Hello everyone!
I'm thinking of doing the same as I did with Murder on the Orient Express and also blogging about the David Suchet version, but we'll see.
For now, suffice to say that there are differences between the original book and the Kenneth Branagh remake.
However, the differences themselves aren't a glaring problem as far as I'm concerned - well, other than the case being presented poorly without REALLY asking the pertinent questions that might help move it along, but overall it isn't BAD.
The BAD part comes at the end and with Branagh's desire to change canon, so without further ado let's have a look at the ACTUAL story, shall we?
After all, Agatha Christie devoted her whole life to writing these things.
Death on the Nile is just one of her many successes.
Our story begins pretty much the same way (sans the whole, WWI prologue that is) in that Linnet Ridgeway meets the fiancé of her friend Jackie, Simon Doyle, and a little while later their marriage is announced - so either one or the other decided to leave Jackie in the dust so they could marry. However, Hercule Poirot having been about to witness just how fantastically and almost desperately in love Jackie and Simon were, he's worried when he runs into the newly weds on their honeymoon, where he's vacationing in Egypt.
And it would seem all is NOT well for the new couple as Jackie keeps following them everywhere, which is beginning to affect Linnet's nerves, and while she asks Poirot to intercede for her, he declines (a marked difference from the movie), saying he will do something out of human nature, but not for her, which she gets annoyed by.
He speaks with Jackie, not that he achieves anything, and witnesses the little ruse Simon Doyle cooks up to get themselves away from their little footpad, eventually ending on the same steamer as the rest of the group despite the fact that they'd said otherwise.
Alas, Jackie is also there, and everyone and their mother knows it's going to go bump at some point, but ah well.
It's where we meet the rest of our cast of characters, too: Tim Allerton and his mother, Mrs. Allerton (the roles in the movie were given to Bouc and his mother, pretty much down to a T), Mr Ferguson, a young Communist (in the movie he takes on the triple role of Lord Dawlish in disguise, Lord Windlesham AND Dr. Bessner), Miss Van Schuyler, her nurse Miss Bowers (lovers in the movie), her niece Cornelia Robson, Andrew Pennington (a cousin in the movie, here simply a trustee), Jim Fanthorp, Mrs. Otterbourne and Rosalie Otterbourne, her niece (in the movie she's a singer, not a writer), Dr. Bessner, a German doctor, and Mr. Richetti, an Italian archaeologist whose role is completely cut.
We also have the occasional mention of Joanna Southwood, but in general these above are it!
So off we go up the Nile and the cataracts, Asuan and the like, and everyone can witness just how badly Linnet has it with Jackie always there, always following, always staring (to be fair, I'd have punched her, but that's me). They have a narrow escape at the temple of Abu Simbel where a rock nearly crushes the Doyles, but even though everyone believes it to have been Jackie, she was nowhere near the place so she's out.
It all comes to a head on a heavy, hot, stuffy evening that sends Poirot to bed rather early, and Jackie ends up shooting Simon in the leg then turning hysterical. Cornelia and Fanthorp escort her to her room, park Miss Bowers with her, then go get Bessner so they can tend to Simon, though no one can find the missing gun Jackie kicked away, which worries them.
As it rightfully should, as in the morning, Linnet Doyle is found dead.
Poirot begins his questioning and discovers some interesting things: he should not have been as tired as he had been, but this only comes back to him later when Mrs. Allerton mentions how he always drinks the same wine from the same bottle, a number of people heard a splash in the water, and a few people heard someone running along the deck at top speed around the time Linnet was murdered.
He and Colonel Race - a friend of Poirot who ends up on the steamer looking for an agitator but takes control of the investigation so Poirot can do his thing - then start to slowly pick at the pieces as they question everyone, including Louise, Linnet's maid, who says that she MIGHT have seen the murdered if she hadn't been able to sleep and gone out for a smoke.
When they're conducting a search of the cabins to find the missing pearl necklace which they assume was the motive for murder at one point, they also find Louise - stabbed with one of Bessner's scalpels while trying to blackmail the murderer.
On top of that, Poirot discovers that Mrs. Van Schuyler is a kleptomaniac and SHE took the pearls - only that the necklace is fake, so they have an expert forger on board to contend with.
And when Mrs. Otterbourne comes screaming along that she had seen who murdered Louise, Simon, feverish, tells her to cut the crap and just tell them, very loudly, which results in her getting shot to death.
Three bodies later and Poirot is finally starting to connect the pieces, though he also untangles a knot for Race first - Richetti being the man he's after, after having been super rude to Linnet when she accidentally opened up a telegram meant for him that was written in code.
He also explains other things - Mrs. Otterbourne drank heavily and Rosalie was trying to protect her, as well as hide the fact, but she was equally lying for Tim Allerton, who snuck into Linnet's cabin to nab the necklace, as he's one part of the forge team with Joanna Southwood. The two of them decide to get married after Poirot gives Tim a second chance - the old romantic softie!
Cornelia also contends with romance in the book, Ferguson snapping at her heels, but she tells him to go to hell because he's unreliable and insane, and chooses to marry Dr. Bessner instead, much to the anger of her aunt who learns (from Poirot) how rich and esteemed Ferguson actually is with his title and all that jazz.
Meanwhile, Andrew Pennington was the one who accidentally set the rock tumbling at Abu Simbel, while Fanthorp is on the cruise to figure out how the Americans have been swindling Linnet out of her money (see, she had trustees on both side of the Atlantic).
But the murder itself?
Once Linnet tried to take Simon from Jackie, Simon started thinking how nice it would be to have money, so Jackie decided what the heck, she might as well help him plan it so he wouldn't get in trouble (as crazy as she was about him, she'd have done anything). So they had Simon marry Linnet while Jackie followed them (informed by Simon, naturally), and it was the two lovers Poirot heard one night, not Linnet and Simon as he originally thought.
His wine was drugged - because he always drank from the same bottle - and Jackie pretended to shoot at Simon, who after everyone was away ran to Linnet's cabin to shoot her, using red ink in a nail polish bottle to pretend there was blood on his leg. Then, after leaving a bloody J on the wall, he ran back, shot himself in the leg for real with the gun wrapped in Mrs. Van Schuyler's scarf, and tossed the whole thing overboard by the time the doctor arrived.
Louise, however, had seen him, so after asking Poirot to bring Jackie to him, Simon instructed her to kill the girl, and she was seen by Mrs. Otterbourne, so Simon being loud and nervy was simply him trying to call his accomplice to shoot the older woman.
In the end, Poirot is incredibly sad because he spends the vast majority of the book trying to dissuade Jackie from her course, and as they're carrying Simon to shore Jackie comes up and shoots him, then shoots herself, making a grand total of five bodies.
After that dramatic fin to the scene, Poirot and Mrs. Allerton look on the remaining passengers, the couples that had formed, and decide that love isn't always so tragic - or so obsessive, either. It can be very beautiful.
As can Agatha Christie's books where she leads you through the case piece by piece, making a bit more sense than most of the adaptations do (as always, it seems to be hard for some reason to include all the clues into movies or shows, not that I understand why that is). Poirot once again deduces through simply talking to people what went down, and it's something I highly recommend you read for yourselves as opposed to only seeing what Branagh put on screen.
I promise you won't regret it.
xx
*image not mine
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