Review: And Then There Were None (2015)

And Then There Were None (TV)

Rating

Director

Craig Viveiros

Screenplay

Sarah Phelps

Length

2h 55m

Starring

Maeve Dermody, Charles Dance, Toby Stephens, Burn Gorman, Aidan Turner, Harley Gallacher, Miranda Richardson, Paul Chahidi, Sam Neill, Charlie Russell, Noah Taylor, Tom Clegg

MPAA Rating

Not Rated

Review

There’s something both sinister and cozy about Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. One of the most popular British authors in history brings a little of the English countryside into many of her works and that’s perfectly felt in the most recent English-language TV adaptation of her novel.

Like in the novel, ten strangers arrive alone on a remote island where their mysterious host reveals that they are all murderers who got away with their respective crimes and they are to be punished for them. From that point forward, each one dies in sometimes simple, sometimes gruesome fashion. The crimes range from the murder of an elderly former employer, three children by two different guests, and various other crimes that are more or less despicable. Yet, by the end of the first episode of the three-part miniseries, you realize that even at her best, Christie was not an author who benefited from the expansion of her material.

After many years with few faithful adaptations, screenwriter Sarah Phelps has taken Christie’s novel and done a largely loyal translation. Split into an ungainly three parts, Christie’s novel doesn’t need to be stretched so thin and that exacerbates the film’s worst qualities. The slow-boil tension is stretched to the breaking point and the tautness isn’t quite where it needs to be. It drones into its second and third parts following the book mostly well, but never quite figuring out how to pace 3+ hours of a book that had been done better in under two hours. A perfect example of unnecessary padding was the massive hole in the ground that appeared early in the first part and then never showed up again.

While many of the names in the cast, like Burn Gorman, Aidan Turner, Maeve Dermody, and Douglas Booth may be somewhat well known in their native Britain, their worldwide familiarity is a bit lower than the big names like Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, and Charles Dance the most recognizable. Yet, those are the three least impressive members of the cast. While everyone overacts a bit, those three were hamming it up as if they were in a cheesier picture.

It isn’t all bad. The attention to detail is impressive and while the mysterious pit was a massive missed opportunity, the house, the environs, and the costumes were all delightfully period. The audience is brought in easily to the events feeling as if they are a fly on the wall watching these unsuspecting victims meet their fate. Even with the wooden (Neill) and excessive (Dance) acting going on, the rest of the cast manages to tamp it down just enough to keep the audience intrigued.

While it’s inferior to the 1945, 1965, and 1987 versions, it’s still significantly better than the 1974 and 1989 ones. For a new generation of potential Christie readers, And Then There Were None might encourage them to read up on her. For existing fans, there’s just enough of her characteristic spark to carry the day even with a few really big issues.