Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears-Guest Review

I've never gotten into the Miss Fisher Mysteries, myself, but my lovely wife has become obsessed with them recently and therefore was looking forward to the just premiered MISS FISHER AND THE CRYPT OF TEARS. I asked her to do a guest review. A Spoiler Alert applies. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rene King Thompson, aka Naithom:

I only recently came to the MFMM fandom but immediately became addicted and couldn’t wait for the movie. I recognized that like most movies based on TV shows writers would take the cast and fans out of their comfort zone so I was ready for that. 

I was glad to see the beautiful costuming (tell me they put them up for an award), the wonderful cinematography, and, of course, the glorious actors we so love. Essie Davis and Nathan Page were a sight for sore eyes. Their chemistry has certainly not dimmed and is as hot as ever and the banter is just as sharp. The line about hoping she doesn’t fly like she drives left me in stitches. Davis and Page have much the same heat, heart, and humor as William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man movies. 

I seriously wish that we could have had more of Ashleigh Cummings, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Travis McMahon, Anthony Sharpe, and at least some Richard Bligh, Tammy MacIntosh, and Ruby Rees-Wemyss. The joy of Miss Fisher is the family she creates and we miss the family interplay. Fans are invested in all the characters. The only strong flaw I saw was the writing of the funeral scene where there were plot holes big enough to drive a 1923 Hispano-Suiza H6 through. 

While it’s understandable that Phryne would have had no idea that she was listed as deceased, her reaction when she realized that this was a memorial service should have been much more empathetic to her loved ones instead of flippant. There was no mention of alerting her daughter that she was alive or the rest of her family of choice. And her reaction to seeing Jack, the love of her life, who she asked to follow her, was out of canon and out of character. If Phryne had married someone to keep them from being assassinated she could have sent Jack a message signaling it was for a case. (At least the writers could have thrown us the bone of her sending the message and Jack not receiving it, it getting into the wrong hands and that being the cause of the Maharaja’s murder.) That way, Phryne doesn’t come across as unfeeling. This was the fault of the writers, not the actors. 

That scene aside I would give the film a strong B and pray that Every Cloud allows us to see more from the Miss Fisher universe. Trust me, open the GoFundMe and we will come. 

Naithom recommends.