Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Diagonaldi Very well executed

LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

GazerRise Fantastic!

vincentlynch-moonoi We're all used to films that are supposed to be historical or biographical and take wide liberties. But this film takes that to a new level -- it takes a real event (the disappearance of Agatha Christie) and ADMITTEDLY makes up a totally fictional story to fit the shell. If you want to take liberties with a true story, okay, I can accept that to make a story more interesting. But to TOTALLY fictionalize a story is akin to telling a lie. Why not just make the story without connecting it to real people and real events.On the other hand, despite that moral reservation, I actually liked the movie. It's interesting fiction. It's richly filmed in rather lavish settings of the era.The key here is the acting, more than the story. Vanessa Redgrave depressingly good as depressed Agatha Christie. Many actresses could not have carried this film. I've always liked Dustin Hoffman, but here I feel he's a bit too formally reserved as his newspaperman character. Timothy Dalton is excellent as the dastardly husband of Christie.Here's the problem -- SPOILER WARNING -- the film, while claiming to be fiction, essentially accuses Christie of attempting to commit suicide by having her husband's mistress unknowingly murder her. No wonder Christie descendants sued, twice (unsuccessfully). It just doesn't seem kosher.

JasparLamarCrabb An ingenious supposition of what happened to the writer Agatha Christie during the 11 days she disappeared in the 1920s. In this Michael Apted directed film, Christie checked into a British spa in pursuit of the woman her husband was having an affair with. Vanessa Redgrave plays Christie and Dustin Hoffman is an American reporter who is on to her. Hoffman is woefully miscast but Redgrave is brilliant, playing Christie as a neurotic introvert sorely lacking any self-esteem. What she does have is a very sinister imagination, which she puts to good use. The film is an exquisitely shot (by Vittorio Storaro no less) thriller with great production values & a first-rate supporting cast, including Timothy Dalton as Christie's callous husband. A flop when first released, this film is in dire need of rediscovery.

Robert J. Maxwell The two writers seem to have had the great idea of turning Agatha Christie's real life 1926 disappearance into a typical Agatha Christie tale. But twist it how they may, the historical facts don't fit too well into the fictional template.Let's put it this way. In a typical Agatha Christie story, we are first introduced to a handful of characters, then an apparently impossible crime is committed, then the surprise solution comes at the end.But in the case of Christie's disappearance, no crime is committed. Vanessa Redgrave, as Dame Agatha, is having trouble with her husband's infidelity and takes off, half blind with anguish, to find herself at a hotel specializing in electrical baths. Yes, electrical baths. People come from miles around to take the waters and get the electrical baths to improve their health and good looks.There is a mystery -- what happened to her? -- but it's rather quickly solved by Dustin Hoffman as an American columnist anxious to sniff out her whereabouts and get a scoop. Under an alias, he joins her at the hotel and tries to insinuate himself into her confidence. He succeeds to an extent.But as far as the viewer is concerned, there really is no mystery because we've followed Christie on her desperate attempt to escape her marital travails. The central third of the film is taken up with encounters between Hoffman and Redgrave. Hoffman finds himself falling for Redgrave, but you need second sight to see it. There is no, well, no electricity between them. Except for one scene, Hoffman always is loud and intrusive and Redgrave reticent and receding. What's worse, she's about one foot taller than he is. When they dance, it's like watching figures in a cartoon.The big reveal at the end does come as a surprise but not the kind we might have been expecting. Redgrave is fooling around with the electronic junk that controls the current in the electrical bath. Why? We find out finally after a lot of inconsequential footage and it's an ingenious scheme but it fails. No crime is committed after all.The most distinctive feature of the movie are the performances by Hoffman and Redgrave. Redgrave is tall and bony but what an actress. She conveys passion without the hint of an explosion. And Hoffman has never given a more stylized performance -- stiff, stilted, precise, with the automatic movements of an animatronic figure from Disneyland's Hall of Presidents. And that voice! He's an American but his locution, his whole demeanor, is British. If he ever blinked on screen, I missed it. Maybe I was blinking at the same time. Both of the performances can take your breath away.The score is by Johnny Mandel ("Suicide is Painless," "The Shadow of Your Smile.") It's melodious, melancholy, and lends itself to all sort of genres, like "Point Blank," a unique noir.It's easy enough to watch and it's entertaining because of the presence of Hoffman and Redgrave. I wish they hadn't tried to copy Agatha Christie.

Movie_Man 500 Well photographed, carefully edited film, swimming in supposition. Almost quietly performed. Overall sense of loss and heartache gives further readings into Christie's books a tinged sense of sadness. Mannered but sympathetic acting by the 2 strong leads, balance well off the 2 sort of "villians": the snobby mistress and the caddish husband, played with icy detachment by the future and all too brief James Bond. The stunning visuals look especially nice on a large screen.