THEY CAME BY NIGHT

Published in 1969, Agatha Christie’s “Hallowe’en Party” is largely set in the fictional town of Woodleigh Common, “an ordinary sort of place,” thirty or forty miles from London. Thanks to the director Kenneth Branagh and his screenwriter, Michael Green, the book has become a new film, “A Haunting in Venice,” and the action has shifted to Italy in 1947. Now, that’s an adaptation—a bolder metamorphosis than anything essayed by Branagh and Green in “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) or “Death on the Nile” (2022). I’m already looking forward to their next reworking of Christie: “The Body in the Library,” perhaps, relocated to the freezer aisle of a Walmart.
Branagh returns as Hercule Poirot, who has retired to a Venetian fastness. There, ignoring the pleas of the importunate, who bug him with their private mysteries, he tends his garden, inspecting his plants through a magnifying glass as if to expose any guilty aphids. A local heavy named Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio), who sounds like a stockbroker but is actually an ex-cop, functions as a gatekeeper. The one outsider to whom he allows entry is Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a crime novelist on the make. She urges the sleuth to accompany her to a séance, where a celebrated medium, Mrs. Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), will make contact with the beyond. Ariadne’s plan is that Poirot, as an arch-rationalist, will debunk the claims of the paranormal. And Branagh’s plan, as a guileful filmmaker, is to rebunk them to the hilt.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In

ELIAS
Fiction
LETTER FROM FRANCE: SCHMEAR CAMPAIGN
Is a European conspiracy behind a ban on a virally popular hazelnut spread?
FIRST THINGS FIRST DEPT.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
At four o'clock on a recent Friday, Kevin McCullough found himself staring at a line of text on a poster in the Graham Avenue subway station, in Williamsburg.

CONTINUING EDUCATION DEPT.TUSKS UP
In early May, the N.H.L.’s newest team, a year-old Salt Lake City-based franchise provisionally known as the Utah Hockey Club, unveiled its official name and mascot, after considering such options as Black Diamonds, Blast, Blizzard, Canyons, Caribou, Freeze, Frost, Fury, Glaciers, Hive, Ice, Mountaineers, Outlaws, Powder, Squall, Swarm, Venom, and Yeti. Behold: the Utah Mammoth.

AN UPDATE ON OUR FAMILY
First, a sincere thanks to the friends, neighbors, and homeowners' association representatives who have reached out during the past four months. We've heard from so many of you—a couple of times via a note tied to a rock thrown through our window—as we've navigated this journey.

STILL LIFE
The “forever business” of Green-Wood Cemetery.

THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT
To stop violent crime, we need to grasp what really drives it.

BROTHERS OF THE CLOTH
The Met's take on Black male style.

AWAKENINGS
Whatever happened to Margaret Fuller?

ANNALS OF AVIATION - TURBULENCE
Amelia Earhart’ husband pushed her to keep tempting fate for the sake of fame.