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Agatha christie nemesis12/24/2023 ![]() ![]() They looked either too young for their part or too old. The action takes place both in 1940 and in 1951, yet none of the protagonists have aged a day. If you’re twenty-two, you have a certain dewiness about you that isn’t present when you’re thirty-two. Until they didn’t, when we discover multiple cases of mistaken identities, misidentified wounded soldiers with apparently blind wives, lying lawyers, and tour guides who were intelligence operatives during the war despite not looking nearly old enough. The other tour group members were distinctive, interesting, and had logical if sometimes farfetched ties to Verity. Grant needed plenty of straw to chew the scenery with.īut all the changes worked, until they didn’t. I don’t remember that predilection from the novels but here we are.Īs Miss Marple’s nephew Raymond West, Richard E. Grant chewing the scenery and chasing after everyone in a skirt. ![]() He’s Miss Marple’s writing nephew so when Jason Rafiel tells Miss Marple she needs a companion, she chooses him. Even the tour guide gets a character revamp. Naturally, they drop their religious duties in London and race off to see England. A generous, anonymous benefactor provides them with two tickets for the all-expense tour. We meet her and her Mother Superior, Sister Agnes. Dear old dad refuses and the estrangement begins.Ĭlothilde is still present, in vastly different form. He begs his father (a resident alien living in London) to find Verity. Verity disappears under mysterious circumstances and Michael gets picked up by the police and spends the rest of the war in a POW camp. ![]() Elspeth, Clothilde in particular, are not happy about Verity running off to Ireland with an enemy combatant and tell her so. She nurses him back to health and naturally, they fall in love. He’s also a Luftwaffe pilot, shot down over England after Dunkirk, which is how he meets Verity. He’s still Jason Rafiel’s son but with a different last name. As you would expect, the bodies start to pile up with the least guilty dying first while Miss Marple unravels the clues about Verity along with figuring out how everyone is related to everyone else. Here, every single person including the tour guide is in on the plot. In the novel, some members of the tour group were sent by Jason Rafiel, but not all. The tour had a definite And Then There Were None vibe. As a “man of letters”, he must not be very rich or else he spent all his wealth arranging the tour. Here, he’s apparently a “man of letters” and noted philanthropist. In the novel, the bequest is considerably larger but Jason Rafiel is considerably richer. If she cooperates, she’ll win the £500 bequest. Jason Rafiel sends his last request to Miss Marple via a record on a gramophone. Introducing a ’50s version of Mission Impossible was a nifty touch. I liked the first two-thirds of this film. The final scene was the rotten cherry atop the rancid sundae. Then it completely fell apart into an incoherent, illogical mess. Despite the screenwriter playing fast and loose to earn his salary, the movie worked for me, right up until the third act. I never know what to expect from ITV: excellent or terrible. Quality of movie on its own: 2 and 1/2 poison bottles. Oh, and the coach tour of the great houses of England. ![]() About all that remains is Verity herself, her tragic life, and Jason Rafiel’s enjoyment of manipulating people. If you’re familiar with the novel, you’ll be aghast at what ITV Productions did to the story line. Fidelity to text: 1 and 1/2 poison bottles. ![]()
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