All humans, past and present, have certain things in common such as language, economy or some form of social hierarchy. There's another thing that all humans have but not many people acknowledge: secrets. Whether it's something small like not telling your mom it was you who took the last cookie from the jar or something with much more serious consequences, everyone has things they'd rather have swept under the rug and forgotten about. Skeletons in the closet as it were. Secrets can ruin and even end lives. Let's take a look at 10 people whose secrets catch up to them with fatal results.
And Then There Were None is a novel by British writer Agatha Christie. It was published in 1939 and to this day remains the best selling mystery novel of all time! The dark clouds of the Second World War were looming on the horizon. That's apparent both in real life and the book and its adaptations. How many adaptations you ask? Well there's a whopping 10 film adaptations and 8 series adaptations and at least 2 stage versions that I can think of. It remains Christie's most adapted novel by far! The adaptation I'm reviewing today is a three episode miniseries released in 2015. I'm positive this will be a pretty long review as I absolutely love this adaptation.
Now for the plot! I know I say spoiler warning a lot but I feel it's extremely important here! If you haven't read the book or seen any previous adaptations I'd strongly advise to stop reading and do that instead! The review will be here when you get back I promise. I'll steer clear of some big twists (I won't reveal who's killing the guests) because after all I do want you to watch the show! I am going to be talking about some characters and their hidden depths though so be warned.
As said before this adaptation is set in August of 1939. 10 strangers are invited for different reasons to Soldier Island (or Indian Island, depends on which adaptation you're watching), off the rocky coast of Devon, England. The island has no communication or ways to leave other than the morning boat. The guests are: Anthony Marston, a wealthy but reckless playboy, (played by Douglas Booth) self righteous spinster Emily Brent, (played by Miranda Richardson) Detective Sergeant William Blore, (played by Burn Gorman) retired judge Lawrence Wargrave, (played by Charles Dance) mysterious Philip Lombard, (played by Aidan Turner) Doctor Edward Armstrong, (played by Toby Stephens) General John MacArthur, (played by Sam Neill) and governess Vera Claythorne (played by Maeve Dermody). There's also two housekeepers, Thomas (played by Noah Taylor) and Ethel (played by Anna Maxwell Martin) Rogers.
The guests are having dinner and waiting for the hosts Mr. and Mrs. U.N. Owen to arrive. This isn't to be however and the festive mood is shattered when a mysterious voice accusing each of the 10 guests of committing horrible deeds all involving at least one person's death.
For example, Blore falsely testified in court to get a promotion and sent an innocent man to prison where he fell sick and died, (in the book, in this adaptation he outright kills the man, in this adaptation some of the characters and their victim's deaths (shown via flashbacks) are changed from the book due to potentially being "dull" on screen, which is understandable I suppose ) Doctor Armstrong operated on a patient while drunk and caused her death, Emily Brent fired a housemaid who was pregnant and the maid killed herself, etc.
To add to the chaos, a guest chokes to death on their drink and Doctor Armstrong determines it has been poisoned. The group is understandably disturbed by this sudden death but somewhat skeptical that the person in question would commit suicide. Then another guest dies and another after that, all of the deaths eerily coinciding with a morbid nursery rhyme hung up in every guest's room. This third death is undeniably murder and fear turns the guests against one another with paranoia reigning supreme. The remaining guests can't leave due to the bad weather. Who is hunting them and who will be the next victim?
Several actors and actresses in this adaptation stuck out in particular to me as being exceptionally good. Burn Gorman ( Sergeant Blore) immediately made me a fan with his performance. Gorman often plays characters that are either forgettable henchman or comic relief, however in this miniseries he really shows that he can give a marvelous performance.
He's one of the last to be killed (I told you there'd be spoilers) and before he does he achieves some little measure of sympathy by breaking down and tearfully confessing that he did murder his victim. In this adaptation his victim, a man named Stephen Landor, is heavily implied to be homosexual, (homosexuality being stigmatized and illegal at the time and for several decades in England after) and the bigoted Blore kills him by kicking Landor to death in his holding cell. If only Blore could've faced this fact earlier without the threat of being murdered for his actions. Too little, too late. And Then There Were None is very good at causing the audience to sympathize with otherwise unsympathetic characters.
