Teresa Reviews Poirot’s Failure (2002) (Neudacha Puaro)

Teresa reviews Poirot’s Failure (2002) Neudacha Puaro and finds it ironic that the best production of the novel came from outside the UK.

(c)2023 by Teresa Peschel

Fidelity to text: 5 daggers

Virtually every scene is on the screen, down to the dialog. No last-minute changes to motivation either.

Quality of film on its own: 5 daggers

Despite being faithful to the novel, it’s never boring or draggy. The leisurely plot lets you get to know everyone, making Caroline’s tragedy worse.

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

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

I’ve now watched three film versions of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha’s groundbreaking novel. The novel is narrated by Dr. Shepherd in the first person, just like Hastings tells so many Poirot stories. Like Hastings, Dr. Shepherd acts as Poirot’s Watson. We readers believe every word he says because Poirot does too, or so it appears.

How do you film a novel in which the narrator is a liar and has been from the first sentence? Do you trust the audience or do you fall back on rewriting the plot into something conventional? It’s bizarre that the production you’d expect to get it right (Poirot with David Suchet, written and filmed in English) would be terrible to the point of parody.

Yet the Japanese production, transported to a strange land with an alien culture, did full justice to the novel.

And here we are with the Russian version, transporting Roger and company to another strange land with an alien culture, and they did an even better job.

You won’t quite believe you’re in an English village in the late 1920s (houses, clothes, and vegetation all look subtly wrong), yet every aspect of the plot remains. Where it was changed — Dr. Shepherd daydreaming of escape on a cruise ship to nowhere — fits his personality to a tee.

I must point out one oddity that, like the film itself, probably didn’t get properly licensed. Each episode opens and closes with the announcement from Orson Welles in the Campbell Playhouse radio version of Roger Ackroyd in 1939. I have no idea why the Russian filmmakers did this, other than as a nod to Agatha. That might be why Caroline is seen reading an Agatha Christie novel. Maybe it’s an in-joke, a piece of Russian weirdness. It’s distracting in an otherwise flawless film.

As in the novel, the film opens with Dr. Shepherd. He’s sitting in his workshop in the wee hours of the night. He looks tired and defeated, as he writes down the events of the day. His thoughts drift back and forth as he decides in what order to tell the tragic story of his friend Roger’s murder, then settles on the suicide of Mrs. Ferrars as being a suitable starting point. He remembers seeing her speak to Ralph Paton, his friend and Roger’s adopted stepson. Mrs. Ferrars is obviously upset and soon, the doctor is called to her bed, where she lies dead from a Veronal overdose.

Why did Mrs. Ferrars do this? She’s a rich, attractive widow. Her hated, abusive husband has been dead for a year. She’s being courted by the richest man in town, Roger Ackroyd. But secrets have a way of coming out. Ackroyd tells Dr. Shepherd that Mrs. Ferrars confessed why she couldn’t marry him. She was being blackmailed because she’d poisoned her husband. Ackroyd is taken aback, then horrified when a day later, she’s found dead by her own hand.

Dr. Shepherd is equally shocked and insists he believed Ferrars died of gastric issues. He’d never considered that his wife poisoned him. And oh, by the way, did Mrs. Ferrars reveal who the blackmailer was?

She did not, Ackroyd says, but he expects a letter from her to contain the answer.

Events follow the text closely, other than the complete removal of everyone else in the village. There’s almost never anyone in the background, walking down the street, or working in the garden. That directorial choice makes Dr. Shepherd seem isolated from the rest of humanity, alluding to his aloofness in the novel. It makes Caroline’s ability to remain connected even more of a feat.

Caroline was perfect. She’s a complex character in the novel. She’s Dr. Shepherd’s older spinster sister. She runs his household and his life and has, apparently, looked after him since he was very young. She considers him to be weak, something she admits to Poirot, an outsider. Caroline isn’t wrong. Dr. Shepherd resents her watching his life, but at the same time, she makes his life comfortable. There are hints in the novel and the film that he considers himself to be her superior in intellect and ability. He, after all, went to medical school while she never left the village.

But Caroline cares about people. She sees them as real. Think of Caroline as a prototype for Miss Marple. She’s a sharp observer of village life, tied into a complex web of relationships and obligations. She’s imaginative and can speculate at complete odds to the facts, making her sometimes wrong. But she knew that Mr. Ferrars abused his wife and didn’t condemn Mrs. Ferrars when she speculated that she’d poisoned her husband. When Ursula Bourne needed her, Caroline was there, plying tea and sympathy while her brother did nothing to assuage Ursula’s distress.

But Caroline’s tragedy is that she couldn’t save her brother from his weakness. Who knows how many other chances he might have taken, lives he might have ruined, had it not been for his fear of Caroline finding out? Dr. Shepherd’s weakness showed when he realized, probably at once, that Mr. Ferrars’ gastric upset was due to arsenic. He could have shown mercy to the abused wife, diagnosed death by gastric issues, and said nothing. He could have granted justice to the murdered man and told the police his suspicions. But he did neither. While congratulating himself on his cleverness, he blackmailed Mrs. Ferrars, hounding her until she killed herself.

And did Dr. Shepherd take the longed-for trip with the money he got? He did not. He lost it, speculating. Was Caroline suspicious of this sudden legacy of £20,000? She probably was, as she probably knew every possible relative they had who could leave her brother money. But she didn’t know the truth.

Poirot respects Caroline, her hidden kindnesses, her place in the village, and her place shepherding her brother. That’s why he arranged that she not be present when he summed up the case to the suspects. He wanted to spare her from learning her failure to keep her brother decent. His plan was that Dr. Shepherd write a confession, exonerating Ralph Paton, and take the decent way out. The police would know, Ralph would go free, the village would speculate, and some unknown tramp would probably get the blame, encouraging the villagers to lock their doors.

Watching Dr. Shepherd play with the revolver as he decided on his suicide method was a very nice addition. He resents his sister; it shows when he speaks to and about her. Making her find his gunshot dead body, bloody brains splattered everywhere, would be cruel. The film pulls away, the thunder crashes, and you, dear audience, are left unsure of his choice.

I think he chose the revolver. He was weak. This village is full of weak men. Ralph Paton might be redeemed by Ursula Bourne. Ackroyd wouldn’t have accepted why Mrs. Ferrars poisoned her husband and deliberately kept his family on a tight rein. Geoffrey Raymond was a gambler. Parker was a blackmailer. Only laconic Hector Blunt has any strength of character. And Poirot, of course. He combines mercy and justice.