mystery – NZ Film Freak

Knives Out

Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Rian Johnson
Released: November 2019
Starring: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Christopher Plummer
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I love whodunnits!

My friend and I have read multiple Agatha Christie novels, and while we always try to figure out the culprit before the end, we never seem to be able to get into Agatha Christie’s head.

After hearing that Knives Out was a sort of Agatha Christie mystery, I decided that I had to watch it.

While it has all the tropes of a murder-mystery, it is in fact far from being a classic or typical murder-mystery.

As a result, I found it a tiny bit disappointing. Because Agatha Christie novels are perfect in every way, and Knives Out seems to try to one up her… Which is impossible to do without the story becoming over complicated or outlandish.

The thing is, the entire plot is given away too early – or at least that’s what I thought. As though we were told too much too soon. Of course, it all makes sense when the final twist at the end knocks you off your feet. But still, I was looking forward to be taken along for the Agatha Christie ride.

Nevertheless! The enormous amount of twists and turns are sure to keep you hooked, so long as your suspension of disbelief remains.

I loved the cast and characters – Toni Collette has always been a favourite of mine, and Daniel Craig did a surprisingly good job of being an investigator from the deep south! The mansion itself seems to be a character on its own too – the aesthetic is spectacular.

Overall, it’s a good popcorn movie that you don’t have to think about too much. Every scene has been carefully choreographed, with a huge attention to detail.

Jodie’s rating: 6/10

The Couple Next Door – Shari Lapena

Writer: Shari Lapena
Genre: Mystery/crime
Released: 2017
Blurb: You never know what’s happening on the other side of the wall. Your neighbour told you that she didn’t want your six-month-old daughter at the dinner party. Nothing personal, she just couldn’t stand her crying. Your husband said it would be fine. After all, you only live next door. You’ll have the baby monitor and you’ll take it in turns to go back every half hour. Your daughter was sleeping when you checked on her last. But now, as you race up the stairs in your deathly quiet house, your worst fears are realized. She’s gone.

—
I’ve heard this book is considered to be the next best thriller since The Girl on the Train. While it is most certainly a page-turner (I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel this quickly before), I don’t think the storyline or mystery is on par with The Girl on the Train.

Of course, the money’s in the bag within the first couple of chapters. Playing on everyone’s worst fear of having their child go missing is a gripping basis for a novel. But there were a few major flaws to this story that meant that what began as a brilliantly horrifying story soon turns into an un-mysterious tale.

The main reason for this is Detective Rasbach, who is investigating how Anne and Marco Contis’ baby was kidnapped. While it’s good to have a wise and experienced person in charge, like a Miss Marple/Hercule Poirot kind of character, it is not ideal to have a character who is always right. Regretfully his ‘suspicions’ are always proved to be correct within a couple of chapters, giving the game away too early before every twist and turn.

We shouldn’t be inside Rasbach’s head as frequently because his thoughts reveal the mysteries prematurely. It’s like watching a horror film with someone who commentates it: ‘I bet they die’ or ‘I bet there will be an explosion’, then having them promptly proved correct every time. It spoils the surprises.

Secondly, the entire backstory of Anne is rendered unnecessary and useless. I don’t want to give anything away, but her issues are irrelevant and the conclusion to her part of the story wasn’t needed. Yes, it was twisted and scary, but it didn’t actually have anything to do with the main storyline.

While the story is more crime than mystery, it is a novel that will hook you in from the very first page, which I loved.

Ditch the idea of it being an Agatha Christie mystery, and think about it more as a twisted Gillian Flynn-inspired tale about desperate characters risking it all. Appreciate The Couple Next Door for Lapena’s writing technique, brilliant construction of the story and emotional development. But don’t expect much from the storyline itself (thanks to a certain character giving it away all the time).

Jodie’s rating: 5/10

Murder on the Orient Express

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Based on Agatha Christie’s novel. Screenplay by Michael Green
Released: November 2017
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer and Daisy Ridley
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‘Um. No.’ – My review in brief of both the film and book.

