Agatha (film)
7 /10 1 Votes
82% Rotten Tomatoes Director Michael Apted Duration Country United Kingdom | 6.3/10 IMDb 2.5/4 Roger Ebert Genre Drama, Mystery, Thriller Language English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Writer Kathleen Tynan , Arthur Hopcraft Release date February 9, 1979 (1979-02-09) Cast Dustin Hoffman (Wally Stanton), Vanessa Redgrave (Agatha Christie), Timothy Dalton (Col. Archibald Christie), Helen Morse (Evelyn Crawley), Celia Gregory (Nancy Neele), Paul Brooke (John Foster)Similar movies Murder Ahoy , Murder Most Foul , Murder at the Gallop , J. Edgar , The Wolf of Wall Street , Goodfellas Tagline A fictional solution to the real mystery of Agatha Christie's disappearance. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dustin hoffman in agatha 1979 tv trailer
A fictitious account of crime writer Agatha Christies unexplained 11-day disappearance in 1926. Facing the breakdown of her marriage to a war hero, the famous author assumes a new identity and flees to a spa town where she sets in motion a bizarre and drastic revenge plot against her husband and his mistress. Thousands scour the British countryside for her, including an American reporter who is hot on her trail.
Contents
Agatha is a 1979 drama thriller film directed by Michael Apted, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman and Timothy Dalton, and written by Kathleen Tynan. The film focuses on renowned crime writer Agatha Christie, offering a theory as to her still unsolved 12-day disappearance in 1926.
In real life, mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in December 1926. To this day, no one knows the details of what she did during that time. The film gives a fictional account of Christie's time away, showing her as a woman fleeing her own life after the death of her mother and the announcement from her husband that he is leaving her. She flees to a spa in Harrogate. With the whole country looking for her, an American reporter finds her and ultimately tries to help her.
Plot
When her husband Archibald "Archie" Christie (Timothy Dalton) confronts her with his affair and demands a divorce, crime writer Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave) tells him that she fears for her life and promptly vanishes. She signs into a Harrogate hotel under the name of a relative of Archie’s lover and, as the country flies into a frenzy of rumour regarding her disappearance, secretly plans a dark revenge against him that can only be averted by Wally Stanton (Dustin Hoffman), an ambitious American journalist who falls in love with her.
Cast
Production
Kathleen Tynan began researching the project as a BBC documentary. During her research she told producer David Puttnam about it and he suggested it be turned into a feature film. The Agatha Christie estate opposed the movie and tried to get it stopped.
Similar Movies
Vanessa Redgrave appears in Agatha and Yanks. A Warm December (1973). Dustin Hoffman appears in Agatha and directed Straight Time. Ruby Sparks (2012). Affair with a Stranger (1953).
Reception
Agatha was generally very well received by critics, and maintains an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not all critics liked the movie, however. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of four and told readers that the relationship between Christie and the American journalist "isnt real. Its never for a moment deeply felt its just deeply acted."
References
Agatha (film) WikipediaAgatha (film) IMDbAgatha (film) Rotten TomatoesAgatha (film) Roger EbertAgatha (film) themoviedb.org