Crooked house – movie review

There are certain books, that paint such a vivid mental image while reading, which makes you wonder when you will see them on screen. Especially those on the thriller genre kind, with fast paced action. Dan Brown is a past master in this game, who had successfully managed to convert the fame of his books into movie scripts. The movie version may not have set the box office on fire but still he has proud claim of his works being represented in multiple medium. Same goes for Chetan Bhagat who has managed to weave the scripts that he sells to his Bollywood producers onto his novels, so that it saves him double work, but gets him double pay!! I’ve often posted about the Agatha christie novels I’ve read in recent past but never once I recollect to have mentioned about them being made into movies. May be subconsciously I found the subject to be a bit slow for today’s movie audience or for its dialogue intensive nature, neither of which will help in setting up a pulsating movie watching experience. “And there were none”, “Murder in orient express” are delightful exceptions, but still wonder how many would’ve had the patience to go through all those scenes across all the passengers where Poirot takes note of their versions in the latter novel. With that mindset I feel “Crooked house” movie, based on an Agatha Christie novel was a futile attempt from the making stage itself. The story labours its way to a hasty finish that is neither convincing as a twist nor as a socially responsible one. May be for its times and as a novel, it might’ve made wicked sense to have a small girl as villain. Hope the director had taken effort to replace that aspect in the movie and came up with something different. The hero, not Hercule Poirot, is a huge let down. He is neither too serious or grim nor very charming or suave and looks confused for a reaction. The era the story belongs to, depicts characters/people in a way, much different from present day world. Be the lead character or the rest of them crew, find themselves in a soup trying to bring out that old world impression in their acting. The heroine is kind of hitting close to average performance in being the mystery lady, but falls flat towards the end. The old lady who makes the ultimate sacrifice in the end, has bit of flesh in her character but it is one thing to detail a character in several pages but to bring it out on screen is a totally different ball game.   

This movie made me realize, why certain novels should never be made into movies. When Harry potter series were launched, I felt they will never be able to translate that magical experience on screen satisfactorily. But I was never so wrong and in fact where some of the books (Order of Phoneix) failed to evocate similar feeling as other episodes, the entire movie franchise was bang for buck. On a similar note, I feel, Agatha christie novels would be apt and much suited for OTT platforms where the director and screenplay writer can tailor the presentation without bothering much about fitting within a 2 hour window. In fact these OTT platforms are a boon for those novels and works that require a bigger time frame to present. That “game of thrones” guy minted money and paved the way for big book authors, whose creations are never less than a thousand page. The other benchmark would be “Sherlock” where they had beautifully interwoven present day world into yesteryear storylines. Would love to see a series dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha christie novels in any OTT anyday.