Knives Out

The 2019 murder mystery film, Knives Out, was one of the few movies that tried to bring back the ‘’whodunit’’ film genre into the modern ages. With most movies within this genre liking to delve into the kind of stories told with Agatha Christie stories, that unique blend of legitimately build up and mystery with a hint of a playfully wit side proved to be pretty inviting for people at the time and resulted in quite a few options throughout the year with examples like Remains of the Day, Clue and Murder on the Orient Express, both the 1974 film and the 2017 remake (which did okay, but didn’t prove to be a crowd favorite). This style of film was a genre that was quite popular once and did have a few showings once and a while, but it took director Rian Johnson to bring it in a big way through a 2019 star-studded mystery film, Knives Out. Being a huge hit with audiences and critics, and doing great at the box office, the movie managed to give the world a whodunit that feels both true-to-form, but also very subversive in nature, which is exactly what the genre should be. A murder has just taken place, with the victim being Harlan Thrombey (played by Christopher Plummer), a wealthy mystery novelist who was celebrating his 85th birthday with all of his extended family. Said family consists of the oldest daughter Linda (played by Jamie Lee Curtis), her husband Richard (played by Don Johnson), the youngest son Walt (played by Michael Shannon), daughter-in-law Joni (played by Toni Collette) who was married to one of Harlan’s deceased songs, and grandson Ransom (played by Chris Evans), who is considered the black sheep of the family. While all are expecting to receive a great deal of property from their father’s will, they are shocked to learn that all of Harlan’s inheritance, book rights and even house ownership has all been left to his nurse maid, Marda (played by Ana de Armas). Feeling betrayed and believing she intentionally stole the fortune away from them, the family decides to rely on more than just the help of detective Lieutenant Elliot (played by LaKeith Stanfield), by also requesting private eye detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) to discover who the true culprit is. While this is unfolding, Marda grapples with the situation in a different way, as she knows more about Harlan’s death than she is letting on. Knives Out does a fantastic job at providing an old-fashioned mystery with a cozy retro flavor, while still feeling new and fresh at the same time through the pacing, presentation and performances. With wonderful actors, great directing, tight writing, and engrossing visuals, Knives Out is easily one to get stuck into.

The whodunit movies flourished the most during the Golden Age of detective fiction, which was set between the First and Second World War, and they offered exaggerated, often humorous tales meant to disrupt the social norm which allowed the readers to engage with the unfolding tale in a way that could actively allow them to pick apart and solve the mystery. Being a very British art-form with authors like Nicholas Blake, Christinna Brand, Edmund Crispin and especially Agatha Christie popularizing this genre to the point that it broke out into other avenues of culture like board games and eventually even film, these type of whodunits have a distinct formula that you’d think would work against itself, but most of the truly strong ones know how to work around this issue, which this film manages to accomplish. It has the complex plot-driven investigatory angle down which is pretty well laid out through the showcase of the wild characters with their overly dramatic backstories and personalities, but it feels like this movie is keenly aware of some of its simplistic and predictable elements and plays into them in a manner that can throw the audience off.  With Johnson being the sole writer as well as directing, it feels like he has a strong love for these kind of stories and knows what to give focus to and what to leave as a red herring, with each passing discovery surprisingly coming back together in the end even when it doesn’t feel like it will. The pace of the movie is perfect, as despite being pretty lengthy at two hours, it never feels like it stops unravelling itself even by the endpoint, and since it is a little hard to predict where this film is going given how drastically different it feels at the opening moments, it keeps them on edge and guessing. It creates such a neatly woven yet haphazard web, that the obvious doesn’t register and the uncommon feels more natural, even if that isn’t actually the case. The dialogue feels quick and witty without it being too overblown, the screenplay very smartly constructs the mystery in a way that doesn’t ruin anything if you pick up on the final results (which means people can rewatch the movie without much issue) and while there’s an occasional modern-day element that feels a bit unneeded, it’s never really annoying.

The film does a great job updating its format without losing what grabbed people originally, and one of the best things about this movie is its casting. Most whodunit movies also loved getting a plethora of well-known and also unknown actors together to see how they worked off each other, and this film is no different. Everyone is a total cartoon and are a pure joy anytime any of them are on-screen, leading the film so strongly that it might not have worked so well if they were absent. Rian Johnson knows how to perfectly direct these actors to be larger-than-life caricatures while still feeling like believable people, which causes a great situation where in each passing scene, you don’t know whether a scene is going to be sincere or jokey. It’s smart that each character (even the pure-hearted lead with Ana de Armas) has a flaw that is exploited throughout the film, allowing the truly detestable people to have shades of decency, and the likeable people to feel more realistic, it makes things a little more interesting and not so cut-and-dry. It makes the audience feel less aware of who to truly trust and who to truly root for, and because these archetypes feel so straightforward, yet the direction the story goes in makes things not so easy to pin down, it manages this in a very smooth and clean manner. Given that a lot of these performers are strong character actors who have been in several big movies prior with fluctuating tones, it allows for a lot of big personalities, designs and acting styles that can be all over-the-place yet never unrestrained. This family is so enjoyable uptight and despite being well-aged and seemingly successful, still bicker like children when they don’t get their way, child actors like Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell manage to hold their own against their older co-stars, Ana de Armas feels very fragile and charming as the lead yet is positioned in a way that makes her hard to properly gage (is she a true innocent caught up in this whole mess, or a secret genius who brilliantly played everyone around her?), Chris Evans surprisingly does a great job playing this likeably hateable jerk (since his most iconic role is playing such a clean heroic boy-scout, it’s nice seeing a rougher edge to him), and Daniel Craig, despite being stuck with a ridiculous voice and accent, comes out pretty good as this role of Blanc.

One of the strangest components about this genre, whether in book form or otherwise, is how weirdly charming and comforting a lot of them are. While other genres like noirs, procedural cases and even generic detective stories take a grizzlier harsh look at murder, these stories are more openly comical and lead way to more pleasant scenarios where it is played up in a way that very rarely makes things gloomy or unpleasant (it feels contradictory, yet never proves to be an issue). This movie was heavily praised for how likeably inviting it was, which didn’t only come through the likeable cast of actors and its peppier presentation, but also in the film’s visual design which just screamed like something out of a family postcard from people who live in an old log cabin. The house in which the film spends most of its time in is a very nice-looking environment, with it using the traditional structure and design of an older house to emulate the older feeling of the genre, but also the flowery textures, vibrant lighting and extremely colorful adages to make it feel very modern as well. The overall production design handled by David Crank and David Schlesinger has great coloration that is striking yet not overly bright, has a muted nature to the flooring and walls that feels very rustic in nature, and the surrounding forest environment outside creates a sense of autumn comfort that adds to the movie’s cozier vibe. It has a ton of interesting look set pieces and constructions that make the building in itself feel like a puzzle, with the camerawork by Steve Yedlin and the musical score by Nathan Johnson (cousin to Rian Johnson), also working to heighten the overall mood and suspense of the story.

Knives Out is a wonderfully engaging, tightly written, phenomenally acted whodunit film that slices its way back into modern media and refreshes everybody with something that use to bring distinct thrills during a period of time when people definitely needed some light investment. While the 2017 Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express helped bring the style back into the limelight, Knives Out showed that this formula can still work in the modern day and even hopefully continue on in the future. In a list of movies that are often overlooked because of their ‘’Oscar-nominated’’ status, this movie works wonders without that title attached and just produces a movie that is complex, yet easy to follow, light-hearted yet mixed with enough dark humor, and crazy performances played by great actors, in all the right ways to produce a wonderful experience. Dive on in and see for yourself if this mystery is worthy of sticking with.