Here’s a riddle: what do you do when you want to make an Agatha Christie murder mystery, but you’re too cheap to buy the right to any of the books or characters? Invent a biography where Agatha herself plays detective! To tell the truth, my knowledge of copyright infringement is very weak, so I have no idea whether it’s actually cheaper to do this; I can only say that’s exactly what Agatha and the Truth of Murder feels like: a cut-rate Agatha Christie. That said, Agatha Christies are still mostly fun. Mostly.
In 1926, the real Agatha Christie (Ruth Bradley) went missing for 11 days. This screenplay insists she went “missing,” all pre-meditated, which I’m sure somebody could piece together if they only knew a good detective. Right before she skipped, Agatha expressed burnout frustration to her pal Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (was Hemingway not free that day?) as too many readers found her plots and suspects predictable. Well, Poirot my Marple! Something’s gotta be done. Just between you and me, she probably got sick of winning the Agatha every year; it’s no fun when you’re a lock. So peep dis, Holmes, Aggie gets a visit from three ghosts. Wait. Wrong English writer. Aggie gets visited by a woman named Mabel (Pippa Haywood), whose partner a few years earlier got on the Orient Express and never got off. To kill time, writer’s block, and genuine justice, Agatha goes undercover, hosting a castle sleepover with all the usual suspects. “Well, yeah, that’s kinda fun,” I hear you say. And you’re right; it is kinda fun. There’s a wink and a nudge as “not Agatha” talks crime novel Yelp with the train ticketeer, and look, there I am, front page news: Agatha Christie missing! Titter titter tee hee. The mystery itself, however, is a tad convoluted. I’m sure writer Tom Dalton wanted to create his own Christie mys’try, I mean, who wouldn’t? But honestly, the story is better when it’s tongue-in-cheek Agatha knowing full well she’s got all of the UK in a state looking for her. You know what? I wish Agatha Christie had been contemporary with Lewis Carroll; I think the two collaborating on an Alice murder mystery would have been delicious. Aw, screw it; Jasper Fforde is just gonna write it anyway if he hasn’t already. If you’re a die-hard Christie Minstrel, this film will satisfy a temporary need. You get a mystery; you get a little bio; you get a few stifled chuckles, but I cannot say this film played as much more than a made-for-TV indulgence, which is exactly what it is.Ten Christie sycophants watching on-line One found the Dark Web, and then there were nine
Nine Christie sycophants binging Netflix Subscriptions ran out, and then there were six
Six Christie sycophants all having fun
Trolls came a callin’, and Then There Were None*
Not Rated, 92 Minutes
Director: Terry Loane
Writer: Tom Dalton
Genre: The Secret Lives of Celebs
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Agatha Christie fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anybody who actually knows what happened during Christie’s “blackout”
*Parody Inspired by “Ten Little Indians”
