Entertainment
Agatha Christie’s Darkest Adaptation Is a 3-Part Murder Mystery Done Right
No one mastered the whodunit with quite as much cerebral agility as Agatha Christie. That’s the furthest thing from a controversial statement, but widespread celebration doesn’t make the mind of the world’s most popular fiction author less singular. Given the wealth of spine-tingling mysteries in her catalog, there’s an excellent chance that more adaptations of the Queen of Crime’s bibliography exist than entries in her formidable catalog (66 novels, dozens of short stories). It’s fitting, then, that no novel has been more riffed upon than 1939’s And Then There Were None — the best-selling book of all time and the epochal classic regarded as Christie’s crowning jewel.
When it comes to elegant production or fidelity to the material, few onscreen interpretations surpass the BBC’s 2015 miniseries of the same name. And Then There Were None distinguishes itself within Christie’s work; it’s bleak and unforgiving, populated with irredeemable individuals, and devoid of a heroic detective’s intervention. Writer Sarah Phelps, director Craig Viveiros, and an all-star cast hold fast to Christie’s sinister, deliberately cruel cultural critique — the relevance of which hasn’t aged a day.
Apropos of seemingly nothing, 10 people accept an invitation to stay on a small, secluded island. Their host’s name, U.N. Owen, rings no bells, and they’re all strangers to one other. As they seat themselves around the dinner table, a gramophone recording brazenly declares their respective lethal crimes. Cue the ensemble dropping like flies. Part of And Then There Were None‘s brilliance is its time-honored format. For all intents and purposes, Christie invented the slasher horror-thriller: the mechanics of targets trapped inside an isolated location, a vindictive assailant hiding amongst his victims as he fells them one by one.
Any adaptation of Christie’s most acclaimed and ingenious creation must respect her narrative intricacy. She crafted an impenetrable yet plausible plot that stands the test of time. Simplifying the exceptional architecture undermines her achievement. The same faithfulness should apply to the novel’s foreboding tone, frank nihilism, and psychological emphasis. Many movie adaptations lessen the overarching despair or change the melancholy ending; Christie herself made the latter palatable for war-weary audiences of the 1943 stage play, which was completely understandable. Later films following suit, however, sanitize her scathing intentions.
Phelps doesn’t dull that serrated edge. She captures the book’s ruthlessness through horror motifs — crashing ocean waves, jolts of roaring thunder, potential danger lurking around every candlelit corner — and by accurately preserving how Christie interrogates England’s social hierarchies through a brutal character study. Set one month before the United Kingdom declared war on Germany’s Third Reich, the majority of Christie’s characters present themselves with self-righteous integrity. Behind their common courtesies, they either waver on the edge of collapse or are rotten to the core.
Human selfishness takes different forms throughout And Then There Were None: sadism, bigotry, negligence, greed, lust, and proselytizing. A respected judge (Charles Dance) hands down close-minded sentences, a doctor (Toby Stephens) imbibes alcohol before an operation, a jealous schoolteacher (Maeve Dermody) lets her charge drown, a police officer (Burn Gorman) commits a hate crime, a decorated World War I general (Sam Neill) betrays a fellow soldier and romantic rival, a mercenary (Aidan Turner) murders for profit, a spoiled socialite (Douglas Booth) simply doesn’t care, and a religious devotee (Miranda Richardson) cloaks her prejudice in piety.
‘And Then There Were None’ Amplifies the Book’s Ruthlessness
Even though these reprehensible individuals have escaped due process, does And Then There Were None‘s vigilante mastermind accomplish any lasting worth by operating outside the broken judicial system? Are they merely quenching their own violent thirst? That’s a (potentially unanswerable) question for audiences to ponder. Christie’s world and its citizens reek of hopelessness. Nevertheless, her characters can’t outrun justice, no matter how much they scramble. They descend into conflict and paranoia, cling to the honorable reputation they’ve manufactured, and argue their truth as fact. Even those afflicted with remorse can’t face themselves in the mirror long enough to admit their wrongs — until consequences strike, that is, and the well of justifications runs dry.
Even when Phelps strays from the source material, her deviations both amplify Christie’s subtext surrounding class and gender and adjust it to reflect current issues. The distressing immediacy of the cast’s past violent crimes removes the ambiguity without simplifying all that drives their respective psychologies. Two characters acting upon their sexual tension change nothing fundamental; it’s a rare intimate moment and another example of decadent indulgence.
We’re not invited to like these people or see our daily thoughts reflected back to us. Christie and Phelps splay the characters’ souls out on a surgical table so viewers can dissect their broken humanity, recognize their darkest impulses, and sit with the ramifications of their unchecked narcissism. Christie did cozy mysteries. Christie did brain-twisters. She did uncompromising fictional cruelty for a purpose. Phelps’ superb interpretation — and more harrowing resolution — denies her audience even a sliver of hope. The deeds are done, but human narcissism lives on.
And Then There Were None
- Release Date
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2015 – 2015-00-00
- Network
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BBC One
- Directors
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Craig Viveiros
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Justice Lawrence Wargrave
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Maeve Dermody
Vera Claythorne
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Paul Chahidi
Isaac Morris
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Celia Henebury
Leslie MacArthur (voice)
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