The Hippopotamus is based on a novel written by our local boy Stephen Fry, and that should tell you a lot about it, but it probably won't.
The story is of Ted Wallace (Roger Allam), an old poet, brilliant despite his toxic personality and propensity for whisky. Fired from his job as theater critic, he meets an old acquaintance who proposes him an unusual job, to investigate the mysterious going-ons at an estate of a family he used to be friends with .. before he destroyed their relationship in a drunken fit.
And Ted sets out to do his Teddish usual, but, being the perceptive soul he is, and fundamentally still a good man, he lays off the booze and unravels the mystery of Swifton Hall.
The film is structured in the manner of the old Poirot films, with less focus on the mystery, and more on the interaction between the characters, and more importantly, class conflict, of which the film ... well, has some.
The Hippopotamus is not a great film, i won't lie to you. It was a bad choice to pick this particular novel for the adaptation, because the story isn't really interesting and there aren't enough memorably moments, no great face-offs.
The book itself was never meant to be a mystery thriller, but rather, a book of poems written in novel form.
And the dialogue in The Hippopotamus is of absolutely stellar quality. It is, we could say, la raison d'être of the film, in its role of merely a platform for Fry's masterful compositions of the English language.
As for the production, i found the soundtrack to the severely lacking. The film adaptation also demands a rewrite and some decent direction, and while this may require Effort(tm) i don't see why we need to stop at simply filming theater, since that's the very opposite of why films exist.
You should watch The Hippopotamus, it's very well acted (with Roger Allen in top shape), occasionally funny, and contains at least one memorable line, but if you do watch it don't expect to be amazed; once the words hit the screen, you'll realize it's still only a book, and not A FILM.
7.5/10 - if you want to do better, learn to use the camera.
