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Ordeal By Innocence
I just watched Ordeal by Innocence, based on an Agatha Christie mystery and boy has this latest adaptation distorted the whole thing!
This 4 episode miniseries was created in 2018. There were some changes which I could understand were made to give the story more tension. In the book, Leo and Gwenda have not yet set a wedding date. In the show, the wedding is a week away. Micky and Tina's connection is also introduced sooner, and Jacko's death (changed to Jack in the show) is more relevant to earlier events.
However most of the characters have been completely changed, the murderer was changed, the story end was changed and two entirely new storylines were created which didn't exist. The setup of the book is the same and there are elements which carry over. But it's like a hollow shell whose insides have been carved out and replaced.
The thing that bothers me the most about it is that it doesn't seem like the producers trusted the audience to deal with subtleties. Everything is over the top. In the novel the mother frustrated her children by her certitude that she was always right. Yet as several of the grown children admitted, she usually was! She was not the overbearing, controlling and monstrous person she was in the TV show. She was just a frustrating parent to have, and one who her children rebelled against, but usually to their own detriment.
In the novel, her husband eventually fades away from family life to be taken up by his antiquities but he's not a monster either. He does have a mutual love with Gwenda, his secretary, but neither of them have acted on it before the mother's death. While Gwenda is frustrated by this, she is not the frivolous, gold digging tart she is portrayed as in the TV show. She wants to go away with Leo, not take over the house or lead the family. She wishes he would take the initiative and divorce his wife but he is a passive person and doesn't want to divorce or invite scandal (as one might guess given their 2 year wait after her death without making marriage plans).
In the show Leo and Gwenda were having an affair, which is discovered by Rachel in the most obvious way possible, as a pair of lace panties are left in his office.
The oldest daughter Mary is the complete opposite of the novel's character. What is remarkable about Mary is how indifferent she is to anyone in the family or anything that occurs, and how she never responds to any affectionate overtures from her parents. Her only desire is to be on her own with her husband and to have him to herself. In the show, she is a clingy child who frustrates her mother with a desire for attention and a jealousy of her siblings. It is never suggested she actually has a home of her own. In the novel the most interesting scene about Mary is when it is revealed that she had no affection for her parents and was, indeed, incapable of loving anyone. Instead she feigned affection to them in order to get them to adopt her and take her away from the impoverished home life she had. She is materialistic and maternal towards Philip and doesn't care that they can not have children after his accident.
In the novel her husband Philip does have a wandering eye and, had he not been paralyzed, might have run around on her. However Philip is mostly frustrated with how his life has become limited, in how Mary coddles him, and how his mental challenges are few. In the show he is a more unpleasant person and it's suggested he was a bad choice for Mary and has made her unhappy.
As in the book he is the next family member killed, though he doesn't seem to have done the same level of investigating as in the book. However his manner of death has changed. It does not, however, seem believable. Because while Philip's lack of mobility does make him more vulnerablem he is not a weak and helpless individual and would seem unlikely to be overpowered without anyone realizing he was being attacked.
Despite the fact that we have 4 episodes in which to spin out the story we don't get any more development of Micky and Tina than we had in the book. In it, Tina gets the shortest shrift, although overall her character is the one that has hardly been changed. However she gets along with her mother better than any of the other children and is the only one truly grateful for being given a better life and more opportunities. There is no awful confrontation with her mother as in the show because she and Micky are not really involved until after her death.
Micky's story was the most interesting in the novel, as while he was moved out of London to safety (as Tina and many other children were during WWII) he longs to be back with his mother and idealizes her unrealistically. As a result he never bonds with his adoptive mother, who ends up keeping him because his biological mother doesn't want him back and is glad to relinquish her claims to him for money. He and Tina are also only some of the war refugees who stay in the home. The others eventually return to their homes but neither of their mothers want them back so they are adopted by the Argyles.
Rachel tries to help Micky get set up in the auto business given his love of cars, but he rejects her help as he continues to reject her. By the novel's end, and through his relationship with Tina, he eventually realizes he really was much better off being adopted (and in the novel, his mother dies not long after the war). He also regrets never expressing his thanks to Rachel and he ends up accepting his father's offer to get him set up in a new life abroad, overseeing military vehicle upkeep and deployment. In the show Micky has a storyline of cutting rather than memories of wanting to return home. Given the desire for modernization, it seems odd that this story, which actually was set in the same time period as the book, should not include elements that were much more pertinent.
One disagreement Arthur and Rachel have is that she insists on the best of everything for the children they caretake. He tells her this could be a hindrance to the children when they return to their actual homes. However as in all things, he ends up bowing to her wishes and she takes in more and more children.
