What a beautiful movie!

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?

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Winter are happily engaged. Elinor's aunt is receives is Laura Welman, wealthy but ailing and bed-ridden. Elinor receives an anonymous letter, warning her that someone will try to gain favour with Mrs Welman, to her expense. Her aunt's doctor, Doctor Peter Lord, contacts Hercule Poirot to investigate. Mrs Welman dies with no will, and, as her next-of-kin, Elinor receives everything. Elinor. Shortly before her death, Mary Gerrard, an old friend of the family, reappears after a long absence. Roddy falls for her and this ends his engagement to Elinor. Elinor is openly resentful of Mary ending her relationship with Roddy and says she wished Mary was dead. One afternoon, Mary stops by for tea and sandwiches with Elinor and a short while later is found dead, poisoned. After a thorough investigation, which Poirot assisted in, Elinor is charged with and ultimately found guilty of the murders of Mary and Mrs Welman. She is sentenced to hang. Doctor Lord insists that Elinor is innocent and implores Poirot to reinvestigate the case. Poirot agrees, resulting in a race against time to save Elinor.Clever and intriguing. The number of suspects is quite small, but you're never sure which it is. Motives by anyone other than Elinor appear non-existent, making things more difficult. So, the murderer is very well hidden, making the case even more interesting.Sad Cypress does have a similar story and feel to Mrs McGinty's Dead. However, Sad Cypress has a much more plausible plot, especially backstory and motive.In the great tradition of the Poirot series, a great supporting cast. The notable names this time are Paul McGann (of Withnail and I and Hornblower fame) and Kelly Reilly (True Detective S2, among other things).

"Sad Cypress" is an absorbing Poirot mystery, and features some familiar names to those of us who love British mysteries.The story begins at the trial of Elinor Carlisle (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh) at which Poirot is present. She has been accused of murdering her rival, Mary Gerrard (Kelly Reilly). Her aunt's doctor (Paul McGann) insists to Poirot that Elinor could not have done it and begs Poirot for help. He goes to the house to investigate, but finds himself at a disadvantage. Everyone seems to be lying to him, including the doctor.Elinor, Mary, and Elinor's fiancée, Roddy (Rupert Penry-Jones) were all childhood friends. Elinor receives an anonymous letter indicating that her expected inheritance from her aunt (Diana Quick) is in danger thanks to an interloper. She and Roddy go to visit their aunt and find that Mary has returned after being away from some time. The aunt is very ill and being attended to by a nurse and Mary.After being at the house for several days, it becomes apparent to Elinor that Roddy and Mary are not only attracted to one another but acting on it. Elinor breaks off the engagement. While at the house, Elinor's aunt dies, and Elinor, knowing had she not died, her aunt wanted Mary to have some money, gives her some money from the estate.Later, she has a luncheon for Mary and the nurse (Phyllis Logan). Mary is found dead of poisoning later on. When her aunt's body is exhumed at Poirot's insistence, it turns out she was also poisoned. Elinor is accused and put on trial. She admits to wanting Mary dead.I thought Rupert Penry-Jones looked familiar, but his hair is very blond in this so I didn't realize he was Carter on MI-5 and the star of so many other British shows. Phyllis Logan was a mainstay on Lovejoy. Beautiful Kelly Reilly had her own series for a time, Above Suspicion, and has also had a recurring role on True Detective and the series Black Box.Very absorbing, with the usual high production values. There were comments of Suchet slowing down as Poirot. Perhaps - in this program, he appears less than usual, but he is excellent. I do miss Japp, Hastings, and Miss Lemon, and I frankly don't understand why they weren't used in later episodes.The plot is a little contrived, but watch and enjoy.

You know, some of these Poirot adaptations are palatable. And some are dreadful. This is one of the dreadful ones. I'll concede one thing: the casting is near perfect, considering the limits of TeeVee. The faces and bearing of the characters are apt, though Suchet bothers me more as his years in to role dragged on.It had already been more than a decade by this one, and you can see that where Christie's character was playing with aggressive intelligence a character imagined in his home land, Suchet is merely copying motions he made before that were vaguely comic.(Its part of the joke. Sherlock Holmes cared not a whit about how he looked or whether his mental feats were ever known. Indeed, in several stories he hides his accomplishments. But Poirot is obsessive about his appearance, his food and how he is perceived. He is motivated to solve crime not because of an inner conflict with evil, but in how he can best evil in order to advance in the battle against himself.) But what kills this is the script. It takes away the magic of the standard final confrontation where Poirot confronts all the suspects and explains how each of them "did" it, settling on one who really did. In that instant, we are supposed to see how all we have seen now makes sense.But in this case it doesn't. Little of it makes sense. We don't discover why any of the characters acted as they did, and surely not the murderer. We don't know why the elevator went up and down mysteriously, nor why "sandwich paste" figures in at all.Its the least complete of any I have seen. The whole room of viewers I was with had no idea what had happened after it was over. You need to avoid this one.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Another one of those "as suggested by the novel" types of productions. After watching it, I went back and read the book. This version is kind of like what you'd get if you dropped the book in a blender, then started picking out bits and stringing them together. Although it strays considerably from the original, it begins and ends in pretty much the same place, and the arc of the original story stays generally intact. Plus since the book isn't one of Christie's better novels, it doesn't much matter. The production is done in a relentlessly dark and moody style that works OK, although why they made such a big deal out of the elevator in the house I don't know; its one of the things not in the original at all, and its an expensive prop that didn't add anything for me.