When fans of Agatha Christie's brainy Hercule Poirot select their favorite TV mysteries, this all-star whodunit should be a leading contender.
Although Poirot (David Suchet) remembers the circumstantial evidence that
sent Caroline Crale (Rachael Stirling) to the gallows, he agrees to re-investigates the open-and-shut case on behalf of the deceased’s daughter, Lucy Crale (Aimee Mullins). Fourteen years after Caroline’s philandering husband, Amyas (Aiden Gillen), was poisoned, Caroline's intimates still believe she was the killer, and none of them enjoys rehashing the matter. Meredith Blake (Marc
Warren) resented Amyas for his reputation with the ladies, while his brother, Philip Blake (Toby Stephens), harbored forbidden feelings for the lady killer. While tutoring Caroline’s half-sister, Angela Warren (Sophie Winkleman), Miss Williams (Gemma Craven) witnessed the disintegration of the Crale marriage after Amyas boldly installed his latest model/mistress Elsa Greer (Julie Cox) at his
summer home. Adulterous Amyas also locked horns with Caroline about Angela, whom he planned to ship off to boarding school. Did Angela take drastic steps to avoid being exiled? When Elsa publicly announced — untruthfully, as it happens — that her lover had promised to ditch his wife, the tightly wound Caroline seethed in silence, fighting to check her temper. She never forgot what happened the last time she reached an emotional breaking point, back when she was a child: She lobbed a paperweight at Angela and disfigured her for life. If Caroline had felt her self-control slipping away, Poirot wonders whether she might have stolen poison with the idea of kill herself rather than her husband. Who had the means and motive to slip Amyas a deadly dose? Rather than committing a crime of passion, the long-suffering Caroline may have sacrificed her life to protect another.
Director Paul Unwin nadles screenwriter Kevin Elyot’s multiple flashbacks with admirable clarity, making each contradictory version of what happened the ring of truthfullness. And the ensemble cast, comprising the creme de la crème of the British Theater, gives this tricky memory piece a sharper edge than other TV adaptations of Christie's famously well crafted mysteries. leave a comment --Robert Pardi
