You know the drill: the Orient Express, the murder of a rather unpleasant
chap (this time around also played by a rather unpleasant chap), one genius
Belgian detective of taste, style and the facial hair of nightmares, and a
trainload of suspects given by a cast of great actors.
To start, a double disclosure: Firstly, I am not a great lover of the works
of Agatha Christie, or rather, I’m not terribly fond of so-called “Golden Age”
(as with many genres, the actual good stuff came
after the Golden Age
for me) mysteries as a whole – with exceptions of course. Frankly, I often don’t
enjoy the emotionless, game-like quality of this particular genre; I also can’t
give a flying fart if Lord Suckbottoms was murdered by the butler or his nephew.
Secondly, I am not the greatest fan of this version of the
Orient
Express’s director/Poirot Kenneth Brannagh either. He’s certainly a very
talented man, but to me, he too often seems to use much of his talent to
demonstrate how talented he is, which is the sort of approach that’ll sometimes
make even a genius look like a hack.
However, I actually think Brannagh has his tendency for excess in general and
excessive vanity specifically well under control for this film, using his
considerable powers for much better things than self-aggrandization. As a matter
of fact, the consistency with which Brannagh – in both of his roles for the
production - makes good, intelligent, and interesting choices throughout is it
what makes this a rather inspired mystery film. From time to time, mostly in the
early parts of the film, Brannagh’s direction does get a wee bit showy, but
that’s mostly an attempt to keep a film that mostly consists of one dialogue
scene after the other gripping to an audience without putting all of the work on
the shoulders of the actors alone. Kon Ichikawa did this sort of thing better in
his movies about Kozure Kindaichi in the 70s, but then, Brannagh does keep his
film flowing and comparatively tight for its genre, where the Japanese master of
this form thrived on digressions of all sorts.
As an actor, Brannagh does an admirable job with his Poirot, avoiding either
turning him into a caricature or just copying the style of David Suchet’s
interpretation of the role. This Poirot doesn’t go overboard with dubious French
or incessantly babbles about little grey cells, but reads as a somewhat
eccentric, clearly brilliant man with a great capacity for compassion and
understanding, in the end a very
human genius. Which makes him just the
right sort of Poirot for Brannagh’s interpretation of the mystery’s solution
which attempts – and even half succeeds – to sell its inherent absurdity through
emotion, an approach that is certainly further supported by much fine acting by
everyone in the cast, be it Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Leslie Odom Jr., or
Daisy Ridley. These are actors willing and able to understand and incorporate
into their acting one of the finer points of what is going on here: that
everyone in this film is hurt and broken, and acting out a role in front of
Poirot - sometimes themselves too - and that not each character here is as good
of an actor as the one playing them.
I usually see Brannagh as a director prone to too grand gestures, but in
Murder, he demonstrates particular strength when it comes to visually
incorporating telling details – obviously a rather important thing in a classic
mystery – without feeling the need to excessively point them out to his
audience. In a comparable vein, I also appreciated how Brannagh anchors the
film’s narrative in its place and time without pretending the film itself does
belong to that time, too. So there’s a much clearer view of the way concepts of
class and race played out than you would find in most mysteries of its time
without strictly making this a film
about race and class. Instead,
these issues build part of the social fabric the film’s narrative takes place
in, adding veracity and further emotional resonance that keeps the film far away
from the abstractness that kills a mystery for the type of viewer I am.
All this makes Brannagh’s
Murder on the Orient Express easily one of
my favourite films in the classic mystery style. It may not be as incisive as
Gosford Park but unlike the Altman film, it is aiming to make a perfect
modern specimen of a form instead of deconstructing it. In this, it succeeds
splendidly.