disgusting, overrated, pointless

Boring

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

A friend of Poirot's, Gilbert Entwhistle, contacts Poirot, asking him to look into the death of Richard Abernethie. Abernethie changed his will shortly before his death, leaving nothing to George Abernethie who had previously been the sole beneficiary. Also of concern is the death of Cora Galaccio, murdered the day after Abernethie's funeral. Could there be a link between the two deaths?Intriguing drama, as you would expect from the series. Good tension and mystery and David Suchet is in top form.The cast includes an early-career Michael Fassbender as George Abernethie.

I enjoyed the TV version of _After the Funeral_ more than the book, but that's not saying much, because I didn't appreciate the novel very much. It features one of the best plot devices, in terms of the whodunnit, from among all of Agatha Christie books. Yet that is, at the same time, a pitfall: the whodunnit is so memorable that if you've only watched or read it once, you're likely to remember it for the rest of your life. Nope, it's not *quite* as memorable as in _Murder on the Orient Express_ or _And Then There Were None_, but it does belong to that highly memorable category.This means that in order to retain the reader's or viewer's interest for a *repeated* reading or viewing, the book or film in question must offer more than the whodunnit itself. In this respect, I thought that the novel, whose writing I found rather dreary, failed; but the TV rendition succeeded.There is a severe limitation imposed on the episodes of the acclaimed _Poirot_ TV series starring David Suchet: none of the episodes is permitted to exceed 90 minutes or so of runtime. Yet this is definitely not enough runtime for some of Agatha Christie's finest whodunnits, such as _Evil Under the Sun_ or _Death on the Nile_. The David Suchet versions of these mysteries positively suffer due to the necessity of being squeezed into 90 minutes or so of runtime, whereas the same mysteries starring Peter Ustinov, being allowing to extend luxuriously to the full Hollywood greatness of 120+ minutes of runtime, do justice to Agatha Christie's original books.Fortunately, what is a weakness and limitation for bringing Christie's finest mysteries to the screen, is an advantage in relation to her lesser works, such as _After the Funeral_. There is so much non-essential stuff in this novel that the TV makers could very well afford to pick and choose only the most important facets of the story. Even so, you can feel the unwholesome pressure of the 90 minutes of runtime in the too hurried introduction of the various family members a.k.a. crime suspects at the very beginning of the episode. Yet thereafter, the story on the screen "hangs together" much better, to my mind, than the rather unnecessarily sprawling original novel.This is to a great extent thanks to excellent acting performances by the ensemble here. The acting in the TV version is outstanding -- yet Christie's writing in the underlying book is mediocre at best. So even at the pure level of craftsmanship, the film surpasses the book. The main star of this TV episode definitely is not David Suchet but Monica Dolan, delivering the clue(s) to unravel the mystery.At the same time, while watching _After the Funeral_, you can't help feeling you're watching a "parlour game": a smart one, to be sure, but rather removed from real life. The actors' performances are admirable, yet simultaneously somewhat too stagy, theatrical, and stuffy. You're watching an exquisitely crafted *artificial* product here.You might also frequently feel like you're watching a *historical* movie, due to the flawless recreation of the 1930s, mainly in terms of resplendent costuming, period vehicles, etc. Even Monica Dolan's drab costumes are resplendent in how suitably drab they are.In fact, that is another reason as to why the TV version of _After the Funeral_ is more enjoyable to watch than it is to read the original book: the book is engulfed in a depressive post-World War II mood, with Christie constantly lamenting as to the state of the world. You get to hear *some* of it in the TV version, too, but in tolerable doses (mainly from the mouth of a cranky hypochondriac); after all, this is still the inter-war period, and the Great Depression doesn't affect parlour games in English countryside estates all that much.David Suchet's ("French British") enunciation, sudden radiant smiles, and mannerisms are as flawless as ever in this episode. At the same time, I do not see Suchet as the ideal Poirot *physically*: he seems too fat and rotund for my vision of Poirot. Yes, the Poirot I have always envisioned is a rather small, fussy man, but by no means have I ever imagined him to be fat and rotund. Just like Peter Ustinov is too tall to fit Poirot physically, yet he captures him very well *mentally*, in the same way, I find Suchet to be too fat and rotund to fit Poirot physically, yet again, he captures Poirot brilliantly in terms of his mentality. To my eyes, two great actors -- Ustinov and Suchet -- have blessed us with two different portrayals of Poirot, each distinctly their own: and both actors have somehow managed to hit home with their portrayal, despite what one might describe as their "physical incongruities".

As most other reviewers seem to agree, this adaptation of 'After The Funeral' is very good indeed. Always one of my favourite Poirot stories I was worried that it might be 'messed about with'. Well, it was a little bit but ONLY a little bit and the end the result was thoroughly entertaining. David Suchet continues to be well nigh faultless as Poirot and (as others have pointed out) the other star of this show is Monica Dolan who surely could not be bettered as Miss Gilchrist. I also really enjoyed Fiona Glasscott who was spot on as the cutting Rosamund Shane but really, the casting was quite impeccable throughout! One point is knocked off for the adaptors not being able to resist cramming too many revelations into the final fifteen minutes. The business with the will and house deeds was all a bit unnecessary although I didn't mind how they tightened up the structure of the Abernethie family (in the book the family tree IS really quite complicated). The final moments when the murderer is revealed however are really incredibly well done and I found the very end, when they all leave Enderby, quite touching. This is really one of the very best of the Poirot series so far.

For those of you still in the dark, I will not spoil this Christie, as it is definitely one of her finest works, and I stress that you should see it whenever you next have free time! If any of the adaptations are to be watched before (or in lieu of) reading the book, I would suggest "After the Funeral" for the following reasons.I wanted to praise the performance by Monica Dolan (Miss Gilchrist), whose employer-companion Cora is brutally murdered at the outset of the film. Her portrayal of a shocked, nervous, insignificant woman is actually moving, especially when she has a moment of personal connection with Poirot, another person who travels alone in "the journey of life." And when the murderer is being revealed in typical Poirot denouement fashion, Dolan's reactions to the revelation are acting at its finest: you feel as angry at the murderer as you do sympathetic to Miss Gilchrist... something uncommon in Christie lore.Although there are a couple of discrepancies between novel and film adaptation, as per usual (the business of the will perhaps making less sense in the film), the unbelievably lavish recreation of post-war England, thoroughly high calibre of acting and directing, and preservation (if not heightening) of Christie's mystery and intrigue render these discrepancies insignificant.Bravo Suchet, Dolan and the whole team for crafting this masterpiece of murder mystery theatre, and the producers who gave it the green light! Encore!