Teresa Reviews “N or M?” (2015) More like N. O. P. E.

Fidelity to text: One gun.

As in the previous Partners in Crime adaptation (The Secret Adversary), the names matched. Everything else, large and small, was altered and nearly always for the worse.

Quality of movie on its own: One and 1/2 guns.

The sets were outstanding as were the wardrobes. We laughed often, sometimes when the script called for it! All the other laughs came from the lame and inane script. We also really enjoyed our cheese plate. Thank God I had some wine left over from when my sister visited. I needed that glass.

What a way to start the new year. We sat through a terrible, inept adaptation of one of Agatha’s more underrated novels with her underrated detectives, Tommy and Tuppence. On the other hand, that means there’s nowhere to go from here but up.

As with The Secret Adversary, N 0r M? needed a working script. There were times when the movie genuinely came to life and we laughed where we were supposed to. Those times felt few and far between because the in-betweens were Godawful. Three or four more rewrites of the script and this adaptation could have worked. It’s not like the BBC can’t afford schmucks with Underwoods to write coherent narratives. They spent plenty of bucks on fabulous location shooting, gorgeous fifty’s vintage sets, cars, and wardrobes. But no. No actual writers were on hand or were harmed or were paid.

Some of the mistakes were so basic! Let’s start with Tommy’s newest get-rich-quick scheme: Beresford’s Barnets. Supposedly, barnets are wigs. Wigs often feature in Agatha’s novels, usually when a character is concealing their identity or setting up an alibi. Okay. Wigs were also very popular in the 1950s so why wouldn’t Tommy invest still more of his and Tuppence’s lack of money into wigs. Yet Tommy uses the word “barnet.” I’ve never heard of this word before and some googling led to where the word came from. It’s Cockney rhyming slang for hair. Yet our Tommy tells Tuppence that this is classy and will attract a better class of buyers.

As if. Any reasonably competent writer (or unpaid intern) could have learned what I just learned in two minutes. If Tommy wanted the alliteration, he should have said so. Or made a joke. Anything! Or maybe this was intended as an only-in-England joke to further demonstrate Tommy’s complete ineptness. But why didn’t Tuppence call him on it?

By the way, if you’re wondering what happened to Beresford’s bees? Colony Collapse Disorder cropped up and conveniently killed all of Tommy’s bees. Could he investigate this mystery? No, he could not, moving instead to another get-rich-quick scheme bound to fail.

Here’s another groaner that made me yell at the TV screen. N is our mysterious superspy villain. No one has any idea who N is. No one even knows if N is a man or a woman. Yet at the climax, N is revealed and has the opportunity to shoot everyone who knows N’s identity. Yet N does not! This makes zero sense. Less than zero sense. Superspies, particularly if they’ve gone freelance as N supposedly has, never let their identity be known. Yet N, because their life is over, allows a whole slew of witness to live.

Spare me.

If you recall the novel, N did not work alone. N had a partner, code-named M. M was written out of the script. Yet the character remains in the film, fulfilling the same role as in the novel. But they are not ever revealed as M, despite being M.

One of the truly interesting themes in N or M?, the novel, is its setting. Agatha wrote and published it in 1941. Although she wrote contemporaries, they are kind of timeless. She doesn’t pay much attention to politics, who’s in charge, or current events. Not so with N or M? It is very much of its time, when Great Britain was fighting a desperate war for survival against the Axis forces. Dunkirk took place from 26 May through 4 June 1940. The London Blitz started soon after. Everyone in Great Britain knew that even more terrible things were in store for them. They did not know that the Allies would win the war. They didn’t know if Great Britain would survive as an independent nation. They were fighting alone because France had fallen, the rest of Europe was headed that way, and the United States had not entered the war. Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941) lay in the future.

This anxiety and fear run through the novel, imbuing every page with dread of what the future would bring. Every character knows that sons, brothers, fathers, uncles would die far away. At the same time, they were quickly learning that, unlike in the Great War (well within living memory), Great Britain itself was not safe. Bombs killed civilians indiscriminately, including babes in arms. Equally upsetting was the knowledge that very few people had any control over the momentous events happening around them. They had to cope as best they could.

Today, we look back on World War II and we don’t remember the paranoia and fear. We know how it ends. The people living through it did not. Think about what you were planning on 1 January 2020 for the upcoming year. Were you expecting to live through widespread shortages, a pandemic, mass quarantines, and having to wear masks whenever you set foot out of your home?

In early March of 2020, if I went into the bank wearing a mask, the tellers would call the police. A week later, if I went into the bank without a mask, the tellers would call the police. Did your crystal ball tell you this scenario back on 1 January 2020? Mine did not.

All of that underlaying fear and anxiety in early WWII was lost when the TV adaptation was moved to the Cold War. There was paranoia, along with plenty of rationing (which oddly does not show up in either Tommy and Tuppence film which, again, if any research had been done, would most certainly have done so). But the dread of knowing that every male in your family between sixteen and fifty was on the chopping block is gone. In 1952, the men in your family were either dead or back home.

There was so much wrong with this film. Here’s a minor bit. Tommy and Tuppence’s car was in a shambles at the end of The Secret Adversary. A few months later and the car, despite rationing and their lack of income, is showroom new. The only hint of money troubles is a stack of bills marked Past Due that Tommy riffles through.

Another point that sticks in my craw. The nuclear scientist gone rogue steals the super-duper atomic bomb that he’s selling to N (I guess. It wasn’t made clear). He loads the bomb on the truck by himself (!) and then drives it out of the top-secret base and the guards don’t notice. Really? Really? When everyone is afraid there’s a commie under every bed? Then he leaves the second magic key hidden behind a paper-backed picture and the paper-backing looks like it came straight from the frame shop.

And how about that femme fatale blonde assassin? Six feet tall, full-length fur coat, cheekbones to die for, and striding through the scenery like a Valkyrie and no one notices. She steals a lorry and runs over a man in front of Tommy and Tuppence after lurking outside the umbrella shop that they’re lurking inside and they don’t spot her.

Tommy and Tuppence bicker throughout. Yet, unlike in the novels, there’s never any sensation of passion between them. They adored each other in the novels, to the point that their daughter, Deborah (gone and replaced by the conveniently-away-at-camp George) comments on how sweet it is to see them holding hands despite their advanced age of 46.

Agatha’s novels are full of passion, yet it typically goes unnoticed. I suppose that the mere concept of happily married people who still have the hots for each other after twenty years is unacceptable to us moderns.

Instead, we get Tommy emulating Homer Simpson but without the manliness. Worse, Tuppence is not like Marge Simpson who adores her husband and has a lot of common sense. She’s more like Lucy Ricardo with that edge of contempt towards Ricky, except when Ricky saves her from her idiocy. Except I can’t accept Tuppence’s adoration of Tommy like I can of Marge for Homer. Homer does come through, on occasion. When Tommy does, it’s by accident.

I did work out the reason for Tommy’s magical facial hair: he never has any, despite how far away he is from a razorblade. It’s a symbol of his complete lack of testosterone.

Should you watch this? I know that films are not novels. Novels need to be rewritten for films and, sometimes, to suit changing times. I understand combining characters or removing them altogether because a film doesn’t have enough time. This adaptation, however, had nearly three hours to fill. They could have used more of the original plot, even with changing the setting to 1952.

Yeesh. The answer is no. Save your time for something better.

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