Anjelica Huston and Oliver Jackson-Cohen to star in Agatha Christie adaptation ‘Towards Zero’

OJC looks impossibly beautiful here, as he always does. Always thought he'd have Johnny's career, but it just hasn't come together for him for some reason.

What we hope: OJ-C "Towards Zero Clothing."

"Towards Zero" was a "Marple" episode with the gorgeous Greg Wise (Mr. Emma Thompson) as Neville Strange. I assume that's the role O J-C is playing. (Note that neither Marple nor Poirot was in the original novel and I assume neither one will be in this version.)

It’s not my favorite Christie, but ok good. It’s got to be better than the Joanna Lumley movie from 1995. It’s strayed so far from the plot that Christie’s estate asked them to change the title.

Sam Yates is no stranger to wrecking Christie's plots.

The novel is solid and the mystery is actually very clever with a potentially brilliant twist of handled correctly. The Marple episode was a fun piece of fluff but Wise and the writing didn't do the solution justice.

This was abysmal, holy shit. No panache of any kind and they filmed some of the tennis court scenes in front of a green screen. What happened?

Anjelica was fine and her British accent was decent. She was sat on the bed for most of it, so didn't pull any acting muscles. Nice gig if you can find it.

About the only redeeming thing about it was that carpet on OJC's chest. I wanna lose myself in it!

I thought it was dismal, too, R7. It’s baffling how these adaptations always seem to kneecap all the stuff that makes good Agatha Christie novels so enthralling - especially the deft character reveals (and often reversals) of her killers, victims and main suspects.

Audrey is a terrific psychological study - and it totally grabs you by the throat when you realize what you’ve been observing the whole time is a woman whose entire behavior has been informed by her fear of a man she has rejected might do to her. It’s such a common female experience - and one that is very much “in the culture” right now. It’s shocking that a circa 2025 adaptation jettisoned that to write her like a Real Housewives cast member instead. To have Audrey “dangerously in love” with Neville and blind to what he is capable of kind of defeats the whole point of the thing.

Couldn’t agree more with R7 and R8. It was a cheap, ill-cast disappointment.

The once-formidable but now embalmed Angelica Huston sleep-walked through a lazy, toothless role that was probably filmed in a single afternoon.

As the new wife, Mimi Keene was distractingly anachronistic and self-conscious, as if “Modern Family”’s Sarah Hyland (or some random influencer) had wandered onto “Downton Abbey.”

Matthew Rhys recycled both his testy boozehound performance and his wardrobe from HBO’s far superior “Perry Mason,” leading to a strange case of deja vu.

I can't disagree with all the disparaging remarks but I have to single out the costume design which I thought was gorgeous, if perhaps a heightened theatricalized version of 1930s fashions.

But I was APPALLED at the use of filter tip cigarettes seen in use by several characters in close-ups. Did no one on the set know that filter tips did not come into existence until the 1950s? A truly baffling and unnecessary anachronism when so much of the period detail was so commendable.

I think keeping Anjelica in bed, shrouded by layers of duvets and pillows, was probably the wisest way to film her at this point in her career.

Dreck. Absolute dreck.

Nice to see Anjelica, but the part was a stereotype and she wasn't able to elevate the part while lying there. Waste of a great actress.

And it's a good thing OJC has that body, because he was a wet rag in this. Brought nothing to the character. I thought he slept walked through it.

Most interesting thing was realizing that the actress that played Kay here, was the actress that played the icy bitch in 'Sex Education.'

r10 And that's exactly what got it greenlit – they promised gorgeous costumes, an attractive new cast, HD cameras, and drone shots. I guess BBC didn't care whether this new adaptation actually brought anything new to the table interpretation-wise.

r12 He can do a lot more, but was coached here to just be a beautiful god. Matthew Rhys even refers to him as such at the end. So he was nice to look at, but not very compelling to watch.

I doubt very much much that Christie wrote a scene where her character gets eaten out on a staircase in front of the other characters.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s body is hideous. He has the body of a hairy old man. Disturbing.

Oliver Jackson Cohen has a blocked/tormented quality that is all wrong for Neville. He’s too booked and busy to be doing Agatha Christie TV adaptations anymore, but Jonathan Bailey and his golden boy charm would have been much more the thing.

