Death on the Nile / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Linnet Ridgeway/Doyle. An honest, albeit insensitive, well-meaning woman that is world-foreign because of a very privileged and almost sheltered upbringing? And who was horrified to realize she purposefully stole her best friend's fiancé? Or a bossy woman that pretended to be well-meaning to the public, but was a spoiled brat that always had her own interest in mind? The book has her be able to be read as both, though Jacqueline rightfully points out that Linnet deliberately set out to take Simon from her, with perhaps a minute of hesitation.
- Mrs Otterbourne: a toxic, sex-crazed harpy, or simply someone who oversteps the British gentry idea of decorum? While her books are supposedly oversexed trash, she herself never says or does anything worse than calling a nurse a "repressed virgin" and yet she is repeatedly described as "poisonous" and "odious." Hercule "I don't approve of murder" Poirot jokes about her being killed, and when she *is* killed, her own supposedly very loyal and loving daughter instantly replaces her with the prim pukka mem'sahib Mrs Allerton.
- Mrs Allerton: a lovely, classy, charming, devoted mother, or an overbearing smother and an overprivileged classist colonial? While her son Tim clearly enjoys her company and doesn't feel smothered by her at all, she *does* expect him - an adult man - to read her all his correspondence and feels frustrated that he doesn't show her the letters from one particular person. Constantly shilled as the nicest and best-mannered person on the boat, she badmouths a woman who has just been murdered and whose daughter she's supposed to be comforting. Neither she or her son work at all and they spend their winters in a hotel in Mallorca, and only a supposed "flutter on the stock exchange" is necessary for them to go on a cruise patronised by millionnaires, and yet she describes her life as "poverty" There's also that one very weird passage where she essentially trawls her son for compliments over her figure.
Angst? What Angst?: Rosalie recovers from her mother's death pretty quickly, especially once she and Tim Allerton are engaged. Possibly justified, considering she was probably exhausted from dealing with her mother's alcoholism, and the grief hadn't set in yet.
Ethnic Scrappy: Mr Choudhury, the Karnak manager, is a downplayed example in the 1978 film. He is portrayed in a very stereotypical manner, and a couple of comments are dropped by other characters at his expense.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- In the 1978 film, Mia Farrow being cast as Jackie - the Clingy Jealous Girl who does not take being dumped very well. Oddly prophetic of her very public falling out with Woody Allen - and accusations of abuse from her children.
- Rosalie having to deal with her mother's sudden death feels sadder if one reads Olivia Hussey's autobiography, where she reveals her own mother became ill during filming and she was unable to visit her.
- The stage adaptation provides one in Canon Pennyfather, the Poirot substitute. He is shown to be intelligent and compassionate, which makes it all the more tragic that by the time of his appearance in At Bertram's Hotel he is shown to be suffering from severe memory loss.
- Cornelia deciding to marry Dr. Bessner and come home with him to work at his clinics where he has invested his money...in Austria. In 1937/38. Needless to say, events beginning soon afterwards make this turn of events not quite as hopeful as it seems.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In the 1978 film, Angela Lansbury playing a female author caught in a mystery. Who at one point boasts about her sleuthing skills.
- Dame Maggie Smith would get to be on the other side of an Agatha Christie style set-up in Gosford Park. This time, she's the aristocrat - and very much as acid-tongued as Bette Davis in this.
- Rosalie and Jim being romantically paired together in the 1978 film if you know that their actors had starred in notable Shakespeare films within a couple of years of each other - Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Jon Finch in Macbeth (the Roman Polanski version). And furthermore, just like Death on the Nile, one of these stories features a murder planned between two lovers, and the other ends with the self-inflicted death of two lovers.
Jerkass Woobie: When Linnet meets Simon, there is a brief monologue in which she reflects on how happy Jacqueline is to be with him and how lucky she is to have someone she cares that deeply about, which leads to Linnet realizing how truly lonely and unhappy she is for her all her apparent success and beauty, because she doesn't have anyone like that in her life. Of course, then she steals Simon away from Jacqueline, which puts a dent in the sympathy somewhat. The woobie factor is intensified in retrospect when it is revealed that the man she loved had strung her along to murder her for her money.
Just Here for Godzilla: Some watch the 1978 film just to see Bette Davis and Maggie Smith engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat.
Moral Event Horizon: Simon seems like a decent guy, if weak-willed given he gave up one fiancee for another and showed no regards for his ex's feelings. Then Poirot drops the bomb: Simon never loved Linnet. His dumping Jackie was deliberate so as to marry Linnet, kill her while she slept, make it look like she had enemies, and share his new inheritance with Jackie. Poirot himself calls them both out for the fact that Linnet wasn't nice, but that certainly doesn't justify manipulating a naive woman and Linnet was Jackie's best friend. It seems fitting that Jackie ends up killing Simon and herself when the jig is up because no jury would look at them with sympathy.
Narm Charm:
- The first attempted murder of Linnet in the temple is so dramatic it borders on hilarious, but it just heightens the Everyone Is a Suspect mood.
- Jane Birkin's attempt at a French accent can be a bit comic, but not enough to ruin the film.
Nausea Fuel: The murder of Louise, where her throat is slashed with a scalpel and blood spreads under the door.
Nightmare Retardant: In some scenes in the 1978 film, the blood is far too bright and red to be convincing. It's justified in Simon's case, since he's faking at first.
Older Than They Think: The novel began as an unproduced play Christie wrote called Moon on the Nile, however, while she did write a stage play of the novel later on, it's unknown if she used anything from the original play or started afresh.
Slow-Paced Beginning: Quite unusually for Christie's work, this one really takes its sweet time setting up the various suspects, with the murder only occurring halfway through.
Tough Act to Follow: The 1978 film was considered good, but very much in the shadow of the more successful adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: With The Reveal that Simon never loved Linnet and married her only to get her money, kill her and marry Jackie afterward, Linnet becomes this. She's blamed for stealing away Simon, but no one mentions that he also chose to dump Jacqueline for her. If he were truly honorable, he would have refused her. Also another man whom she trusted, her family lawyer and Honorary Uncle, was plotting to murder her to cover up his embezzlement. The poor woman was more valuable dead than alive to anyone she trusted.
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The journey the characters take would look very different today. The construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s flooded much of the Nile Valley between these cities to create Lake Nasser. Even their destination of Wadi Halfa in Sudan is no longer the same, much of the old city having been relocated and flooded.
- The S.S. Normandie plays a minor part - the ship only functioned as a passenger transport from 1935-1939.
Values Dissonance:
- Poirot tells Linnet that there's nothing the police can do about Jackie following her and Simon around all the time because, as long as she hasn't actually made any open threats against them, she hasn't done anything illegal. This can be rather jarring to read if you live in a time and place where stalking behavior is considered an open threat, and a prosecutable offense.
- Cornelia's cousin is shocked at the notion of her marrying for love, especially when it leads Cornelia to reject a wealthier man.
- At one point early in the novel, Egyptian street vendors are described as a “flock of human flies”.
Values Resonance: Ferguson reads almost exactly like a satire, whether you think it's fair or not, of modern young Internet communists, especially since he's actually filthy rich and unable to provide a solid reason for being in Egypt that's not "taking a luxury vacation".

YMMV / Death on the Nile

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