Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Review

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials has style to spare and a game cast you’ll love watching. The actual mystery? That’s another story.

David Suchet spent 24 years perfecting Poirot. Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie tag-teamed Miss Marple for over a decade. Kenneth Branagh has turned Christie adaptations into his own personal franchise. So when Netflix announced they were finally producing Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials, their first series based on a Christie novel, I felt that familiar tingle of anticipation. Then I learned which book they’d chosen. “The Seven Dials Mystery” has been adapted exactly once before, in 1981. There’s a reason for that.

The three-part series centers on Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce, How to Have Sex), a spirited socialite who stumbles into amateur detection after a practical joke at a lavish country house party leaves one guest dead and another murdered shortly after. The trail leads to a mysterious secret society, hooded figures meeting in a seedy London nightclub, and a conspiracy involving stolen government secrets. It’s classic Christie machinery. The engine just never quite turns over.

Chris Chibnall, creator of Broadchurch and former Doctor Who showrunner, writes all three episodes with the kind of faithful dedication that sounds like a compliment until you realize the source material needed a firmer hand. Christie’s original novel was considered a lesser effort even upon publication, essentially retreading her earlier “The Secret of Chimneys”, which first introduced Bundle. Director Chris Sweeney (The Tourist) keeps things moving as briskly as the script allows, which isn’t briskly enough. Three hour-long episodes stretch what should have been a tight 115-minute film into something that occasionally feels like watching a beautiful clock with a broken spring.

The cast, at least, shows up ready to play. Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown) brings tart wit to Lady Caterham, Bundle’s perpetually irritated mother still mourning her husband and eldest son. Martin Freeman (Sherlock) plays Superintendent Battle as a weary Watson to McKenna-Bruce’s reckless Holmes, tolerating her interference with the exhausted patience of a man who’s seen too many amateurs muck up crime scenes. Alex Macqueen wrings genuine laughs from George Lomax, a socially oblivious bachelor neighbor blissfully unaware of his own awkwardness.

Edward Bluemel (Killing Eve) brings charm to Jimmy Thesiger, while Corey Mylchreest (Queen Charlotte) makes an impression as the ill-fated Gerry Wade. Hughie O’Donnell manages to stand out among Bundle’s rotating entourage, which is harder than it sounds when half the men in the cast seem to share the same tailor and barber. The remaining cast tends to congeal into a blur of accents and dinner jackets, with characters reintroducing themselves so often you suspect the filmmakers worried audiences couldn’t keep track.

McKenna-Bruce, winner of the 2024 BAFTA EE Rising Star Award, deserved better material. You can feel the energy straining to break free, and when she’s allowed to carry scenes alone, the screen finally crackles with the wit and determination the rest of the series is missing. Her sparring matches with Bonham Carter hint at a sharper, funnier show buried beneath the languid pacing and endless drawing-room conversations. If this becomes a franchise, and the ending awkwardly sets up that possibility, let’s hope they find Bundle a mystery worthy of her talents.

The frustrating thing is that this production looks absolutely stunning. The costumes are immaculate. The period details feel lived-in without being fussy. Luke Bryant’s cinematography captures rolling English countryside and candlelit manor houses with the kind of warmth that makes you want to crawl inside the frame. It’s the rare adaptation where you might find yourself more engaged by the wallpaper than the whodunit. Christie purists expecting the original solution should prepare for a curveball, but even that late twist can’t fully resuscitate what came before.

Netflix had the resources, the cast, and nearly a century of Christie magic to draw from. They chose a novel that even devoted fans consider minor league. Sometimes, faithful adaptation means knowing when your source needs saving from itself. This candle flickers with promise before guttering out, leaving behind the faint smell of what might have been.

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials is now available to stream globally on Netflix.