strange and random happenstance: Murder is Easy

Murder is Easy
Based on the book by Agatha Christie
Starring: Steve Pemberton, Shirley Henderson, Sylvia Syms, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lyndsey Marshal, James Lance, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Camilla Arfwedson, Hugo Speer, Anna Chancellor, David Haig, Margo Stilley, Jemma Redgrave, Russell Tovey, Stephen Churchett, Steven Hartley, and Julian Lightwing
Release Date: July 12th, 2009
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Miss Marple is on a train when she meets a very distracted female passenger on her way to London, a Miss Lavinia Pinkerton. Miss Pinkerton is distressed about the possibility that Scotland Yard closes for lunch because she has to talk to them because she believes there has been two murders in her town. Miss Marple isn't sure what to make of her, but Miss Pinkerton's parting words that murder is easy if no one thinks it's murder makes Jane pick up Miss Pinkerton's discarded newspaper, The Wychwood Gazette, to read about the tragic death of the Vicar due to bees. A few days later when she reads of the death of Miss Pinkerton on an escalator in the London Underground Jane packs her bags for Wychwood and is determined to get to the bottom of Miss Pinkerton's suspicions. Arriving for Miss Pinkerton's funeral claiming to be an old friend Jane is soon taken into the community's confidences about the upcoming election concerning Major Horton, James Abbot, and Dr. Thomas, the other recent accidents, the secret trysts, and the nosey yet attractive American who is visiting. Though one of the town's residents sees through Miss Marple's act. Luke Fitwilliam is ex police and is back in Wychwood to clear out his mother's estate and can tell when someone is lying. Miss Marple comes clean, dropping her doddering old lady act and the two of them set out to solve these crimes, another of which has just been committed as Dr. Humbleby drops dead of acute septicemia. Can they catch the killer before even more "accidents" happen?

By the time Julia McKenzie quietly sidled in as Miss Marple taking over from fan favorite, and apparent belligerent drunk Geraldine McEwan, there were only four remaining books and two short stories containing Miss Marple left to adapt. Well, when a series runs to twenty-three ninety minute movies and is drawing on a base of only twelve books staring a character, liberties will be increasingly taken. While this started with McEwan, having Marple show up in four stories she had no right to be in, McEwan somehow pulled it off, nosing her way in. Whereas McKenzie was more passive, just a figure in the background as the series took more and more liberties with the mysteries, heavily expanding and changing them, much to the audience's displeasure. While I'm a fan of McKenzie, she is an incredibly talented actress, she just didn't have the oomph to force her way into these new narratives. I felt like this was the slow death of Marple... it didn't surprise me in the least when the BBC took over the Christie franchise and quickly put Marple out of it's misery. It was a pale imitation of what it once was, whereas Poirot had only gotten better over the years and ended on a high note. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I had actually, until rewatching Murder is Easy, entirely forgotten this episode. The fact that Benedict Cumberbatch was in an episode of Marple was pretty much a surprise to me. But in no way an unpleasant one.

Personally I never got the Christie purists who complained about the changes. Until now. Changing one or two things isn't a crime, but here? They took a solid mystery and tried to make it more modern and more Christie simultaneously by adding in incestuous rape and then having all the suspects rounded up for the big reveal. The mystery worked fine as originally written and would have featured FAR more Benedict Cumberbatch if his character hadn't been relegated to Miss Marple's sidekick. But even if Benedict hadn't been playing the role of Luke Fitzwilliam if you think my favoritism is swaying my opinion, if it had been anyone else, the changes just don't work. There is barely a shadow of the original story. Murder is Easy was written to be about a rather witchy town with lots of people who are at odds, all of them a bit of an outsider, instead we have a happy little village where on the surface everyone is getting along. Yes, they still have dark secrets, but they were bland. It was all who was sleeping with who and not who was doing Satanic rites up on the hillside. And the problem I have is that there are so many actors whom I legitimately love in this, but throwing a whole bunch of celebrities onto the screen isn't going to solve a production that had the temerity to think they knew better than Christie. This adaptation just doesn't work. All the changes throw the dynamics of the narrative off so that you can't actually enjoy watching it.

