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From the Page to the Screen – Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile is a 1937 detective novel by Agatha Christie. It is one of the most famous books from this great mystery author that has stood the test of time gloriously. It was adapted to the big screen twice, so let’s see how both of these movies compare to the source material.

THE 1978 VERSION

This movie received strong reviews, but it wasn’t as acclaimed as the 1974 ‘Orient Express’ movie. In my opinion, this flick is better. It is more entertaining and it remains a very fun, beautifully shot spectacle that is enjoyable to this day.

PLOT

While the movie was immensely faithful to the novel and the changes and small additions that were made were surprisingly solid, the overall pacing was too slow and the runtime was way too long, leading to a somewhat muted impact in comparison to the book.

WINNER – BOOK

CHARACTERIZATION

I found the casting truly terrific here. This was an enormously strong A-list cast with the standouts definitely being Maggie Smith and Bette Davis, but especially Angela Lansbury in such a funny, over-the-top performance. Most of the characters were faithful to their original counterparts, but Peter Ustinov simply wasn’t that good of Poirot unfortunately. He was a bit miscast even.

WINNER – BOOK

EMOTION

The novel was immensely moving in the relationship between Poirot and Jacqueline. The movie unfortunately never featured any of those tender sequences that made the book so heartbreaking.

WINNER – BOOK

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THEMES

My issue with this adaptation is that gone were the conversations about communism and about ruthless Ancient Egyptian rulers that were at least somewhat present in the source material. The movie is more surface-level in that regard.

WINNER – BOOK

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

This is the only area where the movie trumped the source material. Christie’s writing is stupendous, especially of the dialogue, but she never made great use of the story’s Egyptian location, which the movie fixed. It was actually filmed on location, resulting in glorious cinematography, production design and it even has a superb score.

WINNER – FILM

BOOK 4: FILM 1

Although at the end of the day the movie is technically very accomplished and highly cinematic, the book is more mature, more moving emotionally speaking and better written in its characters. But still, the film is a lot of fun regardless.

THE 2022 VERSION

This most recent adaptation came out at the beginning of 2022. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh and his second adaptation of Christie’s work after his ‘Orient Express’ in 2017. The movie received fine reviews, but it needed more attention from both moviegoers and critics as it was a surprisingly strong adaptation.

PLOT

I would say that the storyline is again very faithful. The action scene that they included was needless, but most of the story was very strongly adapted and the movie flows very well pacing-wise.

WINNER – BOOK

CHARACTERIZATION

The ensemble cast here did a great job with the highlights being Sophie Okonado and Jennifer Saunders, both very amusing in their great roles. The characters were changed to a degree and some were changed in sexuality and race, but their personalities remained intact, which was very important. I found Branagh’s performance superb, but the whole origin story of Poirot was unnecessarily tacked on to this story.

WINNER – BOOK

EMOTION

Again, gone are the emotional beats of the novel in favor of a quicker pace and more thriller elements. That central relationship between Jacqueline and Poirot was rushed and not as well developed here unfortunately.

WINNER – BOOK

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THEMES

This film added the themes of racism while also adapting those conversations about communism from the book, making this adaptation a bit more sophisticated than I’d thought it would be.

WINNER – BOOK

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

The previous cinematic version was better crafted as it was filmed on actual location. This one was filmed using convincing CGI, but still it lost that authenticity that you only get from actual locations. But other than that, the score is excellent and the cinematography is surprisingly quick, masterful and very accomplished at building up suspense.

WINNER – TIE

BOOK 5: FILM 1

At the end of the day, this new adaptation is very polished, superbly crafted and quickly paced, but it lost some of the emotional connection and a couple of plot points in the translation. But overall, both of these movies are actually very good and of similar quality when put against each other.