The ABC Murders

Thanks to this engaging--and slyly timely--adaptation of Christie’s 1936 novel, it ably earns first-runner-up status. ... Poirot’s arrogance, of course, remains. Yet in Malkovich’s skillful hands, the detective is a more detached and interior genius, destabilized by his shaky professional standing and, also, by the long-ago catastrophe that made him who he is today.

An elaborately fleshed-out Poirot history is the most audacious aspect of this “ABC Murders,” which, as the original dictates, abounds in red herrings and overly broad supporting characters. ... No one will ever call Mr. Malkovich a minimalist, but he does strip away the customary flamboyance, thus making Poirot new.

Why does this murky version of Christie’s 1936 novel occasionally hit wearisome and plodding stretches? It’s never because of Malkovich’s portrayal. It’s the directing and writing that comes up short. ... Despite the erratic nature of the direction, “The ABC Murders” often is gripping fare, with each installment serving up more than its share of fiercely memorable moments.

It feels more like a post-Dickens True Detective, putting fabled sleuth Hercule Poirot and his cloudy past under the microscope. [4-17 Feb 2019, p.13]

Malkovich’s detective lacks his spirit. ... This detective is subdued, almost meek. He is an imposter.

The ABC Murders is Phelps’s most thorough teardown yet, and this time she’s so suffocatingly revisionist that what’s left isn’t really Christie at all. The insistence on making everything grimmer and grosser is almost comically complete. ... Phelps is so focused on her combination of chic malaise and sensationalism that she doesn’t give the actors anything human to play, or anything witty to play with.

Too many liberties were taken with its structure to make it work as well as it should, and the dark, dull tone is a disappointment.

Phelps struggles to thematically relate the fascism that envelopes the show’s setting to the story’s events as they unfold, or even to Poirot’s modus operandi as a detective. The detective remains a cipher, humorlessly bearing the weight of a tragic origin story and a nation’s decay on his shoulders. In the end, The ABC Murders suffocates the enthralling, exciting qualities of a detective mystery beneath a layer of self-regarding grimness.