Each and every change to a character has a ripple effect until at the end the calm stream becomes a massive waterfall. I just want to shake the writers and scream WHY in their faces as long as my breath will hold. They could have just slipped Jane into the story, not changed EVERYTHING. As a starting point let's take Luke Fitzwilliam. Luke is supposed to be the stranger, the interloper that Jane becomes. By having him be a local KNOWN to be ex police, well the who idea of subterfuge and a secret investigation is out the window. The narrative instantly because about Miss Marple being cleverer than the cops with her sitting smugly behind doors from where she's secretly running the interrogations. I mean, it's just a boring police procedural at this point, NOT a classic of crime. Bridget Conway, the love interest, becomes not a local engaged to the big MP, but an American looking for her real parents? Um, why!?! In fact there's only TWO DEATHS, out of the seven in the book that happen the same way. What, those seven different accidents weren't good enough for you ITV people? Apparently death by bees is far sexier... and I'm not even going to talk about the stupid hat dye.

But what makes this adaptation utterly unbelievable is the change of the timeline. In the book aside from the final three deaths they are spread out over a longer period of time, about a year or so. Having the characters be killed by "accident" over the course of a year, well, that makes it more plausible that no one would have cried foul. But to have all these people "accidentally" die over the course of a few days!?! Well, even the ever delightfully bumbling Russell Tovey as PC Terence Reed should have cottoned onto them all being camouflaged murders even without Miss Marple appearing on the scene. I mean, seriously, that many bodies so quickly? And they didn't think, hang on a minute, do we maybe have a serial killer!?! By this point I was actually hoping they'd all die for their stupidity except for Jemma Redgrave who was oddly endearing as the Doctor's manic widow. And the fact that besides just a regular PC there was Luke Fitzwilliam on the scene, a true officer of the law, how stupid are these townspeople? The only real joy I got from this episode was watching Russell Tovey and Benedict Cumberbatch work together. After watching them recently on Sherlock, it's fascinating to see how in just four years they had grown as actors.

In the end though I just want to know, why the change of motive? In the book Honoria Waynflete is a bitter woman pissed at being jilted and seeing her family lose their fortune, but underneath it all she was just insane. She killed just to kill, which is the most terrifying of criminals. Here she was raped by her brother and had the baby and put it up for adoption. When the baby, all growed up, shows up in Wychwood, well, ANYONE who might have known her horrid secret must be killed. It all kind of eliminates the evil... because the killer was a victim who was only trying to cover up a horrible secret she's kept hidden for years. She is sympathetic, to an extent. But you can at least understand the motive... It just makes the story less than. A classic full of sinister townsfolk or a tragedy that has repercussions for years to come... I wanted a mystery, a proper tale of criminals and instead I got this. It just didn't feel worthy of Christie. It comes from modern sensibilities that want to understand and feel pity for the killer. There can't just be evil, that is now reserved for the realms of horror. A mystery has to be complex and understanding and despite being the bestseller of all time ITV felt that they knew better. Personally this was the end of Marple for me, and if I could give one final piece of advice, if would be to Luke Fitzwillim; don't get involved with the girl. She's the product of incestuous rape and her mother was a serial killer. Crazy runs in her family so now you go and run for the hills.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: Adaptation, Agatha Christie, Alterations, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benediction, Geraldine McEwan, Incest, ITV, Julie McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, Murder, Murder is Easy, Poirot, Rape, Russell Tovey, Sherlock

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 5th, 1939
Format: Hardcover, 223 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Luke Fitzwilliam has returned to England from police duty in the Mayang Straits. He's been away from England for years and his return is a mixed bag. He won a packet on the Derby but his train left without him when he was checking the results. Catching the next train up to London he meets Lavinia Pinkerton, an elderly lady who reminds him of his Aunt. Luke humors her and listens to her reasons about going up to London. She believes there is a serial killer in her small town who now has their sights set on the nice Dr. Humbleby and she is determined to tell Scotland Yard all about it because the other deaths were nasty people but Dr. Humbleby is a different kettle of fish. Luke thinks she's an old dear who's a little batty, but when he later reads of her sudden death as well as the death of Dr. Humbleby he remembers her talking about how murder is really quite easy and there's a look in the eyes of the killer. He decides it's only right to investigate. With the help of his friend who happens to have a cousin down in Wychwood under Ashe Luke poses as a writer researching a book on witchcraft and superstitious beliefs that still survive in small communities. Luke hopes this will let him talk about the recent deaths in the town, totaling six when he arrives in the village. But will there be more deaths? And is Luke putting himself in danger by investigating in the first place?

