A Haunting in Venice Film Review
Written by Rex E. ‘25
A Haunting in Venice 4/5✩✩✩✩
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, Kelly Reilly, Jamie Dornan, Kyle Allen
Summary: The film is based on Agatha Christie’s novel Halloween Party. When retired Detective Poirot (played by director Kenneth Branagh) is taken to a Halloween party and seance at a supposedly haunted house in Venice by Ariadne Oliver (played by Tina Fey in a role similar to Christie herself in real life), they find that there might be some truth to the ghost stories they believed to be fictional.
Analysis:
Although Halloween has come and gone, celebrating the spooky season with a good movie is still fun. Most people would point to Five Nights At Freddy’s as the best Halloween or horror film for this year; however I would say that Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting In Venice in its stead for the superior spooky flick of the season.
A Haunting In Venice is the third Kenneth Branagh film based on Agatha Christie’s Detective Hercule Poirot novels. The acting is wonderful with Tina Fey being as charming and enjoyable as she always is, Director Kenneth Branagh fits perfectly into the role of Poirot and feels like a natural evolution of his character from Death on The Nile & Murder on the Orient Express, and although only being in the film for a short amount of time, Michelle Yeoh is excellent in this and is probably her second best movie behind Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, at least until Avatar 3 changes that.
Despite all of these brilliant actors, the best is shockingly Jude Hill as Leopold Ferrier, who manages to play the young boy who is more aware than the adults, which was shockingly enjoyable and believable; even as someone who does not like child actors both morally and in terms of acting capability, he is rather enjoyable.
The mystery manages to be difficult enough that you don’t just immediately figure out who it is the second they walk on screen but easy enough that when you find out who it is, it goes against any and all previous evidence.
The best part of the film though is seeing the Halloween events as the film takes place in the late 40s, and Trick or Treating not having started until the 50s, you get to see how All Hallows Eve was celebrated over ninety years ago with the fun of bygone traditions of Halloween, which Hollywood refuses to indulge outside of Judy Garland’s Meet Me in St. Louis, which is mentioned in A Haunting in Venice.
There are a few problems like there are too many characters, which is more of a flaw of the genre than a problem unique to this film. The biggest problem I have, however, is that in a film called A Haunting In Venice, there is not a single Italian character in the movie.
Overall, this is a high recommendation for anybody who likes whodunits or spooky movies and even if you aren’t into those, check it out anyway- you’d have a good time.
