YMMV / A Haunting in Venice

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Mrs. Oliver truly never see Poirot as a friend, only just a way to make money? Or was she lashing out due to the stress from her plan failing and knowing Poirot was upset with her? Or was she trying to dissuade her own guilt that her scheme ended with three people dead and several lives ruined?
  • Does Leopold really believe in ghosts and commune with them or does the stress of caring for his father and knowing their benefactor Rowena is a murderer drive him to believe in ghosts to cope?
  • Does Mrs. Reynolds truly believe that she is a psychic or was her speech to Poirot her following Mrs. Oliver's instruction to trick Poirot into believing the impossible?
  • It's possible that Mrs. Reynolds does have some psychic ability after all but they're more rare and unpredictable than she would like so she uses fraud to produce more favorable results to her paying clients. Notably, this is an in-universe example, with one of her assistants firmly convinced that she’s just a fraud, and the other one believing in her powers and thinking that what they do is just some extra razzle-dazzle showmanship for the clients.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When Alicia's ghost scares Rowena and causes her to fall off the balcony, Poirot rushes forward in an attempt to grab her before she's out of reach.
  • In a twisted way, Alicia pulling Rowena away with her. While Rowena's actions lead to her demise, Alicia understands that her mother still loved her and the idea of being without her broke her and made her desperate. Despite both the circumstances, the idea that the two now never have to part again is objectively sweet.
  • At the end of the film, having rejected the potential client who was fearful about how every member of his family was dying off one after another, Poirot—both his spirit and drive reinvigorated silently invites him in to brief him on what he rather quickly figured out about his case and who was truly responsible. It looks to be one of many cases that Poirot is about to start playing catch-up with. If this is how Kenneth Branagh's version of the character's story ends, it's a good note to conclude on.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Puppet Show MC who tells the orphans about the history of the Palazzo and the Children's Vendetta.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Ariadne Oliver. They got Tina Fey to play an Author Avatar sidekick who was in several Poirot novels — and turned her into an antagonist character with whom Poirot definitively falls out at the end, thus nixing the chance of her appearing in any future films in this series.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: It has received a better reception than Death on the Nile, some even consider it the best out of the three Poirot movies by Branagh so far.
• The Woobie:
  • Dr. Leslie Ferrier practically personifies the trope. He's a Shell-Shocked Veteran who was so thoroughly traumatized by what he saw during the liberation of a concentration camp in Belsen Bergen it left him a Nervous Wreck, prone to outbursts, nearly unable to practice and dependent on his young son Leopold for emotional support, the last of which he is deeply ashamed of. It doesn't get better for him as after suffering a violent episode, he is locked in the soundproof music room and blackmailed into suicide by Rowena, who threatens to kill Leopold, the only good thing left in his life, if he doesn't go through with it.
  • Alicia Drake. She found love with Maxime, only for him to seemingly leave her for a much richer girl (when in reality he simply couldn't take Rowena's Green-Eyed Monster behavior toward him any longer) which caused her to develop some form of mental illness from the heartbreak. Up to the night of her suicide Alicia was plagued by hallucinations of the orphans who died in the palazzo. Unaware that her mother was the one behind her torment, having fed her tea with poisonous honey in it so Alicia wouldn't leave her, and so that she could care for her and keep her in a childlike state of dependency. And then Olga ended up accidentally killing her by giving her an overdose of said honey when Alicia's hallucinations got worse.

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