The Love Boat: Death on the Nile (2022)

A lavish pleasure cruise that quickly goes adrift, Kenneth Branagh’s second Agatha Christie adaptation sidelines the mystery for melodrama

As his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) looks on Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) meets doomed heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) from behind his enormous, clownish mustache. Branagh added heavy doses of sentimental backstory to humanize Poirot, but it would have been better if he could have simply taken his character seriously.

There have been innumerable actors who have played Agatha Christie’s legendary, egg-shaped detective Hercule Poirot, with varying degrees of success. Some are iconic (Albert Finney’s Oscar nominated turn in 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express, David Suchet’s landmark, definitive work in the long-running ITV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot) and some so terrible that their legacy would only be improved if IMDB omitted the role on their page (Tony Randall in The Alphabet Murders (1965) and Alfred Molina in 2001’s modern day remake of Murder on the Orient Express). The problem is simple: after David Suchet so completely embodied the Belgian detective body and soul on television, only an actor with a bulletproof ego would be foolhardy enough to attempt the role again. Enter Kenneth Branagh.

The stars are beautiful tonight: Murder on the Orient Express attracted an all-star cast in 1974 and again in Branagh’s 2018. Pictured from left to right: Olive Coleman, Josh Gad, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Leslie Odom Jr. Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp.

Branagh’s glossy 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express was crediting by many for “updating” Agatha Christie for modern audiences by including African American and Latino actors, references to Nazism and hints of a tragic romance Poirot’s history. Christie purists were less than impressed, but the real problem of the film lay in its excessive use of CGI, the uneven pacing of the plot and, of course, Branagh’s distracting salt and pepper walrus mustache. But the film was enough of a success that Branagh returned to act in and direct Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile. And despite another star-studded cast and gorgeous scenery, this film is plagued the same problems as its predecessor — only worse.

The novel, one of Christie’s most popular mysteries, has been adapted for television, film, theatre, radio, graphic novels and even video games.

The Book

Jacqueline Bellefort (Emma MacKay) asks her childhood friend, wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) a favor: give her penniless fiancé Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) a job. But barely a year later, it’s Linnet who has married Simon while a furious and bereft Jacqueline trails them across their honeymoon in Egypt. To escape her former friend, Linnet begs famous detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) for help — and then decides to take a surprise cruise down the Nile. But when Linnet is found dead and Jacqueline has a bulletproof alibi, famed detective Poirot must investigate everyone else on the boat.

The core of Death on the Nile is a love triangle between It Girl Linnet (Gal Gadot), her impoverished childhood friend Jacqueline (Emma MacKay) and the man who comes between them, Simon (Armie Hammer).

The Adaptation

Agatha Christie often accompanied her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, on his excavations in the Middle East, so it was no surprise that she set numerous books in the foreign lands that were still British colonies. Though clearly she clearly viewed Eastern cultures through a prejudicial and Orientalist lens, the settings made often made these novels her most successful. And, with clever twists and a powerful love triangle at its core, Death on the Nile is perhaps the most popular of her English-tourists-abroad mysteries.

The enormous cast of characters (22 characters on the boat alone) has always created a challenge for anyone adapting Death on the Nile. Branagh significantly reduces the cast but can’t use the extra room to make the remaining cast into three-dimensional characters.

Hollywood has already gone through a phase of all-star Christie adaptations., starting with the high-wattage cast in Murder on the Orient Express (1974) which included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins, John Gielguld, Sean Connery and an Oscar-nominated but very stiff Albert Finney as Poirot. This set off a trend of Christie adaptations, starting with Death on the Nile (1978) with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. But the Ustinov-Poirot movies slowly but steadily decreased in quality and caliber of stars, culminating in the awful modern-day Thirteen at Dinner (1985) starring Faye Dunaway as a television actress. And though not everyone learns from history, they should; in his second Christie film, Death on the Nile, Branagh can’t attract talent of the same stature as he did in his first.

Branagh changes Salome Otterbourne from an alcoholic romance novelist to an African-Amerian jazz singer (Sophie Okonedo), and Rosalie Otterbourne from her downtrodden daughter to savvy niece and business manager (Letitia Wright). Though, like everyone except Branagh, they don’t have much to do, both actresses are sassy and entertaining enough to give the film a much needed jolt of energy.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to modernize Christie. The stereotypes she used for her characters are no longer broadly recognizable and we don’t need any more films with all-white, all-heterosexual casts. But Branagh’s changes have little real impact and his inclusion of characters of color like jazz singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo) and her manager niece Rosalie (Leticia Wright) is purely superficial. For example, though his friend Bouc’s (Tom Bateman) mother Euphemia (Annette Bening) objects to her son’s relationship with Rosalie, it’s because she’s American rather than the more obvious reason (that she’s black). Branagh’s addition of a secret lesbian relationship has nothing to do with the story and, even worse, its revelation adds no depth to those characters. Most importantly, however, is the addition of real tragedy to make Poirot more human. First there’s his war injury and deceased fiancée, then a burgeoning romance and the death of a friend. Branagh’s focus of giving Poirot angst and trauma to make him relatable comes at the expense of developing the other characters — and doesn’t make sense in world that seems imaginary anyway.

