"The Moving Finger" is not one of my favorite Miss Marple books, even though I thought the premise of the novel was great and there were some clever bits here and there. Overall I just found the book rather mundane and not as near as good as the idea behind it.
That being said, this adaptation of "The Moving Finger" is surprisingly good. To be honest, it's one of the better Miss Marple adaptations I've seen in this series so far.
So let's start with the good aspects, shall we?
. The production values of this episode are great as usual. "The Moving Finger" looks good and the music's suitably haunting.
. The acting's mostly very good too. Jessica Hynes, Emilia Fox, Sean Pertwee, Kelly Brook- all are solid in their roles. Especially liked James D'Arcy and Talulah Riley.
. The script is good and stays true to the source material. Yes, couple of things have been changed, but these changes helped the story for the better in my opinion. For example: the romance between Megan and Jerry is much more believable here than it was in the book. The solution ( Symmington is the killer) has more creepy altones to it as well.
But...
. Not all of the acting is good. Henry Enfield unfortunately overacts, especially towards the ending. Keith Allen's performance did not it do for me either and Ken Russell was just unnatural as the priest.
. The direction, while fine, and the script, which was pretty good in the long run, could have better at times. The screenplay needed a bit more clearness in the final minutes and the green screen used in the direction should have been less noticable.
Overall, a very good episode.
8/10 HK
That being said, this adaptation of "The Moving Finger" is surprisingly good. To be honest, it's one of the better Miss Marple adaptations I've seen in this series so far.
So let's start with the good aspects, shall we?
. The production values of this episode are great as usual. "The Moving Finger" looks good and the music's suitably haunting.
. The acting's mostly very good too. Jessica Hynes, Emilia Fox, Sean Pertwee, Kelly Brook- all are solid in their roles. Especially liked James D'Arcy and Talulah Riley.
. The script is good and stays true to the source material. Yes, couple of things have been changed, but these changes helped the story for the better in my opinion. For example: the romance between Megan and Jerry is much more believable here than it was in the book. The solution ( Symmington is the killer) has more creepy altones to it as well.
But...
. Not all of the acting is good. Henry Enfield unfortunately overacts, especially towards the ending. Keith Allen's performance did not it do for me either and Ken Russell was just unnatural as the priest.
. The direction, while fine, and the script, which was pretty good in the long run, could have better at times. The screenplay needed a bit more clearness in the final minutes and the green screen used in the direction should have been less noticable.
Overall, a very good episode.
8/10 HK