Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears, a movie just for fans
The Miss Fisher faithful starved of fresh product since 2015 will relish another chance to hang out with their high-spirited heroine. But what about the rest of us?
Leigh Paatsch
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Is it being too dismissive of Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears to state you’ll have to be a fan to truly enjoy it?
In this particular case, not at all.
Not once you bear in mind it was the many admirers of Phryne Fisher - that can-do crime-buster of the 1920s made famous by Essie Davis on TV - who crowd-funded a dream big-screen outing for their fave character into reality.
Therefore the Miss Fisher faithful starved of fresh product since 2015 will relish another chance to hang out with their high-spirited heroine, who remains the same glamourous, amorous danger magnet they remember.
However, those of us who couldn’t care one way or the other about feisty Phryne won’t encounter anything here to change their mind.
In fact, this globe-trotting affair (which ill-advisedly reimagines Miss Fisher as an Indiana Jones-lite adventuress on occasion) can look quite cheap and feel very tired when its mind isn’t totally on the job.
An underwhelming opening does not exactly create the greatest first impression for Crypt of Tears.
The first setting of note is a slightly dodgy-looking approximation of British-controlled Palestine, where the indomitable Phryne is seeking the whereabouts of Shirin Abbass (Izabella Yena), a young Bedouin woman being held against her will.
One not-so-exciting jailbreak later, and the action has switched to England, where London’s social season is about to hit top gear.
After gatecrashing her own funeral by airplane (it’s a long story, don’t ask), Miss Fisher renews acquaintances with Shirin, her uncle, some posh brothers and their extended entourage, and last but by no means least, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page).
The addition of Jack (having travelled all the way from Melbourne thinking Phryne had carked it) into a rather cluttered mystery fails to liven up a fairly inert movie.
As for the screen chemistry between Davis and Page - a constant delight and source of fascination in the TV version - it barely registers as a blip on the romantic radar here.
Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears goes OK if it’s just a reunion you’re after, but a bit of a fizzer if any reconjuring of magical former glories is expected.
Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears (PG)
Director : Tony Tilse (feature debut)
Starring : Essie Davis, Nathan Page, Daniel Lapaine, Izabella Yena.
Rating : **1/2
Not always cutting it Phyrne