Crooked House (2017)

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General		Extras
Category	Mystery	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2017
Running Time	110:15
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Studio Distributor	Brilliant Films Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Max Irons Glenn Close Terence Stamp Gillian Anderson Stefanie Martini Christina Hendricks
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Hugo De Chaire

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In the list of authors whose works have most often been turned into movies or television productions, Agatha Christie must be near the very top. IMDB lists 158 productions but this number only counts long running series like Poirot or Miss Marple as 1 production. This movie, Crooked House, is based on a novel of the same name published in 1949. Unlike many of Christie's novels, this one did not feature one of her famous characters like Marple, Poirot or Tommy & Tuppence. The novel is reputed to have been one of Agatha Christie's personal favourites of her works.

    The movie is a UK production, made for cinema release but was initially released digitally and shown on UK television in December 2017. It did have limited theatrical runs in a number of countries including the United States and Australia, however, only garnered around $2m at the global box office. It certainly slipped under my radar on theatrical release in Australia. The film was directed by French director, Gilles Paquet-Brenner who has directed a few feature films without really being a household name. This adaptation has been seemingly doing the rounds for a while before this director and cast actually completed the project. It features a quality cast and a really interesting score by Hugo De Chaire, which was a highlight for me. As is quite often disappointingly still the case with smaller films it is only being released locally on DVD.

    The story involves a young private detective, Charles Hayward (Max Irons) who is approached by an old girlfriend, Sophie De Havilland (Stefanie Martini) to investigate the death of her grandfather, prominent businessman Aristide Leonides. She believes he was poisoned, probably by his new young American wife, Brenda (Christina Hendricks). Sophie's desire is to clear the matter up without having the police and reporters being all over them and having their family business revealed. After initial reticence, Charles agrees to take on the case, assisted by information from Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Taverner (Terence Stamp). He visits the family home, where three generations of the family reside, mostly bitter and resentful. As always with Christie, there are a lot of characters including 

• Aristide's first wife's sister, Lady Edith De Haviland (Glenn Close) who loves nothing more than blasting away at moles with a shotgun.
• Aristide's son, Philip (Julian Sands), a failed author and playwright.
• Philip's wife, Magda (Gillian Anderson), an actress but not a good one.
• Aristide's other son, Roger (Christopher McKay) who runs part of the family business, badly.
• Roger's wife, Clemency (Amanda Abbington) who is sick of her husband dramatics.
• Philip and Magda's daughter, Josephine (Honor Kneafsey) who is quite precocious.
• Her teenage brother, Eustace (Preston Nyman) who has polio.
• The children's tutor, Mr Brown (John Heffernan) who seems to have deeper relationships with the family than he lets on.

Video

    The feature is presented in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio (PAL) which is the original aspect ratio.

    It looks pretty good for a DVD although there is certainly a lack of sharpness in indoor scenes especially.

    The colour is quite good without setting the world on fire.

    There were no obvious artefacts beside some to be expected motion blur.

    There are subtitles available in English for the Hearing Impaired which are clear and easy to read.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good for DVD.

    This disc contains an English soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps and a descriptive audio track in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps.

    Dialogue was generally clear throughout and the film is quite dialogue focused. Crowd and street scenes made the surround speakers come to life and music certainly used all the speakers. The subtitles did prove useful for some lines of dialogue.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu has some mild motion and includes music.

    This movie is available globally seemingly in the same format on DVD. The Blu-ray editions include some extras but there is no local Blu-ray release.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is very good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall