Petits meurtres en famille (2006)

This 4 part-series is based on Hercule Poirot's Christmas book by Agatha Christie. I am familiar with story because the book is one of the several Agatha Christie's I have. (Most of her works I've read were borrowed from a library.) About last year, if I am not mistaken, ABC broadcasted the movie version with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot. The main thing was, when TV5 started to air the first episode, I had already known the story and the killer.

Yet I enjoyed this very much and thought that it was the best adaptation of Agatha Christie's. The books, like the movie versions made in the UK, are about murders and social chats. In this Petits meurtres en famille, we also get love affairs and intrigues, but not like in those cheap soap operas. I never knew Agatha Christie can be so enjoyable! The sets are wonderful and cast are great (I almost couldn't recognize Robert Hossein! - but in a scene, a picture when he was young was shown.).

Those who have read the book or watched the version with David Suchet know that the story is about the troubles among father and his sons (although he did have one daughter) and culminates in one of them killing the father. The atmosphere can be found throughout the movie: the relationship between the butler and his son, Louis (the housekeeper) and his son, Alix and her mother - and later her father, and Inspector Lampion and his parents (If I am not mistaken, Lampion is an orphan). There is a little change in how the murder is done. In the book - and in the movie with David Suchet - to create the cry, the killer uses a balloon. Here, he cries from outside Simon's window. Oh, yes, Hercule Poirot is missing in this and the young Inspector Lampion is the one who solves the puzzle.