I read the book then immediately watched the film, but ultimately they were both disappointing. (The film, more so.)

I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and have read a fair few of her books, but despite its fame, Murder on the Orient Express is by far the biggest disappointment – mostly due to the ending.

CHARACTERS
Basically, in regards to the film, there are far too many characters to keep track of and far too many details to ponder for it to be an enjoyable murder mystery film. Whereas in the book, it is an intriguing and baffling mystery – because you have time to think about everything and consider all the possibilities before the conclusion.

In addition to this, I’d like to add that there are many big names in this film, who seemed to have been cast despite their obvious lack of similarity to the characters in the book.

For example, Mrs Hubbard is described as a plump, humorous, brash, loud and excitable woman, but also motherly and thinks highly of her daughter. Quite clearly, I imagined Kathy Bates would play the role (with her performance of Molly Brown in Titanic in mind), who is the opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer who played Mrs Hubbard in the film as a flirtatious cougar:

Several characters that are included in the book are excluded in the film, or are merged into one character, which became somewhat confusing and disappointing. I was quite attached to the sobbing, ‘sheep-faced’ Greta Ohlsson, who was totally removed from the film.

“She’s like a sheep, you know. She gets anxious and bleats.”

The detective, Hercule Poirot, gets things wrong in the film and accuses people too early. He comes across as a bit of an amateur, which is absolutely not accurate. Totally unlike the calm, level-headed, particular Hercule Poirot who knows the answers long before he says so.

DIALOGUE
In the film, there is a few action scenes that echo Sherlock Holmes. I felt this was jarring and unnecessary (and are not in the book, I might add!).

I was disappointed by this tone of the film because I was expecting a The King’s Speech kind of feel. Where the dialogue becomes a character of its own, where it is so captivating that you find yourself totally lost in what the character is saying – looking for clues in the way they choose their words. Where the dialogue is isolated by extreme close-ups and static camerawork during dry, but captivating monologues.

It’s a shame really! I can see so clearly what I would change about this movie. There is so much important dialogue, but its treated as a nuisance that is rushed through and forgotten about and interjected with pointless action scenes.

ENDING
The ending was the biggest let-down – in terms of the book and film. Without giving it away completely, I will say that if ‘…and he woke up and it was all a dream‘ is the worst ending to a story ever, then the ending to Murder on the Orient Express is the second to worst ending ever. It was a massive deflation after a long, climactic, uphill hike.

In regards to the film, it was more than just the ending that was disappointing. It was the film in its entirety. Basically, there are around 15 main characters in this story, and all of them need to be given almost equal attention as they are all suspects and they all need to be interviewed.

So, as you can imagine, this means there is a lot of detail that needs to be told to the audience in a very short amount of time!

I don’t mean to do the cliche thing of saying ‘it was not as good as the book’, because although this is true, I think Murder on the Orient Express is a story that is simply unsuitable for the screen. It just doesn’t work – there’s too much information that needs to be conveyed.

Basically, if you haven’t read the book, you’re probably going to be quite lost in the film because they skim over the dialogue – which is all disguised in heavy accents anyway. So even if you do catch some important detail, you probably won’t be able to decipher the meaning of it anyway.

MY CONCLUSION
Overall, not Agatha Christie’s best ending, and not an enjoyable film. Too confusing and without the ‘gasps’ and intrigue of the book. Perhaps if Kenneth Branagh picked between playing the main character or the director, instead of doing both, then perhaps more time would have been spent on the script.

I know no one intends to make a bad film… But y’all made a bad film.

