2022 Movie Reviews

[TrueFaith77]

25.Death on the Nile (Kenneth Branagh); grade: F

Branagh turns the spiritual nihilism of Agatha Christie novels into White Elephant abominations. The metaphysical gimmick proposing universal guilt in Murder on the Orient Express--they all did it!--here reduces romantic love to a mere cog in a mousetrap or, in mystery terms, to motive. That's bad enough, but Branagh imbues this ugly world view with overblown filmmaking. In the opening sequence, his cgi black-and-white tracking shot moves through WWI trenches like a wannabe Stanley Kubrick directing Paths of Glory (recalling Branagh's blaspheming Hitchcock and Welles in the forgotten but eternally embarrassing Dead Again). Doing so, Branagh attempts to conflate Poirot's romantic treason with Kubrick's exactingly achieved cynicism. Branagh's c-list cast of actors lacks gravitas and expressiveness. Suggesting celebrity, they signify the film's perspective on social climbing as the aim of love through the lens of woke politics. Poirot's investigation exposes privileged Marxists, down-low lesbians, and doomed interracial lovers (as if checking Oscar bait boxes). Significantly, the film imparts these political labels with virtue as if castigating the very socio-economic system celebrated by--and that makes possible--the movie's faux luxe. Alternatively, Alan Rudolph's detective movies like Ray Meets Helen, Trixie, and Love at Large explore the mystery of individuality through the poetry of romantic love. Branagh's political labels and decadent filmmaking commit spiritual murder.