Agatha

What made this film even more intriguing is that in writing a screenplay about Christie, the minds behind this film did so playfully. They focused on an 11 day period when Christie disappeared, and set the whole thing up as a mystery plot...in classic Agatha style...

Or so they thought. The mystery part of this movie left no real mystery to solve. The "surprise twist" at the end was a minor twist that didn't really fulfill expectations. Otherwise, everything was painstakingly clear.

If you can leave aside the whole mystery story as a bold but ultimately doomed attempt (doomed simply by the confines of reality), the rest of the story did hold its own. The plot moved slowly, dialog was sometimes hard to understand and minor characters were hard to keep track of...all of which are typical of older films. However, the characters were engaging and the plot kept things moving along.

The build-up of the relationship between Christie and Apted is fully believable, except they don't get together in the end. This is not a "Roman Holiday" situation where they can't because of circumstances. Rather, it is because Apted is fictional and therefore not true to Christie's real life story. Thus, you are left emotionally baffled.

All that said, the greatest value I personally received from the film was a MUCH BETTER understanding of Christie herself and also of England in the 1920's. Additionally, I enjoyed Hoffman's character thoroughly. He really shone in his role.


A Movie Sadly Lost Like Agatha Herself..   February 15, 2004
E. Macomber (New Bern, NC United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I want to counter one review here. I had seen this movie when it first came out. It DID NOT do well in the box office, BUT! This movie was beautifully filmed with excellent focus adjustments that mirrored the "mystery" that never took place, but could have. I also want to say that if anyone "falls asleep" at the beautiful music of Johnny Mandel, especially the closing title song "Close Enough for Love" then they think 50 cent is a gospel singer (By the way it has been recorded by more great singers and jazz artists than almost any song of Mandel's since the Shadow of Your Smile). This is first rate fiction and while Hoffman's character is almost plastic in its portrayal, Redgrave's and Dalton's is first rate. This one will disappear into obscurity, evidenced by its lack of DVD availablility.I am afraid, like so many movies that we are now trying to pull from the celluliod graveyard, it will be re-discovered way too late. You need to grab this one and remember the choice is yours a "cigarette or a kiss."


A must-see for Christie fans   December 18, 2007
Patrick W. Crabtree (Lucasville, OH USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

People are all over the place in rating this film (for a myriad of reasons) so I'll try to pin that down first. While the film was beautifully produced, bulging with a fine cast, it did not do all that well when it was released. Someone mentioned this reality already and they are correct in their facts on that point. I first saw "Agatha" either on HBO or Cinemax in the early days of those cable premium channels. In the end, it IS a really good film with an interesting story to relate.

In 1926, famed mystery writer Agatha Christie really DID disappear for better than a week. In real life, (and in the movie), she was experiencing major domestic problems, prior to her divorce from Colonel Christie, and it's my belief that this is the simple basis for her disappearance; however, numerous conspiracy theories have blossomed and psychologists' opinions of the matter have spurred on this sort of alternative scenario thinking. Certain conspiracy accounts may in fact be true, or possibly not -- I seriously doubt that we'll ever know all the facts. Christie later said that she couldn't account for the lost time and some psychologists have stated that she was in a "fugue state" for the period in question.

In any case, the movie is essentially all about what happened to Christie for those 11 mysterious days and nights. The movie provides probably the most popular account of that turbulent window of time in Christie's life.

A chief feature of the movie focuses on an American reporter (played by Dustin Hoffman) who tracks Christie down at a health resort. That 'location' takes up 2/3 of the film.

I'm astounded that this film is apparently not yet available on DVD and when it is finally released on disc, I HOPE that it's conveyed in letterbox format which would greatly enhance the already super cinematography. It's a fine film, albeit it probably has a limited interested viewership. Any Christie fan would give it 5 stars.

So, if you're interested in topics such as the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and/or the loss of Amelia Earhart over the Pacific, then you'll probably much savour this movie too. I liked it a lot.