Jodie’s rating: 3/10

I Am Missing – Tim Weaver

Tim Weaver book I Am Missing

Writer: Tim Weaver
Genre: Crime thriller
Released: 2017
Blurb: When a young man wakes up bruised, beaten and with no memory of who he is or where he came from, the press immediately dub him ‘The Lost Man’. Ten months later, Richard Kite – if that is even his real name – remains as desperate as ever. Despite appeals and the efforts of the police, no one knows this man. Kite’s last hope may be private investigator David Raker – a seasoned locator of missing people. But Raker has more questions than answers.
Who is Richard Kite?
Why does no one know him?
And what links him to the body of a woman found beside a London railway line two years ago?
—

*I have tried my best not to include any spoilers in this review*

Within five days of reading it whenever I could steal an hour or two, I finished I Am Missing. I breathed a massive sigh of relief; I had been carrying a heavy burden over the last five days. I lived and breathed this story, and I felt as though I had experienced this mystery first-hand. Needless to say, I’m feeling emotionally exhausted now (in a good way).

As the story is written in first-person (rather effectively too), I felt like I was walking in the protagonist David Raker’s shoes. After Raker meets the man without any memory, ‘Richard Kite’, I felt like I had reached a dead-end along with Raker – despite only being five chapters in. It’s a missing person’s case where the missing person is standing right in front of him… Where on earth do you start to figure out who he is and where he’s come from?

“I started to wonder for the first time whether taking this case may have been a mistake.” -Investigator David Raker, chapter 5

Believe me, Raker, I was too. I was scratching my head thinking, ‘how the hell are we going to get to the bottom of where this Richard Kite fellow has come from?’. I felt genuinely anxious and concerned, my eyes drifted away from the book as I bit my lip worriedly, trying to think what to do…

Before reminding myself that I am, in fact, not a private investigator called David Raker, and I am merely sitting on a couch reading a fictional book.

Idiot.

This book does suck you right in, though. I had no awareness of my surroundings when I was reading I Am Missing. An hour became three, and at the end of every chapter phrases such as ‘no way’, ‘shut-up’, ‘holy Jesus Christ’, ‘get out of town’, ‘he did not just do that…’ were muttered as I sat in shock and suspense.

This book was particularly poignant for me because it is partly based in the Dorset/Devon area, which is where I live! I love reading about stories based so close to home.

Style of writing
Being a massive fan of Agatha Christie’s murder-mysteries, I knew I would enjoy Tim Weaver’s crime-thriller from the first page. But it was Weaver’s style of writing that hooked me in before the story itself did; it’s the author’s ability to write an exciting story in an easy-to-read fashion. Perhaps it’s his journalistic background that has influenced his style.

Don’t get me wrong: that is not a reflection of simple or amateur writing by any means. Rather an enviable skill of creating complex and exciting scenes without confusing or losing the reader along the way.

I loved how short the chapters were; it’s such a sense of accomplishment. (This 516-page novel is divided into 81 chapters, which is an average of 6.4 pages per chapter.) But what’s genius about it, is how there is a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter! I really struggled to keep my heart rate down, particularly the few chapters about the ‘The Monster’.

It was about a hundred feet away, on the fringes of the torchlight…Whatever it was, it was following them, crouched slightly, the arch of its back, its arms, visible above the apex of the grass… –The Monster

I read this part on the train, and I can’t imagine what my expression looked like when the guard interrupted my engrossed reading to check my ticket.

The only passages in his book that I found jarring were a few bits of dialogue from a young character called Beth. Maybe Weaver isn’t too familiar with how young teenage girls talk to each other? I would have swapped a few words, and written the dialogue a bit differently. But perhaps that’s simply because I was a teenage girl once. Nevertheless, it didn’t detriment the story in any way.

How I wish I could write a well-articulated story. I kept thinking about Kristen Wiig’s character in Walter Mitty who spoke about how to write a mystery book:

“Connect the clues, and then scatter them so they seem unrelated” – Cheryl, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Although, in my attempts at writing a novel, it certainly isn’t as easy as Cheryl makes it seem!

Characters
Although there was no character in particular I could strongly identify with or whom I looked forward to reading about, the characters certainly all had a strong sense of identity. Perhaps I didn’t resonate with the characters as much as I have with other books because I tend to read books about a female character’s internal, emotional struggle rather than external, environmental problems that Raker experienced in this book.

