Short Review: A Haunting in Venice
Sep. 17th, 2023 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaA HAUNTING IN VENICE (2023, PG-13)
Official Description: Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world's most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a seance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. He soon gets thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets when one of the guests is murdered.
Review: I love a good ghost story. I also love a good mystery. The catch is, both mysteries (especially golden age mysteries like Poirot) and ghost stories have rules, and those rules do not mesh well. Ghosts don't have to worry about alibis, or locked doors, or whether there's a knife in the room where they want to stab someone. There's a reason why, in pretty much any golden age mystery where a ghost appears, the ghost pretty much always turns out to be a fake.
A HAUNTING IN VENICE wants to have its spooky cake and eat it too. Are the murders (and attempted murder) because of the death of a beautiful young woman in this house last year? Or because of ghostly children, still seeking vengeance for what happened during a long-ago plague? On the one hand, this is based (very loosely) on a story by Agatha Christie, so we can make a good guess as to which general theory is right, but the ambience leans very heavily toward Option B.
I'm sure it will surprise exactly none of you that the answer is Option A, and there's a non-ghostly explanation for the deaths (and the ambiance too). Except then Branagh just can't resist the temptation to put a '...but what if there was a ghost?' twist on the climax, because it's more Dramatic or something.
GODDAMMIT, KENNETH BRANAGH. You've made two perfectly good murder mysteries! What, now you just gotta cross genres?
Look - I understand the temptation! Ghosts are implausible, but cool! So going for the 'ghosts aren't the explanation, EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE' climax is emotionally satisfying in a lot of ways! But when (according to my BIL) even the Scooby Doo reboot refuses to go full Scooby Doo and make the monster always a dude in a suit, consider that maybe that particular resolution is overdone! Either go full ghost story, and accept that means consistent rules for your ghosts, or resist the urge to go for the Final Twist, because either it makes your ghosts feel cheap or your logical explanation feel cheap, and neither one is a win.
(Is it possible to thread that needle? Not sure. My first instinct is to cite Del Toro, but he doesn't so much thread the needle as have the courage of his ghost story convictions. Not enough movies watched, must research more.)
Anyway. The movie is overall very pretty and atmospheric. Nobody not named Kenneth Branagh gets enough screen time (alas, Michelle Yeoh!), and there is lots of Fun With Camera Angles. (Seriously, the first several shots of the film are all at Dutch angles, and at least there's one dramatic moment where the camera does a barrel roll and suddenly Everything Is Upside Down, where I admit to rolling my eyes.) The biggest reason to see it in the theater is because the sound designer had fun with surround sound, which isn't likely to translate as well to your TV (unless you have a much better set-up than I do). Otherwise, you're fine waiting until it comes to streaming services.
Official Description: Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world's most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a seance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. He soon gets thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets when one of the guests is murdered.
Review: I love a good ghost story. I also love a good mystery. The catch is, both mysteries (especially golden age mysteries like Poirot) and ghost stories have rules, and those rules do not mesh well. Ghosts don't have to worry about alibis, or locked doors, or whether there's a knife in the room where they want to stab someone. There's a reason why, in pretty much any golden age mystery where a ghost appears, the ghost pretty much always turns out to be a fake.
A HAUNTING IN VENICE wants to have its spooky cake and eat it too. Are the murders (and attempted murder) because of the death of a beautiful young woman in this house last year? Or because of ghostly children, still seeking vengeance for what happened during a long-ago plague? On the one hand, this is based (very loosely) on a story by Agatha Christie, so we can make a good guess as to which general theory is right, but the ambience leans very heavily toward Option B.
I'm sure it will surprise exactly none of you that the answer is Option A, and there's a non-ghostly explanation for the deaths (and the ambiance too). Except then Branagh just can't resist the temptation to put a '...but what if there was a ghost?' twist on the climax, because it's more Dramatic or something.
GODDAMMIT, KENNETH BRANAGH. You've made two perfectly good murder mysteries! What, now you just gotta cross genres?
Look - I understand the temptation! Ghosts are implausible, but cool! So going for the 'ghosts aren't the explanation, EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE' climax is emotionally satisfying in a lot of ways! But when (according to my BIL) even the Scooby Doo reboot refuses to go full Scooby Doo and make the monster always a dude in a suit, consider that maybe that particular resolution is overdone! Either go full ghost story, and accept that means consistent rules for your ghosts, or resist the urge to go for the Final Twist, because either it makes your ghosts feel cheap or your logical explanation feel cheap, and neither one is a win.
(Is it possible to thread that needle? Not sure. My first instinct is to cite Del Toro, but he doesn't so much thread the needle as have the courage of his ghost story convictions. Not enough movies watched, must research more.)
Anyway. The movie is overall very pretty and atmospheric. Nobody not named Kenneth Branagh gets enough screen time (alas, Michelle Yeoh!), and there is lots of Fun With Camera Angles. (Seriously, the first several shots of the film are all at Dutch angles, and at least there's one dramatic moment where the camera does a barrel roll and suddenly Everything Is Upside Down, where I admit to rolling my eyes.) The biggest reason to see it in the theater is because the sound designer had fun with surround sound, which isn't likely to translate as well to your TV (unless you have a much better set-up than I do). Otherwise, you're fine waiting until it comes to streaming services.