Tom Shankland

This is the product of people who don't have confidence in their source material, a 1943 Christie novel. The basic plot is preserved but it is glossed-up in a number of ways. It is filmed in startlingly bright colours, in an over-pretty village. Homosexuality is referred to openly rather than in the way it would have been then and an additional death is inserted and linked to it. The hero, Jerry, is no longer just an injured pilot but a pilot who cannot adjust to peace, womanises and drinks, and attempts suicide. The governess is no long beautiful but boring but instead is amazingly glamorous and sexy and of course tries it on with the hero.

Ken Russell hams it up as the vicar. Miss Marple is ever-present rather than arriving in the last third of the book, reducing the important role Jerry and the police play in the novel. And so on. There are a few good performances - Frances de la Tour as the vicar's wife, and Tallulah Riley as the despised stepdaughter Megan. On the whole, however, this is far inferior to the 1980s Joan Hickson version.… (mere)