Reportedly,
Dame Agatha Christie’s two favorite novels from her voluminous oeuvre were this
twisty novel from 1949 and Ordeal by Innocence.
Yet, neither featured a Poirot, Marble, or Beresford (Tuppence), so they have rather
been odd men out. There was an under-rated 1985 film adaptation of Ordeal, but the anticipated BBC
production has been shelved, due to criminal allegations leveled against one of
its co-stars. Formerly only staged for radio, Crooked House is now left alone to draft off Branagh’s pseudo-blockbuster
Orient Express. French director
Gilles Pacquet-Brenner helms a slyly British drawing room whodunit with his
adaptation of Crooked House (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Private
investigator Charles Hayward met the well-heeled Sophie de Haviland while he
was stationed in Cairo for the secret service, but she inevitably broke his
heart (a slight departure from the book). Nevertheless, de Haviland trusts the
embittered Hayward to investigate the presumed murder of her grandfather,
Aristide Leonides, a Greek immigrant who made good. Leonides’s latest trophy
wife Brenda stands to inherit everything—a fact that does not sit well with the
rest of the family.
For
reasons that eluded just about everyone else, old man Leonides insisted on
keeping his entire dysfunctional, bile-soaked family in residence at his grand
country estate. That includes the newest wife Brenda, Sophie’s dilettante father
Phillip, her self-absorbed stage diva mother Magda, and her wastrel uncle
Roger, who has been running the family catering business into the ground. Only
the widowed Lady Edith de Haviland shows much strength of character, which is
why she assumed responsibility for the education of the de Haviland children,
including the precocious twelve-year-old Josephine.
Obviously,
everyone is a suspect, especially Laurence Brown, the children’s tutor, whom it
seems has been carrying on an affair with the presumptive merry widow, but that
would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Like the best of Dame Agatha’s work, the
murderer in Crooked House is not
immediately apparent, but the real pleasure comes from all the gnashing of
teeth and door-slamming that come during the investigative process.
Co-screenwriter Sir Julian Fellowes (of Downton
Abbey acclaim), Tim Rose Price, and Paquet-Brenner deliver all the elements
in spades, including the faithful ending, which must have been quite a shocker
in 1949.
Glenn
Close is terrific as the tart-tongued, no-nonsense Lady Edith. She is imperious
yet grounded, in a way maybe only Kristin Scott Thomas could pull off with
equal style. Gillian Anderson, Julian Sands, Christina Hendricks, and Christian
McKay hold up their end, chewing the scenery and effortlessly bandying about
barbed dialogue as Magda, Philip, Brenda, and Roger, respectively. Terence
Stamp adds his well-earned gravitas and immediately recognizably baritone as
Chief Inspector Taverner, a colleague of Hayward’s murdered father. Plus, the
real breakthrough-discovery is young Honor Kneafsey, who is quite remarkable as
Josephine.
Not
surprisingly, Hayward and Sophie de Haviland are the dullest of the lot, but
Max Irons somewhat exceeds expectations, playing the former with a welcome degree
of forcefulness and intelligence. On the other hand, Stefanie Martini should
have portrayed the latter as more of a femme fatale, but she is really just
forgettably pedestrian.