Hester is something of a nonentity in the TV show but a more central character in the novel, as it is she who utters the phrase that becomes the book title. What's more Arthur is instantly attracted to her and, after a doctor she is dating pulls away when murder suspicion falls on the family again, she responds to him because he believes in her innocence.
In the novel, Hester goes off to try her hand at acting with her mother's blessing and then returns on her own after she has failed at an acting career and had an unhappy affair with an older actor. She admits to Arthur that her actions had been silly and mostly a form of rebellion to leave the home than because she had any passion for acting. Instead in the show her mother pays off her lover, who is not an older father figure as in the original book, drugs her to take her to a hospital, and forces an abortion on her.
Arthur is wildly different in the TV show. Instead of suffering a concussion prior to his departure on the Polar expedition, Arthur instead suffers from mental illness and was confined to an institution following his meeting with Jacko. In the novel he is a central character who propels the narrative forward. Prior to coming to the Argyles he had already met with the police who had handled the murder case and established his identity and had his story verified. In the TV show we are uncertain of who he is and what he claims, or even whether he could have committed the murder or whether Jack had been rightly convicted. There is no storyline with Hester.
There are references throughout to bombs dropping and the fact that the Argyles have built a bomb shelter. Apparently this is supposed to remind us it was the 50s. But the main purpose seems to be to give us a reason for why Calgary was institutionalized and feeling guilty because he was a physicist.
But it is Jacko and Kirsten who have been tampered with the most, as they would have to be in order to have the changed ending. In the novel Jacko is a badun who has always caused trouble and had little sense of morality. He goes off early and gets married, though he hides this from his mother. He is constantly cadging money from her as he likes living well but doesn't work. In the novel the family only discovers his marriage after his death when his wife shows up at the house. It is Arthur going to meet with her later that provides the first clues as to who killed Rachel and why. Jacko likes to swindle older women who he has affairs with, which, while it's not actually said in the novel, suggests that his behavior is a form of rebellion and contempt for his adoptive mother.
But in the TV show, Instead of being among the first to leave the house, Jacko says she'll never get him out. Then Rachel reveals that Kirsten is his mother. At this point it's very clear that this story is not at all going where it was supposed to.
In the beginning it is clear that Kirsten has been miscast. She is not an overweight older woman. She is a slender relatively young one. So it's particularly odd when Rachel harangues her for having bare legs and saying no one wants to see her chunky calves. Obviously she not only doesn't have them but she is wearing a long skirt anyhow! Apparently wardrobe didn't read the scene.
In the novel, Jacko is accused because he came to the house to get money and is later found with money on him. He claims that despite their loud argument, she did give it to him. The police accuse him of killing her and taking the money. However the family is surprised since Jacko was never violent. Nevertheless, with his alibi seeming to be made up and the money on him, he makes for a scapegoat everone can live with.
Instead however, it is Kirsten who kills Rachel in order to give Jacko the money because Jacko has convinced her -- yet another older woman -- that he is in love with her and has been slowly going through her savings. She is then horrified by the appearance of his wife after his arrest, and lets him go to trial because of what he did to her.
In the show there is no storyline about Jacko's wife, or the revelation of the real motive for the murder. Instead Leo is claimed to be a serial philander who preys on the live-in staff, (even though there is no suggestion that there were ever very many people working in the house since the orphanage never exists in the show). He thus rapes Kirsten and she eventually gives birth to Jacko who Rachel adopts. Jacko only finds out on the night of the murder that he is Kirsten's son. They have no chance to develop a new relationship because Leo kills Rachel so he can marry Gwenda.
In the TV show, Jacko is much more sympathetic. Instead of being an amoral conman, he is more of a truth teller and thorn in his parents' side. There is also a new story with the chief of police and his wife which never existed. Jacko comes on to the chief's wife, who rejects him. Later when the chief confronts him, Jacko accuses him of homosexual predation on children.
Apparently the police chief has a storyline in the show for two main reasons. The first is to have an unreliable authority figure so that no one can turn to outside help. The second is that he is complicit with Leo in getting Jacko killed in prison once he is arrested. The reason is that Jacko threatens to reveal in court what a house of horrors his evil adoptive parents created. The chief is later killed by Leo, a death which, of course, doesn't occur in the novel.
And that pretty much sums up what a change this story has gone through. Everyone is over the top and the story relies on ugly revelations -- down to the kids faking Leo's death and instead locking him in the afore mentioned bomb shelter for (presumably) the rest of his life. These kids are all victims who just wanted kind parents, rather than the more complicated story of how adoption could complicate family relationships and how an efficient, do-gooding mother could end up alienating her family.
