Question of the week: what do you think of Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple?

30 March 2011 Rob Buckley Film 12 Comments

In case you missed yesterday’s news, Jennifer Garner – 38 and the former star of Alias and Elektra – is to play Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple in a new series of movies. 

Now my initial thoughts on this were

  1. WTF?
  2. Seriously, WTF?
  3. Sacrilege! 
  4. Do all women in movie franchises have to be hot or couldn’t there be just one who got by on her brains? 

But now I’ve had a think about it (and reconciled myself to 4 never ever happening), I’m actually quite warming to the idea.

  1. It’s a series of prequels. We’ve had Young Sherlock Holmes. We’ve had Casino Royale.  Why not Youngish – no, let’s go with Young, cos she’s the same age as me – Miss Marple?
  2. I quite like Jennifer Garner, even if Alias was largely pants
  3. We’ve already had the best old Miss Marple possible (Joan Hickson) so why try to gild gold? Why not do something different?
  4. Miss Marple was something of a cipher, so anything to fill out the character with some proper backstory would be good.
  5. I hate Agatha Christie stories and don’t care if something’s not faithful to them. They’re pre-ruined.
  6. Anything to get a decent franchise with a lead female character, please.

But what do you think?

Do you approve of Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple? Do you think only older actresses should be able to play the character? Or do you think this a good idea?

Answers below or a link to your response on your own blog, please

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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