La desaparición de Madame Rose

How is it possible to make a dull film from an Agatha Christie novel? Try this method: keep the mystery vague and the answers poorly explained, REMOVE any sense of SUSPENSE or URGENCY, and add that insufferable talkiness that plagues many French pictures. Voila! This is probably the most boring, sedate Agatha Christie adaptation I've seen so far. Of course, I was not expecting another "Death On The Nile" or "Evil Under The Sun" (especially when in the place of Hercule Poirot you have two middle-aged amateur sleuths), but I was not expecting to be totally indifferent to the outcome of a story coming from the Queen of murder mysteries either! The only good points of this film are the beautiful, vividly photographed French country locations and the fairly engaging performances of Catherine Frot and André Dussollier. (*)

This is - for all I know - only the second French adaptation of an Agatha Christie crime story in France. The last time was ... in 1932 ( "Le Coffret de Laque, directed by Jean Kemm)! But this new French effort was worth the waiting. Indeed, Lady Agatha's whodunit has been gallicised and updated so deftly that the viewer never suspects all the adaptation work behind the slick storytelling. When I say gallicised understand a stylized France. And when I say updated I mean a rather iconoclastic present.

All you can expect from an Agatha Christie novel you will find here : thrills, plot twists, mysterious clues, a surprising final resolution. But, thanks to Pascal Thomas' talent you will be given even more : social comment ( old age, family ties, the 2003 heat wave ), black humor (jokes about death, madness, etc.), brilliant dialog, plus a wonderful cast of either well-known character actors typed against cast (Geneviève Bujold, Valérie Kaprisky, Maurice Risch, Laurent Terzieff), of talented beginners(Pierre Lescure) or little known but excellent actors(André Thorent, Anne Le Ny). To say nothing of the sizzling leading couple of the always perfect Catherine Frot and André Dussollier.

However what is most enjoyable is the offbeat tone that imbues the whole film. The atmosphere, although apparently realistic, constantly borders on the fantastic.A farcical type of fantastic, as if "Mon petit Doigt m'a dit" had been made by a Claude Chabrol born in Belgium !

Preceding the made-for -TV English version-which oddly also features Miss Marple ;anyway it's part of a Marple miniseries;to my knowledge ,Christie never put her three sleuths together in her novels or short stories-,this Pascal Thomas made-in-France Christie is much fun to watch.

Tommy and Tuppence (her name was changed ;anyway it was a nickname "two pence" which meant "Quat'sous" ),unlike MIss Marple ,appeared when they were young and they grew old with the novels and the writer.

"Mon Petit Doigt m'a dit" casts Catherine Frot and André Dussolier as the leads ,but it has a dream of a cast:it's a joy to see again Laurent Terzieff ,Alexandra Stewart,Genevieve Bujold (Whom I did not recognize)and Bernard Verley.The lines are generally witty ,with a good sense of humor (I particularly dig the lines about the sponges in the home for retired people)which anyway was present (albeit subdued) in Christie's works.Pascal Thomas has found a good way of renewing Christie's novels.After two good works ("murder on the orient express" and "death on the Nile") ,the theatrically released films lacked tempo and got too often bogged down into endless questionings and investigations,which was quite good in the books,but which became boring on the screen.Almost entirely filmed on location,on the banks of the Leman lake,with plenty of characters ,some sinister-looking ,and a dash of supernatural thrown in for good measure.There is often something eerie in Christie's books ,with that feeling of déja vu (Miss Marple's last case had something of this kind).

Like this? try these......

Family plot Alfred Hitchcock 1975

Agent trouble Jean-Pierre Mocky 1987

Noir Comme le Souvenir Jean-Pierre Mocky 1995

I gave it 4 for the acting, the scenery (who has filmed more gorgeous country scenes in recent years?) and the story. But this one takes far too long to tell, has characters who serve no purpose and scenes that go nowhere (that conference that Dussolier attends, mortally dull). You'll watch for the chance to see Genevieve Bujold again; after 50 years of stardom then obscurity she's still compelling. Alexandra Stewart has a small part as a painter's wife; Valerie Kaprisky, who doesn't take her clothes off here, plays a strange woman in church. Then there are Frot and Dussolier who fit together like hand in glove; there's great teamwork between them.

An adaptation full of comedy, intrigue, which advances quickly. Maybe too fast even. A delight for the eyes and the brain.