Agatha Christie adaptations seem to be all the rage on British television these days and this one's adapted for the screen by the ubiquitous Julian Fellowes, who brings his usual Downtown Abbey stylings to the proceedings (Glenn Close plays a matriarch with more bite and even more craziness than Maggie Smith). I'm not familiar with the little-adapted novel upon which this is based, but it doesn't make for a very entertaining production. A detective is called in to investigate a suspected murder at a country house and must work his way through a cast list of potential suspects. The dialogue has been updated with mild expletives and the like but none of it is particularly convincing. Even worse is the lacklustre cast, with a miscast Christina Hendricks ariating the scenery, Max Irons proving exceptionally wooden, Terence Stamp wasted, and Gillian Anderson a pure caricature.

Sophia Leonides (Stefanie Martini) hires her former lover, private investigator Charles Hayward (Max Irons),to investigate her grandfather business tycoon Aristide Leonides' death. Charles' family friend Chief Inspector Taverner (Terence Stamp) gives him helpful advises. Lady Edith De Haviland (Glenn Close) is the sister of Aristide's first wife Magda (Gillian Anderson). Philip Leonides (Julian Sands) is his oldest son. Charles arrives at the family estate to investigate the untrustworthy family with rumors of esponiage. Brenda Leonides (Christina Hendricks) is Aristide's young widow who the others consider to be a gold-digger.

This is adapted from the 1949 Agatha Christie mystery novel. It has an old school feel. While this has lots of acting talents, the leading man doesn't have anything juicy enough to outshine the rest. He's rather bland and there is a strict lack of stakes for him. The obvious way to elevate the stakes is to make his relationship with Sophia bigger. Some way or some thing needs to be manufactured to increase the danger and the intensity. Overall, this is solid and a little bland from old school Agatha Christie.

Great cast, excelllent plot, and an unexpected ending. Add in a very good script and perfect scenery. From my experience it's one of Agatha Christie's best. My only two concerns were that the volume of the sound rose to ear piercing levels when any music came on, and there were so many characters that I sometimes got confused as to who was married to who and the relationships between them.