Sarah Phelps wrote the screenplay of the brilliant adaptation of "and then there were none" , three years ago;although sometimes overblown (a lesbian, a cocaine party) ,it was the first time ,with the exception of the 1982 Russian version,that the world all-time best seller murder mystery had been based on the novel (and not the play) and thus had thoroughly justified its title -which,as anybody knows ,was not the original title .So we could expect much of her treatment of "the ABC murders ", one of the best Christie works.
My feelings are mixed ;the cinematography is splendid indeed and offers a wonderful vision of England of the thirties ; the Poirot we meet is not the middle-age refugee of "Stiles" but almost the aging one of "curtain" ;some prefer David Suchet or Peter Ustinov as Poirot ,but in this gloomy atmosphere,why not John Malkovich?Both Suchet and Ustinov has /had too much joie de vivre and were too bons vivants to fit the bill in this context.
Mister Alexander-Bonaparte (no foreign name in our country) is smartly introduced ,but one can wonder why Mrs Phelps made him a sick terminally-man whereas a mere sexually-repressed character would have done the trick;one can understand Japp's hatred ,but why is he dead and replaced by a jealous hateful ill-tempered little runt?
The first murder retains a certain sense of suspense but Phelps's defects begin to appear:why a connection with Poirot's past ?
Christie's books are hard to transfer to the screen because they are not generally action-packed ; a "seven " ("seven" had "and then there were none " echoes anyway )treatment, in several respects , was not such a bad idea.