Le Grand alibi (2008)
Directed by Pascal Bonitzer

Film Review

Former critic Pascal Bonitzer is the latest French filmmaker to cash in on the recent craze for Agatha Christie murder mysteries in France, following the example of Pascal Thomas, who gave the Queen of Crime a quaintly Gallic makeover with Mon petit doigt m'a dit... (2005), L'Heure zéro (2007) and Le Crime est notre affaire (2008).  Bonitzer's film is an updated version of the Christie novel The Hollow, first published in 1946 and released in France under the title Le Vallon.  Whilst The Hollow is the archetypal Christie novel (a classic country house whodunit), it suffers from two major flaws: the belated inclusion of Hercule Poirot as an unnecessary deus ex machina and a dismally lacklustre ending.  Christie herself regretted using Poirot in the novel and excised him from her subsequent stage version.  Bonitzer and his screenwriter Jérôme Beaujour rectify both of these flaws and bring a satisfying coherence to the narrative which Christie herself would surely have approved of.

As has now become tradition (if not mandatory), this latest Agatha Christie romp boasts a glittering big name cast that includes some of the most highly regarded actors in French cinema, from favourite perennials Miou-Miou and Pierre Arditi to such fragrant blossoms as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Anne Consigny.  The director's daughter Agathe Bonitzer puts in an appearance, as does auteur diva Emmanuelle Riva and Maurice Bénichou, the latter clearly relishing his part as a French (and totally clueless) version of Lieutenant Columbo.   Italian beauty Caterina Murino brings a touch of high class glamour to the proceedings and it is a shame that she, along with an excellent Lambert Wilson, are dispatched with such unseemly haste.  But that's one of the inviolable rules of a Christie mystery: the most interesting characters are always the ones that get killed off first.  As you would expect from such a distinguished cast the calibre of the acting is the film's main selling point, and if there are any awards going for the performances they should head in the direction of Anne Consigny and Mathieu Demy for their suitably ambiguous character portrayals.

Agatha Christie is not the only inspiration for the film.  Pascal Bonitzer clearly had Hitchcock in mind when he conceived the suspenseful denouement which culminates in a gripping live-and-death tussle on the rooftops of Paris (far better than the limp sitting room ending of the original novel).  Claude Chabrol is another obvious reference, as the film is as much a deliciously barbed dark satire on the bourgeoisie as it is a conventional whodunit.  Here Bonitzer shows a flair for direction that has been hard to detect in much of his previous work, and even if he has a tendency to 'borrow' from others more capable than himself his own style is at last beginning to take form.  Just as the pieces of Le Grand alibi finally come together like a jigsaw to form a satisfying whole, so Bonitzer's own filmmaking identity is starting to emerge.

Film Synopsis

During a weekend break at the country estate of Senator Henri Pages, Pierre Collier is murdered.  The obvious culprit is his wife, Claire, who is found at the scene of the crime holding a gun.  She certainly has good reason to kill her husband, an inveterate womaniser. But, as the police soon discover, things are hardly that simple.  The gun is not the murder weapon and virtually every one of the guests staying at the house had a motive for killing Pierre...