Reseña del libro: Muerte en el Nilo | Del libro al cine [Spa][Eng]

The plot shows the brief and distressing married life that a rich and empowered young woman begins to experience, accustomed to always getting what she wants. After having used her power and influence to take an unexpected turn in her love life and what was expected of her in her surprised social circle, the avid close friends begin to orchestrate an unbearable harassment, which will end up pushing her to the limit of her nerves, making her take decisions that will mark her tragic destiny.

The events develop conveniently at the moment of crossing the path of the famous detective Hercule Poirot, who unwittingly will be immersed in this intrigue and will try to solve the poorly represented enigma after the drama of a murder that appeared imminent.




To me Agatha Christie's books are a recurrent resource whenever I need an immediate distraction, a light story that catches you and helps you to stop thinking about anything you want to take your mind off, a different plot each time that allows you to change context when you are saturated with the same content and a fantastic escape for those annoying and endless trips, in which these books offer us an excellent company.

However I had some years without taking one of these titles between my hands, I guess that between how little I have traveled due to the global pandemic and that the last time I read stories of this style, about classic mysteries, I got a little saturated, I decided to leave a wide margin until returning to one of them. I think if it wasn't for the reading club that Hive account@arlettemsalase runs in the community, I wouldn't have been encouraged to read this book just now and I wouldn't have seen the movie either just out of stubbornness, the same thing already happened to me in 2017 with Murder on the Orient Express and so far it's still postponed.

The book

In my opinion it is light, an eventual case that was not expected by Agatha Christie's eternal protagonist, the detective Hercule Poirot who was determined to take a well-deserved and quiet vacation away from the uncontrollable city of London, but what else would be his surprise as he would find himself in the middle of a complex drama devised by a mastermind and adorned by isolated events that intermingle in the same direction but that turn out to be of a casual or harmless nature, so the detective will have to face the extravagant situation, very much against his wishes, to solve a case that was not among his plans to tackle and that he saw conceived little by little at the beginning of his innocent trip.

In this short book the author introduces a mixture of well-defined personalities that accompany her characters, we have a little bit of everything, from the cunning millionaire on which the plot develops to some passionate revolutionary, through the capricious wealthy and applied workers. All respond to the reflection of the society of the 30's and the need for change that was palpable in those times. Agatha Christie gives us hints of what she perceived in her world through these stories, and allows us to assess the reality and the questions that women were asking themselves at that time.

Characters full of resentment and delusions of grandeur, pursuing the dream of finally succeeding in a world that only shows them injustice, problems and that at the time of distributing wealth, regardless of its nature, end up being monopolized by a small group of lucky ones, who do not share their joy with others. *You can't be so beautiful, rich and intelligent at the same time" is the premise that pursues our protagonist relentlessly until she has no choice but to succumb to it.

The Book Club

This has been the second proposal of the year in the hispanic Book Club moderated by Hive account@arlettemsalase in Telegram, the theme of March has focused on great female authors of world literature, allowing us to pay them a small tribute during the month of women. After consensus this book was chosen, first because many of us were interested in the recent film adaptation and also because after reading a hundred years of solitude we wanted to read something lighter and shorter, so that club members who are trying to create a habit and those who find it hard to catch up with activities, due to work or academic reasons, would have it a little easier.

Two discussion sessions were held during the first weeks of the month, although the rest of the days we commented on our progress and expectations in the group. As is customary on Tuesdays we held a group call and shared sensations and impressions, in the first we were critical and suspicious of the range of characters presented to us and especially with respect to the socio-cultural context in which the story takes place, and for the second meeting in which we concluded the analysis of the book the reactions were more exciting, full of surprise, recognition and satisfaction, so this choice turned out to be a total success.

If you are interested in sharing impressions with other reading lovers you can access the Telegram group from this link (Spanish only): El club de Lectura de Hive

Here I share the information of our next reading: Día Internacional de la Mujer | Terminamos un libro, comenzamos otro by Hive account@arlettemsalase

Meetings are every Tuesday at 21:00 UTC.

The movie

I have to start by talking about the amount of advertising I came across during the promotion of this movie, I found it curious at first but then it puzzled me so much that I kept taking pictures of the posters I came across on the street, as a sample this pair although we could fill the post with advertising content with everything that was out there. Apparently it was well received although according to news reports it didn't quite match the 2017 first part of Murder on the Orient Express but those were different times, now cinema is suffering a lot, recovering from the many restrictions that affected it and struggling with the dynamics of streaming platforms, many of us have lost the habit of regularly attending a movie theater and will most likely try to get a movie online before deciding to leave the house to watch it.

This time I decided to go out to the movies and I enjoyed it. I was motivated by having just finished reading the book and I had high expectations of how they would adapt so much madness so that the details that connected the crime would not go unnoticed. As in any adaptation there are usually changes, but I think that in this case they were positive, removing some characters and combining certain events allowed to condense in a reasonable way the development of the story that still result in 120 minutes of film, which is quite a lot, but it goes by without noticing, there are almost no filler scenes, in most of them something happens and you are expectant at all times, the scenes are very faithful to the book, there are moments of passion somewhat exaggerated but serve to enliven the sober character of the story and help the end to reach an optimal climax at the right time.

As for the performances, I found them impeccable, even some surprised me, I did not expect to be satisfied with the interpretation of Russell Brand because in my head he did not fit the character of the book, but once I assimilated the reinterpretation of this in the film, being one of these characters that they molded to convenience, I must admit that I even liked it. If there is something that did not interest me too much was that air of insecurity that is attributed to Poirot when the subject of his personal life is touched, this character always proves to be haughty and strong, so those details of nervousness and flirting are not interesting to me, as well as the opening scene where part of his past is told, I found it long and unnecessary.

The important thing is to ask yourself if you would recommend it or if you would see it again, and my answer is affirmative in both cases, so if the purpose of cinema is to entertain I can assure you that with this film the objective is guaranteed.