Teresa Reviews “Cat Among the Pigeons” (2008)

Teresa reviews “Cat Among the Pigeons” (2008) and reflects on how faraway events can touch the most safest and protected spaces.

Fidelity to text: 4 javelins

Mark Gatiss took a very complex plot and distilled it to its essence.

Quality of movie on its own: 4 javelins

Interesting film choices, sumptuous score, and a reasonably coherent narrative.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movies on her podcast.

The film has an intriguing opening. Scenes of the first day of term at a very posh British girls’ boarding school are intercut with the most unlikely-to-be-connected event possible: a violent revolution in a Middle East kingdom where two men fight to their deaths. They’re determined to take an honor guard to hell with them and succeed. The bodies stack up like cordwood.

What does a coup d’état have to do with a posh girl’s school, you ask? Plenty, as it turns out. This is one of the more interesting points of the film, one that I believe many viewers missed but I think about all the time.

Events happen in faraway places you barely knew existed and you have zero control over, yet those events directly affect your life. You can’t avoid the avalanche bearing down on you. That lack of control, of being the pawn of fate, is terrifying and pretending it’s not real doesn’t change a thing. We all have more control over our fate than we think we do, but only on the small, day–to-day stuff. The larger world does as it will, and we have to struggle with the aftershocks.

And so it proves here inside the golden bubble of Meadowbanks. The staff and students cannot escape the larger, more dangerous world. The coup so far away will dramatically alter lives and force staff and students to make sometimes very poor choices.

The Forbes family shows the coup’s effects in microcosm. Despite the cost, Mrs. Forbes wants Patricia in Meadowbanks because of the social status and connections. Her husband disagrees. Patricia doesn’t get a vote. She’s struggling in a situation not of her choice. She’s the butt of jokes and the target of Miss Springer’s sadism. For Patricia, the coup means rescue.

Princess Shaista is directly affected. That was her cousin, Prince Ali, being murdered by revolutionaries in the first scene. Since he’s dead, she won’t be marrying him. She inherits the throne of Ramat, assuming she can remain alive to claim it. She’s a prime kidnapping target. And in fact, she is kidnapped, presumably by the same brave rebels who murdered her betrothed.

Jennifer Sutcliffe’s a student who was with her mother in Ramat that fateful summer. That was her uncle Bob, fighting alongside Prince Ali in the royal palace. Her uncle’s now dead and Jennifer and mom fled Ramat, just ahead of the brave rebels intent on slaughter and mayhem. What Jennifer doesn’t know is that Uncle Bob left her a dangerous gift. That’s why her house was burglarized soon after she and mom arrived safely home. His little gift is drawing plenty of unwanted and dangerous attention to Meadowbanks.

Julia Upjohn is another student and Jennifer’s best friend. They trade tennis rackets because Jennifer’s tennis-mad and Julia’s not.

The wonky balance doesn’t bother Julia. It does bother her when someone tries to break into her room at night. Who would break into a posh girls’ school? Her mother won’t be pulling her out of Meadowbanks after Miss Springer’s murder because mom – who has a checkered past – is on a bus tour of Anatolia and can’t be reached.

Lucky for Julia she’s a budding Nancy Drew. She’s observant and able to think on her feet. That’s why, hearing sinister footsteps in the hall one night, she barricaded her door rather than shivering in fear and praying for rescue.

Miss Bulstrode, headmistress, is considering retirement because running a posh school no longer presents a challenge. She triumphantly conquered that mountain years ago and needs something new to occupy her time. She expects her hardest task in the new term involves choosing a successor who’ll keep Meadowbanks as a wonderful, changing school instead of leaving it trapped in aspic to rot. The coup’s repercussions throw a monkey wrench into her plans.

Another potential wrench comes from Miss Chadwick. She partnered with Miss Bulstrode to found the school. She adores Meadowbanks, it’s her entire life, and she feels that she’s the best possible candidate to run it after Miss Bulstrode retires. Who else would maintain the school exactly as it is? When Miss Springer’s murdered, her world is turned upside down. When she discovers that she’s not going to be Miss Bulstrode’s replacement, she runs mad and does something she never dreamed she do.

Miss Springer is the archetype of a sadistic gym teacher. She’s sure she’s right, she’s a snoop, she likes to know so she can torture her victim with her knowledge. She smokes too. Under normal circumstances, she’d bounce from job to job, moving down the food chain of posh girls’ schools from Meadowbanks to one that has to beg for students. But since Miss Bulstrode hasn’t fired her yet, she spots the late-night light in the sports pavilion and investigates. She’s confident she can handle whoever is there. She’s wrong.

Mlle. Blanche is the French teacher. Miss Springer, with a nose for secrets, senses that Mlle. Blanche has something to hide. In the novel, it’s that Mlle. Blanche isn’t a French teacher; she’s taken over her dead sister’s identity who is a teacher. In the film, it’s her lack of character and her greed. Like Miss Springer, Mlle. Blanche thinks she can control her situation. She’s wrong.

Miss Rich is another teacher, the one who Miss Bulstrode thinks might be her best replacement. She’s got a hidden past too; a love affair that resulted in pregnancy and a still-born child. Miss Springer discovered this so when she gets javelined, Miss Rich doesn’t care too much.

A poorly handled clue in the film shows how Poirot discovers Miss Rich’s secret. She’s reading Christina Rosetti’s poem, “Goblin Market,” to the pupils. Published in 1862, it’s about two sisters, Laura and Lizzie. Laura is overwhelmed by the delicious, enticing fruit the goblins sell. She buys some with a lock of her hair and a teardrop. She promptly begins to waste away. Lizzie has to save her. Supposedly, the poem’s really about the sexual awakening of teenage girls and the wages of sin and sex. I dunno. Reading over the list of fruit the goblins are selling, I didn’t think sex. I thought about the availability of fruit in a town in 1862. If it wasn’t locally grown and in season, it wasn’t available. No wonder Laura was overwhelmed.

I’m just not a romantic. Or I’ve spent too much time actually growing a food garden.

Then there’s the cat among the pigeons, the wolf in sheep’s clothing. She’s a freelance secret agent living a double life. She was in Ramat on assignment, and, quite by accident, saw Uncle Bob hide the rubies inside his niece’s tennis racket. Stealing the tennis racket and retiring to a safe life of luxurious anonymity looked to be the easiest thing in the world. No need to burgle Jennifer’s house. She merely needed to take a job at Jennifer’s posh school, slip into the sports pavilion, and steal her tennis racket.

Murder and kidnapping, fear and terror, at the cosseted environment of a upper-class girls’ boarding school, caused by a handful of rubies, thrown into a metaphorical pond, that sent ripples from the Middle East all the way to Meadowbanks.