This 4 episode miniseries was created in 2018. There were some changes which I could understand were made to give the story more tension. In the book, Leo and Gwenda have not yet set a wedding date. In the show, the wedding is a week away. Micky and Tina's connection is also introduced sooner, and Jacko's death (changed to Jack in the show) is more relevant to earlier events.
However most of the characters have been completely changed, the murderer was changed, the story end was changed and two entirely new storylines were created which didn't exist. The setup of the book is the same and there are elements which carry over. But it's like a hollow shell whose insides have been carved out and replaced.
The thing that bothers me the most about it is that it doesn't seem like the producers trusted the audience to deal with subtleties. Everything is over the top. In the novel the mother frustrated her children by her certitude that she was always right. Yet as several of the grown children admitted, she usually was! She was not the overbearing, controlling and monstrous person she was in the TV show. She was just a frustrating parent to have, and one who her children rebelled against, but usually to their own detriment.
In the novel, her husband eventually fades away from family life to be taken up by his antiquities but he's not a monster either. He does have a mutual love with Gwenda, his secretary, but neither of them have acted on it before the mother's death. While Gwenda is frustrated by this, she is not the frivolous, gold digging tart she is portrayed as in the TV show. She wants to go away with Leo, not take over the house or lead the family. She wishes he would take the initiative and divorce his wife but he is a passive person and doesn't want to divorce or invite scandal (as one might guess given their 2 year wait after her death without making marriage plans).
In the show Leo and Gwenda were having an affair, which is discovered by Rachel in the most obvious way possible, as a pair of lace panties are left in his office.
The oldest daughter Mary is the complete opposite of the novel's character. What is remarkable about Mary is how indifferent she is to anyone in the family or anything that occurs, and how she never responds to any affectionate overtures from her parents. Her only desire is to be on her own with her husband and to have him to herself. In the show, she is a clingy child who frustrates her mother with a desire for attention and a jealousy of her siblings. It is never suggested she actually has a home of her own. In the novel the most interesting scene about Mary is when it is revealed that she had no affection for her parents and was, indeed, incapable of loving anyone. Instead she feigned affection to them in order to get them to adopt her and take her away from the impoverished home life she had. She is materialistic and maternal towards Philip and doesn't care that they can not have children after his accident.
In the novel her husband Philip does have a wandering eye and, had he not been paralyzed, might have run around on her. However Philip is mostly frustrated with how his life has become limited, in how Mary coddles him, and how his mental challenges are few. In the show he is a more unpleasant person and it's suggested he was a bad choice for Mary and has made her unhappy.
As in the book he is the next family member killed, though he doesn't seem to have done the same level of investigating as in the book. However his manner of death has changed. It does not, however, seem believable. Because while Philip's lack of mobility does make him more vulnerablem he is not a weak and helpless individual and would seem unlikely to be overpowered without anyone realizing he was being attacked.
Despite the fact that we have 4 episodes in which to spin out the story we don't get any more development of Micky and Tina than we had in the book. In it, Tina gets the shortest shrift, although overall her character is the one that has hardly been changed. However she gets along with her mother better than any of the other children and is the only one truly grateful for being given a better life and more opportunities. There is no awful confrontation with her mother as in the show because she and Micky are not really involved until after her death.
Micky's story was the most interesting in the novel, as while he was moved out of London to safety (as Tina and many other children were during WWII) he longs to be back with his mother and idealizes her unrealistically. As a result he never bonds with his adoptive mother, who ends up keeping him because his biological mother doesn't want him back and is glad to relinquish her claims to him for money. He and Tina are also only some of the war refugees who stay in the home. The others eventually return to their homes but neither of their mothers want them back so they are adopted by the Argyles.
Rachel tries to help Micky get set up in the auto business given his love of cars, but he rejects her help as he continues to reject her. By the novel's end, and through his relationship with Tina, he eventually realizes he really was much better off being adopted (and in the novel, his mother dies not long after the war). He also regrets never expressing his thanks to Rachel and he ends up accepting his father's offer to get him set up in a new life abroad, overseeing military vehicle upkeep and deployment. In the show Micky has a storyline of cutting rather than memories of wanting to return home. Given the desire for modernization, it seems odd that this story, which actually was set in the same time period as the book, should not include elements that were much more pertinent.
One disagreement Arthur and Rachel have is that she insists on the best of everything for the children they caretake. He tells her this could be a hindrance to the children when they return to their actual homes. However as in all things, he ends up bowing to her wishes and she takes in more and more children.
