Francesca Steele

The death of cosy Christie

Filmmakers are taking Agatha Christie to increasingly dark places – and about time too

This is not Midsomer Murders. The new film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is thick with violence and sexual innuendo. It elevates Hercule Poirot, the diminutive, fastidious Belgian detective, with his egg-shaped head and pot belly, to part-time action figure, a man who chases bad guys down dizzying descents in exotic snowscapes before straightening his magnificent moustache with a twinkle in his eye. This is less cosy, golden age detective fiction than a cross between Daniel Craig’s 007 and Scandi noir.

Kenneth Branagh, who stars and directs, has brought his experience playing the dejected Swedish police inspector Wallander to the fore, giving the usually reserved detective unusual passion and vulnerability. His Poirot confides professional self-doubt to a photograph of a long-lost love and rages loudly at his suspects. It’s a far cry from the reserved elegance of the Sidney Lumet’s 1974 film.

This is not the first recent adaptation to take Christie to a darker place. Sarah Phelps, a screenwriter previously best known for her work on EastEnders, has become the doyenne of Christmas Christie, writing two controversially macabre BBC hits, And Then There Were None and Witness for the Prosecution. Phelps reinstated darker original endings that Christie herself had later taken out. They are desperate, sinister whodunnits, with complicated, morally ambiguous characters. This Christmas, a third Phelps/Christie collaboration arrives: Ordeal by Innocence and it promises more of the same.

Have we reached the end of the cosy crime era of cushy settings and quiet scrutiny? Christie became best known for her ‘cozies’ — the jewels, parties and exotic travel of the 1920s golden age; the quiet reserve of the English countryside village. Midsomer Murders, very much indebted to Christie, is one of Britain’s most successful TV exports.

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