Death on the Nile (2022)

The prologue of the movie is ingenious, and surprises the viewers by plunging them immediately into the trenches of World War I and a glimpse of Belgian Detective Hercule Poirot’s past, before he was an investigator – but when he already had the kind of mind that would develop into one. That sequence, in fact, is quintessential Branagh. It epitomizes Kenneth Branagh’s assets as a filmmaker: flamboyant, theatrical, boldly expanding out from the anticipated milieu and imagining a back-story for Poirot that isn’t strictly necessitated by the mystery Agatha Christie wrote but that grounds the story to come by adding depth to Poirot, and in a way that the audience can readily understand and enjoy. Branagh’s greatest strength, perhaps, is his willingness “to go there” – wherever ‘there’ might be – without pulling his punches in fear of whether it is proper, de rigueur, intellectually sanctioned, etc. When he directed Shakespeare films, this was known as ‘popularizing’ Shakespeare, although that was always a very odd way to put it, considering that no writer since Biblical days has written for the mass audience more overtly or successfully over the long-term than Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Branagh was intent on bringing out what was already there in Shakespeare, unlike the stuffy dramatizations which seemed to want to hide it, and now with Death on the Nile, as with Murder on the Orient Express, he seems again on a mission to make us appreciate the author he’s adapting to the screen, not as a distant curiosity, but up close and visceral.

Death on the Nile is a grandiose kind of movie, the kind where Gal Gadot goes for a walk on the ship’s deck to go speak to Poirot and the shot itself is a tour de force that shows off the boat and how big it is, and has fun being able to move the camera in a crane shot that follows her in one move. When a spurned love interest makes a reappearance, the scale of her entrance is operatic, with an enormous red train on her dress in a high camera angle. When the holiday-makers pass by ancient Egypt’s pyramids and sphinxes, these ancient wonders are giant-sized – something akin to D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, although this time they are probably CGI – and the grandeur of them dwarfs the human sight-seers and their petty squabbles. It’s obvious that this is a big-budget movie, and that it fully exploits how expansive it can be. But it does so in a classic-Hollywood vein, not in a typical modern action-movie vein (the kind that sacrifices visual beauty and originality for special effects wizardry and rapid cutting). It’s a movie that wants to spin you a tale, of another place and time, and let you participate in the story-making. Mystery aficionados like trying to guess who the killer is, and a game is played between the reader and the author, leaving clues but trying to surprise as well. Branagh lays down clues with the right amount of aplomb (in a story with sufficient complication) so that you can enjoy the ride and the process simultaneously. For instance, you might notice how shifty-eyed one of the characters looks when the camera pans past the group of passengers, or you might register “huh, that character mentioned she has lost an item, I bet that item’ll turn up as part of the plot,” but this just makes it more fun when the strings are untangled later.

This time, the film is not as visually frenetic as Murder on the Orient Express was. Branagh was so busy in that first Agatha Christie film, it almost looked like Baz Luhrmann. Poirot could not even lie down in his bunk on that train without the camera angle slanting bizarrely, and there were a lot of attention-getting compositions, movement, and sudden cuts. Though lively and energetic, the many distractions made it difficult to follow the plot. By contrast, this time around, the plot flows smoothly and the cinematic style is entertaining and inviting, less hyperbolic. 

Death on the Nile is also quite witty. There were a number of laugh-out loud moments. For example, in one scene Poirot accuses two people of murder and they are deeply offended, and his friend, from the other side of the room, helpfully offers comfort: “He accuses everyone of murder.” Poirot admits: “it’s a problem.” There’s also the casting of ‘Saunders and French’, the longtime comedy duo from England, as a couple traveling together -- a clever little reference. Jennifer Saunders’ character is also amusing because she’s a socialist, and keeps expressing her critical attitude about the rich and their morays. There is also, of course, Poirot’s own anal-retentive qualities, and how his ability to notice when tiny little details are out of order is both a bonus, as a detective, and an annoyance, as a person. And there’s his mustache, which has only grown more stylish and more relevant.

The cast is consistently excellent, and features Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, as a hostess to this huge ship-bound party; Annette Bening, a a grande dame who carries her artist’s easel around Egypt with her and is a controlling matriarch to Poirot’s pal Bouc (Tom Bateman); Sophie Okonedo as a lounge singer and Letitia Wright as her daughter; Russell Brand in a surprising appearance as a stoic, clean-cut, bespectacled doctor – clearly not type-casting; and Arnie Hammer and the French-British actress Emma Mackey as one-time lovers. Though Christie’s novel is from 1937 and the film retains that period setting, Branagh and the screenplay by Michael Green (who also adapted Murder on the Orient Express) have made the sensibility more modern, so there are inter-racial and same-sex romances, and some fluidity and openness between classes.

Though Branagh and Green manage to extract an overall theme about love and passion from Poirot’s own personal arc as well as from the murder plot, Death on the Nile is a movie that embraces unabashedly how frothy and frivolous it is – as John Gielgud said, “Style is knowing what kind of play you’re in”, and Branagh as a director follows that dictum and embraces the style of the material itself. He is not embarrassed to show us rich people leading pampered lives and then murdering each other and acting shocked, because that’s the material, and it has its own value, even if that value is no cure for cancer or climate change. In order to underline what world or style we’re in, Branagh stages several musical numbers, set in night-clubs or on the dance floor of the cruise ship, which enliven the whole enterprise (especially with some risqué moves that I’m pretty sure were not period artifacts) and which also provide Poirot with a love interest of his own. The movie makes no bones about showing us just how decadent the wealthy characters on this pleasure cruise really are, knowing that the audience is later going to enjoy seeing them get their comeuppance.

As far as class politics, Poirot himself also helps to provide balance. Though he is invited into the highest echelons, we have already seen from the prologue that he came from humble farmer stock. Moreover, he doesn’t get down with their debauchery; he is an observer, an outsider. He counters their excesses and histrionics with his own reasonableness and calmness. While he is quirky enough to be a memorable and interesting character, it is also clear that he remains sane even in the midst of this insular, self-centered social circle, so the audience can watch these vain and corrupt people through his eyes – detached and bemused. Though the idle rich would love to win him over, his loyalty is, always, to uncovering the facts. In short, he is actually a timely role model for our own society.