Hester is something of a nonentity in the TV show but a more central character in the novel, as it is she who utters the phrase that becomes the book title. What's more Arthur is instantly attracted to her and, after a doctor she is dating pulls away when murder suspicion falls on the family again, she responds to him because he believes in her innocence.
In the novel, Hester goes off to try her hand at acting with her mother's blessing and then returns on her own after she has failed at an acting career and had an unhappy affair with an older actor. She admits to Arthur that her actions had been silly and mostly a form of rebellion to leave the home than because she had any passion for acting. Instead in the show her mother pays off her lover, who is not an older father figure as in the original book, drugs her to take her to a hospital, and forces an abortion on her.
Arthur is wildly different in the TV show. Instead of suffering a concussion prior to his departure on the Polar expedition, Arthur instead suffers from mental illness and was confined to an institution following his meeting with Jacko. In the novel he is a central character who propels the narrative forward. Prior to coming to the Argyles he had already met with the police who had handled the murder case and established his identity and had his story verified. In the TV show we are uncertain of who he is and what he claims, or even whether he could have committed the murder or whether Jack had been rightly convicted. There is no storyline with Hester.
There are references throughout to bombs dropping and the fact that the Argyles have built a bomb shelter. Apparently this is supposed to remind us it was the 50s. But the main purpose seems to be to give us a reason for why Calgary was institutionalized and feeling guilty because he was a physicist.
But it is Jacko and Kirsten who have been tampered with the most, as they would have to be in order to have the changed ending. In the novel Jacko is a badun who has always caused trouble and had little sense of morality. He goes off early and gets married, though he hides this from his mother. He is constantly cadging money from her as he likes living well but doesn't work. In the novel the family only discovers his marriage after his death when his wife shows up at the house. It is Arthur going to meet with her later that provides the first clues as to who killed Rachel and why. Jacko likes to swindle older women who he has affairs with, which, while it's not actually said in the novel, suggests that his behavior is a form of rebellion and contempt for his adoptive mother.
But in the TV show, Instead of being among the first to leave the house, Jacko says she'll never get him out. Then Rachel reveals that Kirsten is his mother. At this point it's very clear that this story is not at all going where it was supposed to.
In the beginning it is clear that Kirsten has been miscast. She is not an overweight older woman. She is a slender relatively young one. So it's particularly odd when Rachel harangues her for having bare legs and saying no one wants to see her chunky calves. Obviously she not only doesn't have them but she is wearing a long skirt anyhow! Apparently wardrobe didn't read the scene.
In the novel, Jacko is accused because he came to the house to get money and is later found with money on him. He claims that despite their loud argument, she did give it to him. The police accuse him of killing her and taking the money. However the family is surprised since Jacko was never violent. Nevertheless, with his alibi seeming to be made up and the money on him, he makes for a scapegoat everone can live with.
Instead however, it is Kirsten who kills Rachel in order to give Jacko the money because Jacko has convinced her -- yet another older woman -- that he is in love with her and has been slowly going through her savings. She is then horrified by the appearance of his wife after his arrest, and lets him go to trial because of what he did to her.
In the show there is no storyline about Jacko's wife, or the revelation of the real motive for the murder. Instead Leo is claimed to be a serial philander who preys on the live-in staff, (even though there is no suggestion that there were ever very many people working in the house since the orphanage never exists in the show). He thus rapes Kirsten and she eventually gives birth to Jacko who Rachel adopts. Jacko only finds out on the night of the murder that he is Kirsten's son. They have no chance to develop a new relationship because Leo kills Rachel so he can marry Gwenda.
In the TV show, Jacko is much more sympathetic. Instead of being an amoral conman, he is more of a truth teller and thorn in his parents' side. There is also a new story with the chief of police and his wife which never existed. Jacko comes on to the chief's wife, who rejects him. Later when the chief confronts him, Jacko accuses him of homosexual predation on children.
Apparently the police chief has a storyline in the show for two main reasons. The first is to have an unreliable authority figure so that no one can turn to outside help. The second is that he is complicit with Leo in getting Jacko killed in prison once he is arrested. The reason is that Jacko threatens to reveal in court what a house of horrors his evil adoptive parents created. The chief is later killed by Leo, a death which, of course, doesn't occur in the novel.
And that pretty much sums up what a change this story has gone through. Everyone is over the top and the story relies on ugly revelations -- down to the kids faking Leo's death and instead locking him in the afore mentioned bomb shelter for (presumably) the rest of his life. These kids are all victims who just wanted kind parents, rather than the more complicated story of how adoption could complicate family relationships and how an efficient, do-gooding mother could end up alienating her family.