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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Brilliant and touching

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Newcomers to Agatha Christie are genuinely astonished at her breadth. She's more than Poirot and Marple. She's the Beresfords and Superintendent Battle, and lots of one-off mysteries, with freewheeling young people and with lots of humor; as if Wodehouse decided to drop Jeeves and Wooster and try to do mysteries.Personally, I like lots of the Superintendent Battle stories, like THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS, THE SEVEN DIALS MYSTERY . . . and TOWARDS ZERO. Yes, this is a Battle book that Miss Marple is horning in on. Like like she horned in on Tommy and Tuppense in another story in this series. She's invading another sleuth's book.But a word on Geraldine McEwen's "Marple." Compare her to the earlier incarnation of "Miss Marple" (Joan Hickson). Christie writes about how Miss Marple occasionally twinkles. Hickson, a former "Carry On" and comedy actress, is a bit creepy and annoying. But then, at just the right moment, she twinkles, and you see what Christie meant. McEwen, another long-time stage actress with a some tv and film history, is all twinkle. And it's tiresome.Nevertheless, like all "Agatha Christie Marple" episodes with McEwen, "Towards Zero" is stylish. And unlike some others, it actually goes more or less by the book. Some episodes ("The Moving Finger") are fairly accurately Christie. Others change the lovers (wrongly in each case, to my mind); or the murderer ("The Sittaford Mystery"; or twist the murderer(s) characters to suit the new writers' political outlook ("Nemesis"). Miss Marple doesn't belong here, but otherwise they keep the story comparatively pure. And they keep a wonderful moment on the boat near the climax. It was funny in the book when Battle did it. I confess it comes as a great visual when Marple does it.Eight stars out of ten for style, and more or less accuracy; but Marple doesn't belong here. It's too bad they couldn't do a series of Christie without Poirot or Marple. They did a few of these when Francesca Annis, Cheryl Campbell and James Warwick were young. Christie is hardly Holy Writ and changes must be made from page to screen, but this twinkling Marple really sticks her nose where it doesn't belong.

I approached this movie with some skepticism: although France is to be commended for being pretty much the only country in the world right now that still produces films based on the works of Agatha Christie and releases them theatrically (the British Poirot and Miss Marple series are still running, of course, but they're made for TV), "Towards Zero" is directed by Pascal Thomas, whose previous Christie adaptation, the 2005 "By The Pricking Of My Thumbs", was about as dull as a film can possibly be. Thankfully, "Towards Zero" is much better. The main reason for this is simple: instead of being a talkathon with secondary mystery elements like "Thumbs", this is a good old-fashioned whodunit with nearly all of the typical elements of the genre in place: a luxurious mansion, a large but limited number of suspects, a cunning police inspector, family secrets, intense emotions and rivalries, red herrings, etc. The solution is unpredictable, even though it is based on the kind of double-deception that Christie has used quite a few other times in her stories. The cast is good, with the best performance award going to Laura Smet for her infuriatingly impulsive and impulsively sexy character. The locations and the settings are beautiful. A nostalgically enjoyable movie. *** out of 4.

Towards Zero is not one of Agatha Christie's more famous novels, but for a murder mystery lover it is almost an essential read. It has been several years since I read it, but I very distinctly remember how much I enjoyed it as well as the plot and the substantial twist.This French movie adaptation is set in present day Bretagne, but other than that remains - rather surprisingly - true to the book, more so than, for example, the Diana Rigg version of Evil Under The Sun. All important plot points remain intact. Not that this in itself signifies a great movie. Au contraire, vraiment - while the cinematography, setting, music and pacing are more or less good, many of the actors overact their characters to the point of becoming caricatures instead. The shrewish wife or the maid (vaguely reminiscent of Nancy Walker's Yetta in Murder By Death, nevertheless wholly unsuitable for a serious murder mystery) are best examples of this. Danielle Darrieux is, quite unsurprisingly, not among those, and her much too brief appearance as Aunt Camilla is the only real performance in the picture. François Morel as the detective comes close to one, but not quite close enough.Final verdict: Entertaining murder mystery with some hammy performances, fast pacing and a great twist by Dame Agatha herself. Also useful as a French listening comprehension practice, especially if you're as lucky as I am and your copy lacks subtitles.

In 2005 Pascal Thomas adapted an Agatha Christie story for the screen, signed up Catherine Frot and Andre Dussollier for the leads and enjoyed the minor success which prompted him to do it again ergo Zero Hour. In my case top-billed Danielle Darrieux - still acting in her ninety first year - was all the inducement I needed to get it up at the box office and the fact that Thomas has made another competent film is a bonus. If you like movies in which the actors wear timeless, well-cut clothes, move in a well-appointed château with a seascape thrown in for good measure and behave in obligatory mysterious ways so that an eventual murder has been long anticipated then you won't be disappointed. Chiara Mastroianni, looking more like her father every day is also on hand to remind us what we lost when her father died and if she bears only a passing resemblance to her mother that's not so important because mum Catherine Deneuve is still very much with us. It's doubtful if Chiara will ever achieve the iconic status of her parents but she gets acting jobs because casting directors and producers know she can deliver rather than because of her genes. An enjoyable romp.