Belatedly: The Pale Horse 2/2
Feb. 19th, 2020 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessSarah Phelps’ Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse
Well, this had clearly not been lingering in my mind all week, because I’d failed to ask who benefitted from anyone’s death, unlike Mark, who twigged that the stepmother had wanted Tommy dead and, to his dismay, that godson David had wanted Clemency dead.
However, I was always dubious about Hermia wanting him dead. There was no evidence she’d been to The Pale Horse. I wondered if the first wife had asked them to off him, upon hearing he was going to remarry, but I also kept an open, suspicious mind about Osborne (I really appreciated Bertie Carvel’s performance the way he kept that voice going all the while uttering lines like stopping counting how many people you’ve killed once you’ve passed 30). It pleased me somewhat that a poison was involved.
But the very ending left me going ‘huh?’ loudl and repeatedly. Had the Witches and Hermia influenced Mark into dreaming or just dressed the flat (with a fake newspaper).? WHAT? What should have been a satisfying comeuppance just made no sense.
Because we’d got to see how deeply unpleasant our main character was, jealous rage leading to one wife’s death here, followed by cool, self-possessed self-protectiong, cruel gas-lighting there. Needing someone to unpack the boxes explained why he’d married Hermia, who he’d made part of his alibi for killing Delphine, her friend. And on and on. Serial killers shouldn’t taunt explosive violent types.
Actually, given Hermia’s fantasy of killing Poppy (who was irritating), maybe she and Mark missed a chance to really connect, except despite the pills and Mark distracting her/pretending what she said was nonsense, she had the self-restraint and social conditioning not to do the deed. Women being less toxic than men here.
The bearded chap frm the village never turned up, and the witches weren’t guilty – their ‘curse’ on Jessie felt like a reasonable response. I kept wondering how real their second sight was, but of course, they never came across the actual killer who was using them to read him.
Sadly, Inspector Sean Pertwee did not get to enact justice on Mark.
I always think of these adaptations as classy, and that’s because of the look, but man, they show humanity in its worst light. And I suppose it was nothing like the original story.
Well, this had clearly not been lingering in my mind all week, because I’d failed to ask who benefitted from anyone’s death, unlike Mark, who twigged that the stepmother had wanted Tommy dead and, to his dismay, that godson David had wanted Clemency dead.
However, I was always dubious about Hermia wanting him dead. There was no evidence she’d been to The Pale Horse. I wondered if the first wife had asked them to off him, upon hearing he was going to remarry, but I also kept an open, suspicious mind about Osborne (I really appreciated Bertie Carvel’s performance the way he kept that voice going all the while uttering lines like stopping counting how many people you’ve killed once you’ve passed 30). It pleased me somewhat that a poison was involved.
But the very ending left me going ‘huh?’ loudl and repeatedly. Had the Witches and Hermia influenced Mark into dreaming or just dressed the flat (with a fake newspaper).? WHAT? What should have been a satisfying comeuppance just made no sense.
Because we’d got to see how deeply unpleasant our main character was, jealous rage leading to one wife’s death here, followed by cool, self-possessed self-protectiong, cruel gas-lighting there. Needing someone to unpack the boxes explained why he’d married Hermia, who he’d made part of his alibi for killing Delphine, her friend. And on and on. Serial killers shouldn’t taunt explosive violent types.
Actually, given Hermia’s fantasy of killing Poppy (who was irritating), maybe she and Mark missed a chance to really connect, except despite the pills and Mark distracting her/pretending what she said was nonsense, she had the self-restraint and social conditioning not to do the deed. Women being less toxic than men here.
The bearded chap frm the village never turned up, and the witches weren’t guilty – their ‘curse’ on Jessie felt like a reasonable response. I kept wondering how real their second sight was, but of course, they never came across the actual killer who was using them to read him.
Sadly, Inspector Sean Pertwee did not get to enact justice on Mark.
I always think of these adaptations as classy, and that’s because of the look, but man, they show humanity in its worst light. And I suppose it was nothing like the original story.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-19 02:10 pm (UTC)Of the few Christie adaptations I've seen, this would probably rank at the bottom of the list. It was pretty to look at, but with all the changes it may as well have been based on an entirely different story.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-19 03:51 pm (UTC)Overall I wasn't impressed, I'm not sure what, but I felt it lacked something. Apart from a polar bear.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-20 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-20 08:53 am (UTC)The ending was so unmoored from sense, or too much from Mark's POV.