- Wouldn't it be wonderful if Rian Johnson's Knives Out ignited a resurgence in good old-fashioned murder mysteries? You know, the kind that feature an isolated mansion, a family of wealthy lunatics, an eccentric sleuth, and, of course, a complicated murder. Such stories tend to be just as escapist as superhero or fantasy films -- I can't imagine that mansion murders are a leading cause of death in real life -- with the added bonus that they also often subtly skewer upper-class sensibilities in the process. Or perhaps not-so-subtly in the case of Knives Out and its lambasting of modern American elitism, but I hardly mean that as a criticism.
- The wealthy lunatics in this case are the Thrombeys, whose 85-year-old patriarch, the famed mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), was found with his throat slit after a family gathering. The police (Lakeith Stanfield, Noah Segan) initially suspect suicide, but a genteel southern private eye named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) suspects foul play. Incidentally, you may have read Blanc's profile in the New Yorker or, at the very least, have read a tweet about it. In any case, the undeniably charming Blanc is a fountain of entertaining aphorisms, describing the puzzling nature of this case as donuts within donuts and his own methods in terms of Gravity's Rainbow, a book that even he admits nobody has ever read.
- Naturally, Thrombey's family is populated entirely with suspects. His daughter (Jamie Lee Curtis), an intense businesswoman, and her husband (Don Johnson), a philandering dolt, both stood to lose their inheritance, as did their spoiled playboy son (Chris Evans). Thrombey's own son (Michael Shannon) had just been removed as head of the family publishing company, and his wife (Riki Linhome) and son (Jaeden Martell) have both cultivated deep reservoirs of hate. The superfluous new-age daughter-in-law (Toni Collette) and her daughter (Katherine Langford) had just lost their monthly allowances. Although no specific motive is provided, one imagines that Thrombey's withdrawn mother (K Callan) is just upset at being old enough to have an 85-year-old son.
- The only obviously innocent party in this entire weird menagerie is Thrombey's nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), a young woman so adored by Thrombey that everybody agrees she should have been invited to the funeral, if only they hadn't gotten outvoted by the rest of the family. Also, Marta may accidentally have given Thrombey a lethal dose of morphine, but one should never rush to judgment on such matters. In addition to possessing a rare mix of innocence and acumen, Marta also suffers from an odd affliction described by Blanc as "a regurgitative reaction to mistruths," meaning that she vomits shortly after telling a lie. With the wrong director, writer, or actress, this could have been a completely repellant contrivance. In Knives Out, it works astonishingly well.
- Although the acting is uniformly strong, with de Armas, Craig, Johnson, and Shannon delivering particularly memorable performances, I have to credit Rian Johnson's writing and direction and the brilliant set design with much of the film's success. This is admittedly a backhanded compliment, but I had never seen any evidence that Johnson had a sense of humor prior to this film. As such, moments like "the dumbest car chase of all time", the hapless lawyer's (Frank Oz) will reading, and Blanc's wonderfully confounding donut analogy come as a complete -- and welcome -- surprise. And then there's that remarkably discomforting mansion that somehow consists entirely of knife sculptures, leering visages, and creaky staircases. Deep-down, Knives Out probably isn't much better than a mid-90's episode of Poirot with David Suchet (Agatha Christie is one of the many obvious influences this film wears on its sleeve), but the fact that it is actually much better than many contemporary films may be the most convincing argument that we need more mystery in our cinematic lives.
- Okay, oddest influence: The 9th Choose Your Own Adventure book was titled "Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?"
