Agatha Christie: Crooked House

Three generations of a well-to-do family gather at a country house after the death of its patriarch in this misfiring adaptation of a postwar Agatha Christie novel. Max Irons stars as the military spy-turned-private detective (and fiancé of the old man's granddaughter) who is tasked with exposing the killer. Among the suspects are the victim's eccentric sister-in-law (Glenn Close), his spoilt young widow (Christina Hendricks) and his permanently sozzled daughter-in-law (Gillian Anderson). The author rated Crooked House as one of her personal favourite works, but even she might struggle to solve the puzzle of how this version went so awry, its lumbering pace constantly hampered by reams of stilted exposition delivered lazily by an ensemble cast having a collective off-day. Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes had a hand in the screenplay, but there's none of the sparkling intrigue he brought to his own stately home murder mystery Gosford Park, while Gilles Paquet-Brenner's pedestrian direction gives the whole affair the feel of a hungover am-dram production.