of trauma and grief that fits the film’s mood hangs over him. Branagh and his stellar ensemble (including Jamie Dornan, Camille Cottin and Belfast‘s Jude Hill) work their character edges well, making sure no one is ever quite above suspicion.

And those suspicions are easier to play with when the source material isn’t as well known. But while revamping a deeper cut is welcome, the chance for creepy surprise does come at a price.

The core mystery just isn’t as compelling. Branagh and Green make alterations that prolong the chill factor, but result in moments that seem more like a Christie disguise than the face of the master herself.

A Haunting in Venice‘s lingering impression is as a slice of well-dressed fun. It’s a Spooky Season movie for those who don’t like things too scary, and an Agatha Christie tale for those who’d rather not think so hard.

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American Dad

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Stillwater

by Hope Madden

A couple weeks back, Nicolas Cage played a man desperate to reclaim a loved one that was lost to him, a man who might stop at nothing to do just that. His film Pig hit every beat of a John Wick or Taken, subverting the genre trappings to create one of the most beautiful films of 2021.

Matt Damon has not lost his beloved bovine, but in Stillwater, he leads a film equally bent on messing with audience expectations.

Damon plays Bill Baker, out-of-work oil rigger headed to Marseilles to see his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin). It’s not your ordinary visit, though. Allison has been in prison for five years for a very Amanda Knox type of incident.

What does Bill want? To get his little girl out of prison. What does he need? To prove himself to himself, and to the world, but most desperately to Allison. There is an aching humility undergirding this performance, giving it richness and tenderness. That humility alone is enough to separate Stillwater from other fathers-desperate-to-save-daughter films like Taken.

But co-writer/director Tom McCarthy does not stop there.

This filmmaker is hard to figure. McCarthy followed up his early indie treasures (The Station Agent and The Visitor among them) with the high profile, catastrophically terrible Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler. Bounced back pretty well, though, with his Oscar-winning Spotlight. Still, his filmography swings back and forth between masterpiece (he wrote Pixar’s Up) and misfire (he wrote Disney’s Million Dollar Arm).

Stillwater falls somewhere between.

The film opens with the threadbare premise of an earnest All American Dad taking justice in his own hands to save his daughter. It picks up that thriller storyline late in the second act with a jarring right turn you simply did not expect. In between, though, in what could easily feel like a self-indulgent side plot, is the real meat of the film.

Bill decides to stay semi-permanently in France, moving in with the French woman who’s willing to help translate and sleuth with him. While he’s drawn to Virginie (Camille Cottin), it’s really her 9-year-old (a fantastic Lilou Siauvaud) that draws him in. And here McCarthy—along with a team of writers, both American and French—betray the real theme of the film.

Stillwater is a tragedy about second chances. Its sloppy construction is both its downfall and its strong point. The film works against your expectations brilliantly to deliver a film that refuses to satisfy. The result is an often brilliant, ultimately unsatisfying work. And that seems to be the point.