David Suchet's wish to film all the Poirot stories come to fruition in this final tale written by Agatha Christie where Poirot is now old, ill and knocking on death's door.The setting of the television adaptations has always been the 1930s but here we jump forward to the late 1940s and the post world war 2 setting.Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) returns to see his old friend and also his daughter staying in Styles once a grand family house now a hotel. This was also the setting for a murder that Hastings and Poirot once investigated.The look of the film is that of a melancholy gloom, we know that Poirot is reaching the end of the road. In recent television adventures we see Poirot being a pious Catholic and rather absolute that murder is wrong.This has been leading up to something that the producers and even Suchet decided to devise a route map knowing the contents of the final story.Dead bodies turn up, people attempt to kill, even Hastings nearly succumbs to murder given how much he detests his daughter's latest flame. Yet Poirot realises that there is an Iago like person who is pulling the strings and has pulled them before, enough to send someone over the edge while they act all innocent.Poirot uses his little grey cells to lure this person into a trap, a culprit who actually has never killed anyone yet Poirot thinks is dangerous enough that he would contemplate his own eternal soul to be damned.The feature length films lacked the leanness, exquisiteness, humour and stylish look of the hour long adaptations. They only tended hang together in the final reveal of the murderer and how it was all done as in here. Until then the film felt a little disjointed and gloomy.Still it serves as a nice swansong with Suchet leaving a strong mark in his interpretation of Poirot.

One has to be a brainless fan of Cristie and Poirot(in either the books or series who are somewhat different) to enjoy this episode.Episode is a faithful adaptation of the book in main story points, skillfully fitted to character of Poirot, with his blinkered morality, as developed in later 'darker' episodes of the series.From moral point of view, lousy logic used by Poirot to justify his murdering, and absolving of other murderers who have freely chosen to commit crimes, testify to either severe deterioration of his much referenced 'little grey cells', or Cristie's ironic revenge after developing a strong dislike for her character's smug pseudo rationality. Adapters did point to rather hypocritical moral compass of Poirot in several of the later episodes, such as 'The Clocks'. However they never seem to have the courage to carry it through to the end in any of them, and always dropped the ball before exposing the absurdity of Poirot's moral pontificating. They succeeded better when there is a distance between Poirot and characters going through a murder induced moral crisis, as in 'The Murder on the Orient Express'.Here too adapters fail to challenge Poirot's irrational murder. Nor do they leave the story at the superficial moral level Cristie displays in books. Unlike her, they raise the moral issues explicitly and seriously, but instead of confronting them in their complexity, they let Poirot getaway with absurdity.By the way, adapters in later part of series tried to imply that Poirot's blinkered morality is due to his pious Catholicism. However some of his moral positions do not fit with the Catholic teachings. If he is confused it due to his brain being confused.Actors were good in the episode, but unlike in almost all episodes in series, up to but not including final season, production design was bad.

This final episode in the final season of Poirot is one I have seen before, and done so recently. This made it stand out for me as I really had seen very few of the ITV films before, which is partly why I took the decision to watch all of them over the last year or so, starting with the first and working forward to this point. Knowing the ending and detail was actually pretty enjoyable because it freed me up to pay more attention to what I knew would be important, however this was not the key difference in this viewing. The bigger difference came from me not just watching as an one-off event to see event television, but rather I was drawing to a close a character and series I greatly enjoyed – so there was a certain base of feeling and engaging that perhaps had not been there the first time.That said, this did not make me feel it was artificially better than I remembered, because I did enjoy it the first time round, and second time round only moreso. The plot does have elements which are not convincing, but the delivery and the general intrigue of the plot does very much keep it moving and encourage you to go with much of it. It is a very finely crafted script, which is refreshingly back in the normal mould of the series after the previous film had felt so very different in style. The crafting allows for lots of small details but in a tightly focused situation and group of people – a combination I like since the latter allows me more time for the former. The mystery develops well, and, although the ending does ask a lot of the viewer, it is dramatic, emotional and genuinely quite surprising if you do not know how it ends. It is also an ending that works thanks to the legwork done in the previously film to bring out Poirot's religious beliefs, and his struggle with some ideas of justice – such base elements help sell this ending much better than it would have done otherwise – and of course, it also helps that it is moving and delicately handled, with the early death and flashback being a very good device.Although the film is not the brightest, the darker coloring and Autumn setting add to a rather tragic feeling that the film warrants. I particularly enjoyed the internal room design, it felt like it was all from an older time but had not aged well to keep its once majesty glory; this is best seen in Poirot's own room, with its tatty wallpaper, or the large rooms which are now sparse, or indeed even the owners – far from the gentry who lived there. This is a feeling that works very well in the context of the narrative. The use of music and the pacing of the delivery also adds to the emotional engagement, but it is the cast that impresses the most. Suchet is excellent as you expect – it is very odd to see him without his mustache at one point, but his character is strong nonetheless, it is a very strong ending to a career defining role. Almost as good is Fraser, who mostly was comic relief in the past, and was barely used in Big Four, but here gives a very emotional performance with lots of small touches and detail. The supporting cast are good with McArdle, Standing, Reid, Glenister, and others, but really the film belong to Suchet and Fraser.A moving, intriguing, and very well crafted final film – one which is even more appreciated given that it comes at the end of a variable season. My memory was that the final film was very good, and watching it this time with the experience of watching all of the preceding episodes, it plays even better than I remembered.

"Curtain" is the last of the Poirot stories, which means the end of David Suchet's run as Poirot. To me, he will always be the definitive Poirot.Hastings, who has just lost his wife, is asked by Poirot to meet him at Styles, the site of a previous case thirty years earlier - their first.Styles is now a guest house. Poirot's health is failing, and he is confined to a wheelchair, due to his arthritis and bad heart. But he still has all his marbles. He tells Hastings that there is a murderer on the premises, and he needs Hastings to be his eyes and ears. The people there include the owners, Daisy and Colonel Toby Luttrell, a spinster, Elizabeth Cole, an aristocrat, Sir William Boyd Carrington, a birdwatcher Stephen Norton, a womanizer, Major Allerton, a chemist Dr John Franklin and his wife Barbara, her nurse, Nurse Craven, and Dr. Franklin's lab assistant, who just happens to be Hastings' estranged daughter Judith. One of these people is a killer. But can Hastings take his attention off his daughter long enough to help Poirot find him or her? Then the murders start. What does Poirot know? Can he solve his final case before his final curtain? A dark mystery, but a good one, with Poirot's illness permeating the entire episode. The murder in the end is actually the McGuffin - the big story is that this is Poirot's last case. My big complaint is that Miss Lemon and Superintendent Japp were not brought back for the episode.I know some people didn't like the turn this series took, and it's true, the seasons with Miss Lemon and Hastings were the best -- they had humor and lightness as well as mystery. But throughout all the seasons, there were always good episodes.Will be missed.