Movie Review

Starry Death on the Nile loses mystery of Agatha Christie

Kenneth Branagh in Death on the Nile.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

A few interesting things happened on the way to Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile being released in theaters. Originally scheduled for October 23, 2020, the pandemic pushed the release to September 17, 2021. But then, lead actor Armie Hammer was embroiled in a very strange sex scandal, pushing the film to its current release date. On the positive side, Branagh went on to direct a very personal film, Belfast, which is nominated for seven Oscars, including two for Branagh himself.

All of that weighs heavily on the film, a quasi-sequel to 2017’s dreadful Murder on the Orient Express, in which Branagh put his first spin on Agatha Christie’s iconic detective Hercule Poirot. Poirot is back, this time aboard a pleasure cruise on the Nile River in Egypt where Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) and Simon Doyle (Hammer) are celebrating their recent wedding, an affair for which no expense has been spared.

Per usual with Christie stories, the film is full of characters/suspects, including Doyle’s jilted lover Jacqueline (Emma Mackey); Poirot’s friend, Bouc (Tom Bateman), and his mother, Euphemia (Annette Bening); Linnet’s old flame, Windlesham (Russell Brand), who happens to be a doctor; singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo) and her niece, Rosalie (Letitia Wright); and more.

Death is contagious aboard the boat, as more than one character meets his or her demise. However, as was the case with Orient Express, a feeling of mystery is nonexistent in the film, which is very strange since that’s the point of the entire story. There are many reasons for this failure, but chief among them is it takes far too long for the main part of the film to start.

Branagh and writer Michael Green set up an elaborate story in which Poirot is not just coincidentally on the boat, but an actual acquaintance of multiple people on board, including the just-married couple. That twist changes the dynamics of the various interactions he has with everybody on board, and not in a good way. When bodies start piling up, Poirot’s unique observation skills feel less-than-compelling.

Green, back again after writing Orient Express, was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing 2017’s Logan, but he’s also been responsible for such dreck as Green Lantern, The Call of the Wild, and Jungle Cruise, which is as good an indicator of his talent as anything else. The only interesting wrinkle he adds to the story is a tragic backstory for Poirot, but that tidbit winds up being apropos of nothing.

The cast of the film do their level best with what they’re given. Branagh hams it up with the French accent, but it works for the character. Gadot is as luminous and charming as ever, but ultimately has little to do. Hammer always has a distinct smarminess to him, but that aspect plays much differently now. The best actor in the bunch, Bateman, is probably the least known, as he is a regular on British TV but has few movies to his credit.

Branagh proved himself a great filmmaker with Belfast, but almost none of that ability is on display in Death on the Nile. Christie was one of the great mystery writers of all time, but it’s time for Branagh to give up the ghost of trying to revive her stories, especially when he has little to add to her legacy.

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Death on the Nile opens in theaters on February 11.

Kenneth Branagh in Death on the Nile.

Kenneth Branagh in Death on the Nile

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Kenneth Branagh in Death on the Nile.

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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