I did, however, enjoy that the protagonist was not a cold-hearted killing machine, which I’ve found tends to be the case in crime and action books. The emotions of this character surprised me, as he endured remorse, regret and a reflection of what his conscience would be battling with afterward. I liked that about him the most; he’s a forward-thinking empathetic person.

“I pushed the guilt down, burying it with all the grief I’d tried to suppress over the years, the regrets, the fear…” –Raker, chapter 62

There were mini summaries at the end of most chapters, whereby Raker would go over all the notes he had just taken and all the remaining questions yet to be answered, which was massively helpful for the reader.

I also liked how, even in a situation of panic and where a decision had to be made quickly, Weaver would write out the decision-making process of the protagonist. Surprisingly, this didn’t take away from the urgency of the situation either – it heightened the intensity if anything.

“A moment of hesitation halted me, gluing me to the carpet. Take it, and he’d know for sure that someone had broken in. Don’t, and I might never know the truth. In a split second, I thought about the consequences of taking it – stealing it…” –David Raker’s decision-making, chapter 31

Overall
In Weaver’s story, I was absolutely taken into another world where I studied what every character said and did. I wasn’t just reading, I felt like I was actively taking part in solving the mystery. As cheesy and lame as that sounds… I just mean that my suspension of disbelief never wavered.

I Am Missing is a tense read, but I strongly recommend it. I know it’s a cliche, but you seriously won’t be able to put it down. I read it on the train, over dinner, on the toilet, in the bath, at work while pretending to listen to angry customers over the phone, before breakfast… Seriously. At the end of every chapter, your stomach will drop and you’ll be fighting nervous sweats.

There aren’t any lulls or ‘fluffy’ chapters, just a lot of mystery and questions that ever so slowly get answered – but probably not with the answers you’d expect.

Jodie’s rating: 8/10

PS. Note to publisher: On page 248, 11 lines from the bottom, there is an error where the word ‘were’ has been repeated. ‘So what were they were doing together?’ #hireme #wannabeproofreader

The Prestige

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Released: October 2006
Featuring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie
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David Bowie is in it… I don’t think anything more really needs to be said…

Act one: “The Pledge”

Are you watching closely?
The Prestige is an incredible movie with real mystery and thrilling themes, like nothing you have ever seen before. Its dark and haunting aesthetic with the ruthless, deceitful, cut-throat and competitive characters makes an extremely intense film.

It is the story of strong-willed magicians who guard their incredible tricks of illusions with their lives resulting in sacrifices way beyond their expectations as their hunger for dominance of rival magicians runs riot.

Of course, I can’t forget to mention the era that this movie is set in, the late 1800s. I wouldn’t mind living in those times… Only if I was very wealthy of course. Beautiful dresses, old school showmanship, horse and carts and the thrill of newly discovered electricity.

With the complexity of Nolan’s Inception, the grungy look of The Dark Knight, but with a hint of total tragedy, this is just another of Christopher’s incredible creations.

Act Two: “The Turn”

I’m sure it will be compared to The Illusionist… But that doesn’t come anywhere near to what The Prestige delivers, nor does it deliver as much mystery, heart-break or violence. The Prestige is truly a one of a kind movie that makes you feel scared, desperate, amazed and sit mesmerised at the end trying to figure out the wild twists and turns in the story.

The trailer for The Illusionist, a second class film in comparison, but a pretty decent film nonetheless.

This film makes you gasp, cry, feel a sense of desperation and total awe as Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale’s characters go to extreme lengths, bending moral judgment to the expense of their loved ones, as they attempt to steal each other’s secrets of their most breath-taking, and threatening, tricks.

With such unexpected twists and turns, it is impossible to guess the ending. Unfortunately, knowing the ending can spoil the magic of the film for future viewing, sort of like in the second or third viewing of The Others.

Act Three: “The Prestige”

There really is no thrill in knowing the secret behind the magic. “The secret impresses no one”.

So incredible.

Jodie’s rating: 9/10