It Works
Moosoo
from London, England
, 17/02/2007
If you prefer the ‘stick-to-the-script’ Poirot’s where Hastings and Miss Lemon all work together to solve a shocking crime, then perhaps the new slightly more contemporary ideas (such as abortion and homosexuality that Christie didn’t write about) isn’t for you. If, however, you don’t mind a slightly racier screenplay with characters celebrating their diversities galore, then watch-on.
Taken At The Flood (the ‘film’ not the book) is about a young actress, Rosaleen Cloade, who found herself widowed after her rich (and now dead) husband, Gordon, was killed along with a number of other people in a gas explosion in their flat. Only Rosaleen and her brother, the somewhat creepy David Hunter, managed to survive the blast relatively unscathed due to their having been down in the cellar choosing wine.
Now painfully rich, the young widow is asked by various family members to continue giving them the financial handout that Gordon (the husband) used to do. However, due to that creepy brother, David Hunter, the fiscally screwed family can’t get their hands on any of it. Naturally cheesed off and skint, the Cloades decide to bring in good ol’ Poirot to investigate the rumour that Rosaleen’s first husband, Robert Underhay, who mysteriously disappeared into the jungle and was presumed dead a few years before, might not be dead at all. Should this be true, she would be pronounced a bigamist and so would get none of Gordon’s money, which instead would be presumably spread between them thus ending their financial woes.
In conclusion, if you’re a Christie fanatic and are hoping to see the book chapter-by-chapter, don’t bother – you’ll just upset yourself. But, if, on the other hand, you enjoy the slightly eccentric Belgian detective and post-wartime England settings, then I highly recommend this prelude to the new Christie’s that pack a little more incest with their murders, and provide a grittier slant on the murder mystery genre.
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