I started this year by reading a murder mystery by one of Christie's contemporaries oddly enough published in the same year as Murder is Easy. Going from No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer to Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie the shift is so dramatic it's patently obvious why Christie is the bestselling author of all time and the "Queen of Crime." Instead of waiting hundreds of pages for a crime to actually be committed, Christie starts with a high body count right out of the gate. She builds the suspense while building her characters, instead of focusing on one or the other and therefore sacrificing quality. Heyer spun things out to excruciating lengths and in the end created a book that was unsatisfying more than anything else. If you're going to do a murder mystery, you kind of need both of those elements. My most favorite mysteries are the ones that follow in the vein of Christie; high body counts with quirky characters and a fun enough journey with plenty of red herrings that the narrative is a cohesive whole. Perhaps that's why I love Midsomer Murders so much, if any show followed Christie on body count alone, it would be Midsomer Murders. Also, this isn't to say Christie is infallible... she does trip up and get stuck in her own devices sometimes, Endless Night anyone? But Murder is Easy is thankfully a classic Christie.

Though, for me, there is rarely a book that is flawless. I mean, there are people out there that actually think for something to be perfect there has to be one flaw for them to pick at. I'm not one of those people, though it might occasionally seem so to others. But Murder is Easy did have a big flaw in it's leading man. Yes, let's talk about Luke Fitzwilliam. Luke is... well Luke must not have been very good at his job out east. Or, if he was good at it, it was with a kind of straightforward bluster that can, occasionally, make a decent cop. Why I've come to this conclusion is that he has no natural ability for subterfuge. He's "supposed" to be in Wychwood under Ashe as an author researching a book... does he ever really commit to this cover? No. About five minutes in he's already telling his friend's cousin who is putting him up, Bridget Conway, the real reason he's there. Um, couldn't she be a suspect? Or is she just too pretty? All his questions to the townsfolk are obviously about the recent spat of deaths, he doesn't once really try to talk about superstition and witchcraft. Which is a shame. Because I was kind of looking forward to a witchy element to this book, especially as Christie set the stage with the town's history for supernatural activity, but then she never followed through. The murders took precedent over Luke's cover and, well, I just was annoyed.

But Luke's inability to dissemble isn't nearly as bad as the forced romance between him and Bridget Conway. Christie does seem to have a need to not only solve the crime but to match off a couple by the end of her books. Like catching the criminal isn't enough. For a true happy ending there must be a marriage to boot. It could be a product of her times, this was released in 1939, but still, think of all the romantic partnerships of crime solvers there are... in fact, could we trace this all back to Christie? OK, that's getting off course, but if she's the reason we have everyone from Nick and Nora to Caskett... I think I'll give her a slid. On most. Not on Luke and Bridget. Because seriously, there is NO chemistry between them. None. In a play or a movie you can understand a lack of chemistry, the leads just weren't able to connect. In a book, there's NO reason for this. The author controls everything and there's no moment where you look at Luke and Bridget and go, "yes, they were meant to be." Luke sees a pretty girl and just decides to fall for her. She, for no apparent reason, is willing to give up a comfortable life with a wealthy man just to what? Marry a poor man who is more in love with the idea of her than her? Seriously. They do not a couple make. But Christie needed the supposed connection for the reveal of the killer... so maybe if she had just worked backwards from that a little more convincingly?

Yet it's Christie's ability to throw so many red herrings at us that we feel as if we're at a fish market that makes her books transcend character issues. She is able to believable posit, through Luke's investigation, so many murder suspects that you're never quite sure. Yes, I am one of those people who try to solve the crime as I'm reading, but if it's a good enough ride I can be swept away and buy into the plausibility of any single person being the killer. What I particularly liked was Luke was continually making up lists with reasons why each person was guilty or innocent. Yet his lists often omitted things, or didn't quite convey what I felt was uncovered in interrogations that we got to be privy too. Therefore we are able to see beyond Luke's narrow mind and see that the suspect pool is far bigger. This allows for Christie to go wild with her red herrings. In fact, just simple turns of phrase, assumptions about how people talk, all these play into the eventual reveal. In fact, it wasn't until minutes before the reveal that I had the aha moment. Where I could fully see her intricate web and who was really at the center pulling all the threads. I used to have this wonderful t-shirt that was for Mystery! by Edward Gorey that had a tree with clues, suspects, and the red herrings being the only items in color. I loved that shirt and I think that shirt captures the feeling of reading Murder is Easy. It's all there, it's all perfect, you just have to wait for Christie to pull back the curtain. Because she really is the master at this game.