I had no clue who Maeve Dermody was so I was interested what she'd bring to the role of Vera Claythorne, former governess to a one Cyril Hamilton. Cyril also has an uncle named Hugo. Vera's story is quite tragic if you don't investigate too closely. She was in charge of caring for little Cyril and did so for a while until one sunny day, a tragic accident happened when they were at the beach and Cyril drowned as a result of trying to swim to a rocky promontory. We, the audience, follow Vera and feel her guilt over his death.
However it turns out that Vera is arguably the most heartless of all the guests and it's revealed that she convinced Cyril to swim to the rock knowing he wouldn't make it all the way and drown. The Hamilton's were very rich you see and when he grew up Cyril would've inherited all that wealth leaving Hugo without a penny. Vera fell in love with Hugo and she decided that with young Cyril out of the picture, she and Hugo could take the late Cyril's money and elope with Hugo. However, Hugo somehow catches wind of these accusations (Vera having fooled the jury conducting an inquest) and rejects her advances.
Maeve does a brilliant job in making it seem like she's the protagonist and has done nothing wrong. It's only until the third episode until we realize that this portrayal of Vera is even darker than the original book had done! In the novel it's implied that Vera urges Cyril to swim to the rock as a kind of impulsive, not well thought out action. In this portrayal however she is much colder and instead of swimming out and trying to momentarily save Cyril, (as in the book) in this adaptation she frantically swims out and, once she's out of sight from onlookers, lazily backstrokes and waits for Cyril to tire and sink beneath the waves. Then Vera could claim she tried to save him with no witnesses to say otherwise. This definitely caught me by surprise and disturbed me because I didn't know how much darker the story could even be!
I wish I could talk about more of the actors and actresses and their roles but I don't want to spend all of your time so I'll just give a few honorable mentions. I honestly think that Douglas Booth was made for the role of Anthony Marston. Even though he dies in the first episode, he's instantly memorable as outwardly extremely charming but shallow and obsessed about parties and public appearances. Very underrated actor for sure with a lot of emotional range.
Aidan Turner is from now on who I think as Lombard. Lombard just so blunt and honest with his crimes and while they're horrific and callous, it's interesting that he and Marston are the only ones who admit what they've done when confronted with the record detailing everyone's past crimes. Granted Marston was incapable of feeling sympathy anyway. Miranda Richardson does very well at aggravating me (in a good way) with her portrayal of cold and brutally judgmental Emily Brent.
While trying to come up with pros and cons of this adaptation I could only think of small plot nitpicks and that should be a sign to you that I liked it very much. Here is one plot inconsistency that I found: In the book Emily Brent dies by being "stung by a bee": injected with poison from a hypodermic syringe. In this adaptation she dies by being stabbed in the neck by her own knitting needle which happens to be monogrammed with a capital B. That just seems like the killer, and in extension the screenwriter, who was previously so obsessed with following the macabre poem got a bit lazy.
And Then There Were None was directed by Craig Viveiros and produced by Abi Bach. The haunting yet majestic music was directed by Stuart Earl. John Pardue was in charge of cinematography. He did very well with every camera angle and shot adding something of substance to the show. I don't often talk about costume design but that was done by Lindsay Pugh and that combined with the set and art direction by Charlie Lynam and Philippa Broadhurst, it ends up making you feel like you're genuinely in the 1930's. The visual effects supervisor was Gary J. Brown and the special effects by Colin Gorry. These are all very well done as well as makeup by Lacey Corbould. The fake injuries you can make with enough time... very detailed and gruesome for sure (poor Mr. Rogers).
This adaptation has it all: emotional scenes with great acting, great music, interesting filming techniques, excellent set design, costumes and effects. The mood and tone generally stays consistent and when they shift they do so smoothly and it thankfully doesn't feel like you're watching a completely different show. If this feels like you've read a review with too much bias towards the positive, you're right! I pride myself on being a relatively impartial judge of film and television but this show has an overwhelming number of positives compared to negatives. I enjoy this show immensely and hope you'll watch it and feel the same way!
Ok that's it for now.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Conrad Smith
PS: My blog is over a year old and that seems trivial but still means a lot to me. Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate you all!
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| Burgh Island off of Devon, England. This island is reportedly the inspiration behind Agatha Christie's Soldier/Indian Island. |
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