We (I) love the scene where Daisy Ridley snaps at the "professor" arguing for the separation of the races with her whole "I love a good rosè" moment, but another really good moment is when Bouc convinces Poirot to take the case by pointing out that if he doesn't the local police at the next stop will more than likely just blame Mr Marquez or Dr Arbuthnot because they aren't white.
It's depressingly rare that we see period pieces that don't play up the idea that everyone was just naturally more racist back then, and that no one ever spoke out against it. Obviously there is a fine line between the kind of revisionism that excuses racism as a product of its time and the kind that behaves as if it was never really a wide spread problem, just the acts of a terrible few. Murder on the Orient Express manages to walk that fine line quite well. That's not to say a toe doesn't go doesn't slip slightly over to the "it was just a few side" (though in this case it's less a few people and more all of America and some of Germany and Austria) but in general it stands out as doing an okay job. I think it's a feature more period pieces should seek to emulate, showing that if people back then could see it was horrible and unfair people in modern times should still be striving to do better a well. People just have to be careful to not turn the concept into opportunities to write white saviour scenes.
