A Haunting in Venice is Kenneth Branagh’s third outing as the moustachioed detective Hercule Poirot, and critics and fans alike have been full of praise for his latest Agatha Christie adaptation. In the new movie, Poirot is called upon by an old friend to investigate a woman claiming to be a medium, who is holding a seance in a famously haunted house in Venice owned by a famous opera singer, where her daughter recently fell to her death. So what was the truth of the case? Find out here and warning, plenty of spoilers ahead…
Despite hearing voices and conversing with a little girl who appeared to be Rowena Drake’s daughter Alicia, as well as the shocking deaths of the fraudulent medium, Joyce Reynolds, and the troubled doctor, Leslie Ferrier, Poirot is not swayed by the series of spooky encounters in the home that is said to be haunted by the souls of orphaned children who were left there to die during the plague.
Instead, he realises that his friend, Ariadne Oliver, had been working in league with his bodyguard, Vitale Portfoglio, to convince him to attend the seance. Assisting with the medium’s tricks, Ariadne hoped to encourage Poirot back to work after his retirement and uncover the case as material for her next book, after her recent three novels were flops. Despite that, the pair were not responsible for the murder.
Poirot finally deduces, from his own confused state, that he had been accidentally poisoned by Ariadne using a particular strain of honey homegrown by Rowena. Ariadne unwittingly put it in his tea after a mysterious person attempted to kill him, but it was actually poisoned by flowers that Rowena procured during a visit to Istanbul.
He reveals that Rowena was furious and miserable that Alicia had fallen in love and was engaged to be married to Maxime, leaving her 'abandoned'. After the engagement was called off, and realising that Alicia’s lover wanted to reconcile with her, Rowena kept Alicia poisoned and weak, while refusing to let her former fiancé visit.
After being persuaded to rest after remaining by Alicia’s side, Alicia was actually accidentally killed by the housekeeper, Olga, who fed her an overdose of honeyed tea, not knowing that it was poison. Realising Olga’s mistake after finding her daughter dead, Alicia threw her over the side of the building, feigning a suicide.
After receiving blackmail letters about the death, Rowena suspects that Joyce or Leslie is behind it. She kills Joyce and alters the clock in the music room for an ironclad alibi, before convincing the doctor to kill himself after locking him in a room and then threatening to harm his son, Leopold. After being exposed, it is revealed that she hoped to end the blackmail while putting the two deaths down to the hauntings at her Venetian home.
In the end, it is revealed that Leopold was the one behind the blackmail letters, after recognising signs of poison on Alicia’s body, which his father missed. He used the money to help Leslie, who was shellshocked and traumatised after World War II, and unable to work as such.
The movie’s conclusion also leaves Hercule’s thoughts on the supernatural entities of the house somewhat in question, as he appears to believe Leopold, who claims to hear the voices of the children who died there.