Kay’s big reveal - less surprising because it’s one that Christie employs somewhat frequently with her “bad woman” characters - that she isn’t really a man-stealing, gold-digging bitch but an immature (and very young) girl whose desperate yearning for love and a safe place to land has led her to be duped and exploited - was also completely lost in this version. It was also weird that she was written as the wife who could be described as so cool and quiet you never know what she’s actually thinking and feeling.

Absolutely love the recent British fascination with colorblind casting in period pieces. It doesn’t distract from the plot in the slightest.

There were two brief bisexual moments and I wish they leaned into that more. So many of her works are entering public domain each year, might as well update the story here and there. As long as the central themes and the resolution stay the same, who cares.

Also, I read this book as a kid, so my memory might be wonky, but wasn't the orphan girl featured more prominently in the book? She's basically just used here to find the compact. Or am I confusing her with that psycho bitch from Crooked House?

Okay, I I checked and I guess I was wrong on the public domain part. It's only in the US that nine of them (plus Poirot short stories) are in the public domain.

[quote]In many other countries (like the UK and most of Europe), copyright typically lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Since Agatha Christie died in 1976, her works will generally not enter the public domain in those regions until 2047. Therefore, a book being in the public domain in the US does not mean it is in the public domain everywhere.

I thought the public domain clause pertains to the date of publication, not the year of the author's death, at least in the US? Otherwise Christie's entire oeuvre would enter public domain the same year. Maybe I'm wrong though....

r20 That's for works published before 1978. After that date, it's life of the author plus 70 years.

Her works fall under the older rules, i.e. 95 years from publication.

I just read OJC's Wikipedia entry. It said that he was diagnosed with PTSD related to childhood sexual abuse.

Maybe he still has issues around sex and sexuality. I know a lot of guys would like him to not be straight (and I'm not saying that he is) but this is a factor that might be considered in speculation about him.

r22 I had no idea, yikes. And he looks vaguely like Armie Hammer in that pic, unusual angle/lighting for him.

How have I never heard of Oliver Jackson-Cohen until now?? WOW. Absolutely gorgeous man.

r24 Make sure to watch Emily (2022), where he acts circles around Emma Mackey. I don't think he's ever looked more beautiful than in that movie.

DL's had his number since he played a gay guy in BBC's Man in an Orange Shirt (2017), which was discussed to death here.

Sorry but the charisma-less closet case OJC is no...

R25 - Thank you for the suggestion! I will watch that TONIGHT!

Do Huston and OJ-C play lovers?

He plays her Sugar Daddy in this one, R28.

She's his aunt in this show.

That is a verrrry flattering head shot of Huston, OP.

r31 It really is. It was taken ages ago (obviously) by Robert Fleischauer, who died in 2023 at age 54.

Here's the full version, she looks glorious.

And another one from that same photoshoot.

R34 these photos are exquisite. I think they’re from 2013, though.

Anyway, she’s a great actress and she was right when she said The Grifter was a better film than Misery that same year.

I loved The Grifters. It was beaten out by Dances with Wolves for Best Picture, not Misery, if memory serves.

No one was going to beat Kathy Bates that year; she was brilliant. And Huston already stole Oprah's Oscar a few years prior.

[quote]I think they’re from 2013, though.

r35 Yeah, Gemini told me they were probably taken in the early 2010s, but I had a feeling that was a wrong because in my mind she has looked seventy for about twenty years now. I think that misconception is because I hadn't really seen her an anything in ages before she suddenly popped up all haggard looking in Transparent in 2015. And of course, the lighting does most of the magic in those photos, it takes decades off her face.

I wish she had done more (prestige) TV when there was still time, such a missed opportunity.

Anjelica just had cancer.

[quote]DL's had his number since he played a gay guy in BBC's Man in an Orange Shirt (2017), which was discussed to death here.

There have been very interesting threads about Oliver here in DL....

R27 why not tomorrow NIGHT ?

Oliver's hair is bailing fast. He'll be bald like his father in no time.

R40 - Because I just COULDN'T WAIT!!!

Speaking of preternatural beauty, OJC's face was rivalled by the show's closing shot. I don't know where this is, but I'd like to draw my final breath there.