In the 1978 adaption of the novel, the actors knew how to be memorable even with little screen time. Here, Colonel Race (David Niven) and Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) talk with Marie Van Schuyler (Better Davis).

Because, once again, Branagh ruins his own attempts at modernization by relying heavily on CGI. So the inclusion of modern themes doesn’t matter in a story takes place in a theatrical, artificial world rather than real-world Egypt in the 1930’s. Additionally, the uneven pacing means that the movie starts strong and then gets repetitive: Poirot investigates, a motive is revealed then someone else dies. Poirot investigates again, another motive is revealed, then another death. A clever filmmaker would know how to keep this formula fresh, but it becomes a mind-numbing routine. Some critics blame the all-star cast for having minimal screen time and lines, nut that wasn’t a problem in the 1978 version, which featured Hollywood royalty like Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Peter Ustinov, and David Niven. That movie had a lush realism that came from shooting on location in Egypt and entertained with bonafide movie stars who knew how to convey full force of their personalities into bit parts. But no part of Russell Brand’s bombastic and controversial quirkiness survives his boring appearance as Linnet’s former fiancé Dr. Windlesham. There’s no indication of the comedy mastery that created the hilarious Absolutely Fabulous in the reunion of Jennifer Saunders (as Linnet’s Communist godmother Marie Van Schuyler) and Dawn French (as her nurse and companion Mrs. Bowers). Only Okonedo and Wright bring some sizzle to their roles.

Unlike Branagh’s movie, the ITV adaptation of Christie’s novel had a real sense of time and place — not to mention a more effective (if less famous) cast. Pictured here: Simon (JJ Feild), Linnet (Emily Blunt) and Poirot (David Suchet)

Perhaps the biggest mistake is the movie’s treatment of characters of Simon Doyle, Linnet Ridgeway and Jacqueline Bellefort. Simon and Jacqueline first seen dirty dancing in a jazz club, supposedly to indicate the intensity of their sexual passion. In fact, a slow dance in the corner would have worked better to indicate true love. Gal Gadot is beautiful but doesn’t embody the spoiled and demanding heiress in Christie’s book, who actively pursued her friend’s fiancée and order Poirot stop Jacqueline from pursuing her (Emily Blunt was far better in the David Suchet television version; she captured the tunnel vision of a gorgeous rich girl who has never contemplated not getting what she wants) Armie Hammer has looks like handsome but impoverished country boy Simon Doyle, but perhaps we know too much about the actor’s horrifying scandals, as he comes across as a sleazy operator rather than just posh and thick. In the book, Jacqueline, the daughter of an ne-er do well aristocrat who married a hotblooded Italian woman (the “Latin temperament” being yet another of Christie’s prejudicial stereotypes), is used to gambling with her life and would rather die than live without love. But Emma MacKay never seems unstable or threatening enough to force newlyweds to cut short their honeymoon and return home. In the book and all other previous adaptations, we find ourselves drawn to Simon and Jacqueline’s once-in-a-life-time love affair; we root for them and mourn for them, even as we sense that the intensity of their passion is dangerous and unhealthy. But MacKay and Hammer, dirty dancing aside, can’t evoke true love gone sour and it fatally weakens the movie.

Branagh uses sex to portray Simon and Jacqueline’s romance — perhaps to thinking sex conveys connection modern audiences better than old-fashioned romance. But he still can’t make us believe that the love onscreen is of the life-altering (or shattering) variety.

And Branagh should resist his constant urge to cast himself in the lead of the movies he directs. Poirot is not supposed to be a tragic character or action hero. He’s a detective, there to solve a mystery by delving into the personalities of all the suspects. Updating Christie novels will always be a challenge worth tackling — even though filmmakers shouldn’t underestimate their audience’s ability to deal with historical settings. Branagh’s accomplishment here is extraordinary but appalling; he’s flattened out Christie’s already two- dimensional archetypes until the mystery involving them doesn’t matter. And for Christie fans, that’s unforgivable sin.