YMMV / Sparkling Cyanide

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Rosemary, as several other Christie heroines, is a beautiful seductress who is annoying, stupid, shallow and the victim of a particularly unscrupulous murder. However, there are hints she has a kind heart underneath it all: it's implied it was Stephen Farraday and not her who started their affair, she feels guilty about cheating on George, and her farewell letter/will addressed to Iris can be read as a heartwarming moment. Whether she has an It's All About Me attitude or is just Innocently Insensitive is up in the air.
  • Anthony's behavior towards Iris can sometimes seem creepy. Especially the moment when he admits to tracking her down with bird glasses and asks her to elope with him mere paragraphs later. Then again, Iris does feel there is something off about him, and it could be him playing his criminal part – or doing it too well.
• Angst? What Angst?: In the 1983 adaptation. For a very doting mother prone to hysterics, Lucilla Drake takes the news of her adored son being the killer remarkably calmly.
• The Woobie: Poor Lucilla Drake simply can't get a rest. Her parents die, leaving her to care for her younger half-brother. She meets her husband when she's nearing forty, and gets widowed with an infant son after only two years of marriage. Her son never appreciates her devoted love for him, or rather, he appreciates it by using her to milk money from the Bartons. She often feels neglected in her brother's house and everyone snickers at her behind her back. Then her brother's adored wife is killed, leaving the former heartbroken. Then her brother is killed a year later. Then her sister-in-law Iris announces she is soon going to leave the house to marry someone Lucilla doesn't even know, and then Iris is also almost killed. On top of it all? Lucilla's son, her only joy, is revealed to be the murderer. He intended for Lucilla to get the Bennett fortune after Rosemary and Iris would die, so that he would have easy access to it.