AGATHA AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDERS (2020) – A truly dreadful whodunit

Agatha Christie is arguably the best selling murder mystery fiction writer of all times. Her vast collection of novels have been made into many movies and TV series. As a Christie fan myself, I am always on the look out for new film adaptations of her works. So, this new film that provides a fictional account of Agatha Christie in a murder mystery of her own, caught my interest immediately, especially given that there wasn’t any new mini series adaptation this past year.

Sadly, Agatha and The Midnight Murders is nothing but a poor attempt at murder mystery that shamelessly uses Agatha’s name to garner unauthorised association. The plot has Christie stuck with a bunch of suspicious characters in a bomb shelter of a small London hotel due to some crazy circumstances. Everybody behaves like they have some deep secret to hide and hence present themselves as a potential suspect to the murder(s) that inevitably takes place during the course of the night. Everything is exaggerated and the mounting number of body counts in over the course of the night felt quite frankly, ridiculous. The film also does not seem to be able to decide if it is a comedy or a serious whodunit and ends up being neither. The worst sin of all is that it made Dame Agatha Christie (played by British actress Helen Baxendale, who is not particularly well known) look like a fool which is something that is unforgiveable to all her avid fans.

Not surprisingly, when the film finally ended, a disclaimer was flashed on the screen in the tiniest of font size that read: “This film has not been endorsed, licensed, or authorised by the estate of Agatha Christie or by Agatha Christie Limited”! If they had flashed this warning right at the start of the film or on any of its promotional poster, I would have not thought twice to bother watching this. Alas, I have to treat this as a lesson learnt the hard way.