Lizzie - 2018 film review

One session of The Art of the Whodunit programme that I discussed on Monday concerns true crime, and I was asked by one group member for my opinion of the Lizzie Borden case of 1892. It's not a case I've studied in detail, but I think there's a widespread consensus that Lizzie was guilty of the axe murders of her father and step-mother, despite being acquitted of the crimes (nobody else was ever charged). A long time ago I read a couple of novels inspired by it, written by Ed McBain and Walter Satterthwaite. And now I've just watched a film about the case made as recently as last year, Lizzie - the same title as McBain's novel.

I gather that this was a long-term project for Chloe Sevigny, who plays Lizzie, although she has been reported as being disappointed with the way it worked out. I have mixed feelings about the film. The cinematography is excellent, and Sevigny is a good actor. The sombre mood is sustained from start to finish, and the restraint of the film, with much of the story being told in flashback at a very measured pace, means that the depiction of the frenzied killings, portrayed in a vivid and in some ways oddly sensual manner, makes a melodramatic and effective contrast.

However, there are reservations. It seems to me that the local community of Fall River, in which the Bordens lived, is an important ingredient of the real life story. Yet apart from one scene, it hardly figures. The focus is on the domestic; I've read that this was due to budget constraints, but it's a pity. Andrew Borden (Jamey Sheridan) is almost a caricature, a two-dimensional Horrid and Perverted Patriarch of the kind that we've become wearily familiar with in recent years. We certainly don't mourn his passing, and his wife (a very subdued Fiona Shaw) isn't much more appealing. Emma, Lizzie's sister, is an oddly shadowy figure; the part seems under-written.

The centrepiece of this version of the story, as with McBain's novel, is a lesbian relationship between Lizzie and the family maid (Kristen Stewart). This is done well, and poignantly. Even if it's open to debate whether it has any basis in fact, I find it credible.. But the other characters in the film don't count for much. We're told at the end that the sisters were later estranged, and that the maid went off to Montana. Lizzie, for her part, stayed in Fall River, and lived into her sixties. This is a slow-moving yet watchable film, but I suspect Sevigny is right. It had the potential to be better. 

Maigret Sets a Trap - ITV review

Maigret Sets a Trap, starring Rowan Atkinson as the legendary French cop, aired on ITV this evening. Many eyebrows were raised by the casting of Atkinson as Georges Simenon's Chief Inspector Maigret, but John Simenon expressed his delight with the performance when we discussed Golden Age fiction on stage at the Essex Book Festival a fortnight ago, and having seen the show, I can see why. Atkinson, I felt, did a pretty good job. There's more to him as an actor than Blackadder and Mr Bean.

I never saw the famous Maigret series starring Rupert Davies, for which I was too young, but I did enjoy one of John's anecdotes about it - apparently his father taught Rupert Davies how to use a pipe. Wisely, the pipe was retained for the new show: Maigret without his pipe would be rather like Morse without opera or Marple without her knitting - somehow incomplete. Maigret doesn't drive, and Atkinson - a car obsessive - wanted to change that, but wisely, the temptation was again resisted.

I did see the series in which Michael Gambon played Maigret,and I quite liked it, but felt that it lacked excitement. Some aspects of the Maigret stories are low-key (and when I first read them as a teenager, I was slightly underwhelmed, although with hindsight I feel that this was perhaps due to the nature of the translations) but a crime story that doesn't grip and, in some way, excite doesn't have much of a future. The Maigret books are short and snappy, and I worried that a two-hour version might drag.

Stewart Harcourt's script set out to solve that problem with sparse dialogue, and a concentration on mood rather than plot twists. Watching Maigret Sets a Trap was a very different experience from watching Morse, Lewis or Endeavour, but a capable supporting cast, including Fiona Shaw, Aidan McCardle, and Lucy Cohu - very good as Madame Maigret - helped to make it enjoyable viewing. (And did I spot John Simenon making a cameo appearance at the end of the story? I think so.)

Coincidentally, I embarked on a Simenon reading binge a little while ago, and the republication of his work by Penguin, with excellent fresh translations, has re-ignited my enthusiasm for this remarkable author. So has hearing John speak about his father, with insight and affection. I'm hoping to review a number of Simenon books in the coming months - not just Maigrets, but also some of his non-series work. In the meantime, I look forward to the next TV adaptation.

Agatha Christie's Marple: Greenshaw's Folly - ITV review

Agatha Christie's Marple continued tonight with Greenshaw's Folly. This title may be unfamiliar to many readers. In fact, "Greenshaw's Folly" is a short story, and the screenplay, by Tim Whitnall, welded plot elements from that story with some from another called "The Thumb Mark of St Peter". This might seem like a recipe for a rather disjointed show, but it began well, I thought, before becoming bogged down in excessive convolutions.

Julia Mackenzie held the story together. She may not be Joan Hickson, but she is more akin to my idea of Miss Marple than, say, Margaret Rutherford or Geraldine McEwan. She has identified the strength in Jane Marple's character, a combination of inquisitiveness and a determination not to be rebuffed, coupled with a firm moral sense and a genuine compassion. I tend to think that Christie would have approved her portrayal of the sage of St Mary Mead.

Miss Marple finds a position for a young woman, played by Kimberley Nixon, who seeks her help, but life at her new home, Greenshaw's Folly, proves far from straightforward, and before long the butler is found dead. Miss Marple crosses swords with a detective played by the always enjoyable John Gordon Snclair, and the usual excellent cast included such notables as Fiona Shaw, Julia Sawalha, Joanna David and Judy Parfitt.

I found watching the show a relaxing way to build up to Publication Day (in the UK, at any rate) of The Frozen Shroud.  This is not an event likely to stop traffic anywhere, but it's a book that I'm very glad to have written. Tomorrow I'll talk about that eternally tense subject for a writer - the experience of waiting for reviews of one's latest effort. Even Agatha Christie, I suspect, must have been a bit nervous about how people would react to her latest book, and I'm no different.