By the Pricking of My Thumbs (2005) User Reviews

Tommy,Tuppence (sorry Prudence),Rose and the queen of spade

[dbdumonteil · 7/10 · 21 October 2007]

Preceding the made-for -TV English version-which oddly also features Miss Marple ;anyway it's part of a Marple miniseries;to my knowledge ,Christie never put her three sleuths together in her novels or short stories-,this Pascal Thomas made-in-France Christie is much fun to watch.

Tommy and Tuppence (her name was changed ;anyway it was a nickname "two pence" which meant "Quat'sous" ),unlike MIss Marple ,appeared when they were young and they grew old with the novels and the writer.

"Mon Petit Doigt m'a dit" casts Catherine Frot and André Dussolier as the leads ,but it has a dream of a cast:it's a joy to see again Laurent Terzieff ,Alexandra Stewart,Genevieve Bujold (Whom I did not recognize)and Bernard Verley.The lines are generally witty ,with a good sense of humor (I particularly dig the lines about the sponges in the home for retired people)which anyway was present (albeit subdued) in Christie's works.Pascal Thomas has found a good way of renewing Christie's novels.After two good works ("murder on the orient express" and "death on the Nile") ,the theatrically released films lacked tempo and got too often bogged down into endless questionings and investigations,which was quite good in the books,but which became boring on the screen.Almost entirely filmed on location,on the banks of the Leman lake,with plenty of characters ,some sinister-looking ,and a dash of supernatural thrown in for good measure.There is often something eerie in Christie's books ,with that feeling of déja vu (Miss Marple's last case had something of this kind).

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a mix of mystery thriller and comedy

[myriamlenys · 7/10 · 24 March 2022]

Loyally accompanying her husband on a visit to his tiresome aunt Ada, Prudence Beresford spends some time walking around in a rather posh care institution for the elderly. There she meets with a stranger, to wit a very old lady who rambles on in a confused fashion about somebody's child being hidden in the fireplace. A short time later Prudence discovers that the said lady has disappeared. Did someone transfer the old dear to another, equally expensive care home better suited to the completely gaga ? Or did someone spirit her away, out of fear that she might say something factually true but dangerous ? Prudence sets out to investigate...

"Mon petit doigt m'a dit..." is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie book called "By the pricking of my thumbs", which, by the way, sounds considerably more ominous. If I may put in my two cents, "By the pricking" is not one of the Great Dame's finest. It's got an excellent central idea, an eerie atmosphere and an ingenious hook, but it loses itself in all kinds of details and asides. After a while keeping track of the narrative becomes as difficult as keeping track of a litter of adventurous pups : while one pup is doing backflips on its mother's head, a second pup is destroying a cushion, a third is climbing into a grocery bag, and so on.

The movie, interestingly enough, shares many of the same characteristics. It starts out very well, with a sudden sense of something old and monstrous rearing its head under circumstances of everyday banality, and for a while the story proceeds with an admirable clarity. Arrives an unnecessary subplot about stolen diamonds and from that moment on the movie wanders off in several directions all at once. Unsurprisingly the final reveal does not have the bone-chilling impact it could have had.

"Mon petit doigt" testifies to a considerable sense of humor, although I doubt Agatha Christie would have recognized it as her own ; it is too freewheeling and antic for that. Some of the jokes work, others don't. There's also a sense of surrealism which is further enhanced by the well-chosen sets and locations. The props, which include a large wall-painting and a series of paintings, are excellent.

Protagonist Catherine Frot is pretty funny as a young and stubborn grandmother who won't let her love for her various descendants interfere with her own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

I gather "Mon petit doigt" is the first in a series of similar Agatha Christie adaptations based on the Beresford characters, but this is the only one I've seen so far.

Long, languid, lazy

[bob998 · 4/10 · 25 March 2018]

I gave it 4 for the acting, the scenery (who has filmed more gorgeous country scenes in recent years?) and the story. But this one takes far too long to tell, has characters who serve no purpose and scenes that go nowhere (that conference that Dussolier attends, mortally dull). You'll watch for the chance to see Genevieve Bujold again; after 50 years of stardom then obscurity she's still compelling. Alexandra Stewart has a small part as a painter's wife; Valerie Kaprisky, who doesn't take her clothes off here, plays a strange woman in church. Then there are Frot and Dussolier who fit together like hand in glove; there's great teamwork between them.

Sedate, dull and unsuspenseful (but pretty to look at)

[gridoon · 3/10 · 8 August 2007]

How is it possible to make a dull film from an Agatha Christie novel? Try this method: keep the mystery vague and the answers poorly explained, REMOVE any sense of SUSPENSE or URGENCY, and add that insufferable talkiness that plagues many French pictures. Voila! This is probably the most boring, sedate Agatha Christie adaptation I've seen so far. Of course, I was not expecting another "Death On The Nile" or "Evil Under The Sun" (especially when in the place of Hercule Poirot you have two middle-aged amateur sleuths), but I was not expecting to be totally indifferent to the outcome of a story coming from the Queen of murder mysteries either! The only good points of this film are the beautiful, vividly photographed French country locations and the fairly engaging performances of Catherine Frot and André Dussollier. (*)

Agatha made in France

[guy-bellinger · 8/10 · 16 May 2005]

This is - for all I know - only the second French adaptation of an Agatha Christie crime story in France. The last time was ... in 1932 ( "Le Coffret de Laque, directed by Jean Kemm)! But this new French effort was worth the waiting. Indeed, Lady Agatha's whodunit has been gallicised and updated so deftly that the viewer never suspects all the adaptation work behind the slick storytelling. When I say gallicised understand a stylized France. And when I say updated I mean a rather iconoclastic present.

All you can expect from an Agatha Christie novel you will find here : thrills, plot twists, mysterious clues, a surprising final resolution. But, thanks to Pascal Thomas' talent you will be given even more : social comment ( old age, family ties, the 2003 heat wave ), black humor (jokes about death, madness, etc.), brilliant dialog, plus a wonderful cast of either well-known character actors typed against cast (Geneviève Bujold, Valérie Kaprisky, Maurice Risch, Laurent Terzieff), of talented beginners(Pierre Lescure) or little known but excellent actors(André Thorent, Anne Le Ny). To say nothing of the sizzling leading couple of the always perfect Catherine Frot and André Dussollier.

However what is most enjoyable is the offbeat tone that imbues the whole film. The atmosphere, although apparently realistic, constantly borders on the fantastic.A farcical type of fantastic, as if "Mon petit Doigt m'a dit" had been made by a Claude Chabrol born in Belgium !

Fingers And Thumbs

[writers_reign · 8/10 · 1 September 2005]

With a couple of heavy hitters like Catherine Frot and Andre Dussollier you can cast them in anything and get a result. Even that most English of English crime writers Agatha Christie. A few years back Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri adapted Alan Ayckbourne successfully in Smoking/No Smoking thus arguably setting a precedent of sorts. For all its comedic implications Smoking was rooted in reality whilst here we have a sort of fictional no man's land which is neither really English nor French but meets all the requirements of the genre from the slightly eccentric brace of retired sleuths to the supporting cast of assorted fruitcakes they meet on their travels. The plot, if you can call it that, needn't really detain us since it's merely a hook to hang some superior acting on. There's hardly a dull moment from beginning to end and half the fun is trying to determine which is which. Diverting? Oui. Entertaining? Oui. What are you waiting for.

Well entangled

[sergelamarche · 10/10 · 26 May 2020]

An adaptation full of comedy, intrigue, which advances quickly. Maybe too fast even. A delight for the eyes and the brain.