Knives Out (2019) - Film Review
Screenplay: Rian Johnson
Directed By: Rian Johnson
Certificate: 12
Two years on from his last film, Rian Johnson has returned with a type of film that doesn't come around all too often nowadays: the murder mystery. While murder mysteries haven't exactly declined in popularity as such, they tend to more often be found on television, now as more serialized affairs as opposed to standalone films. There are a couple of exceptions of course, with perhaps the last most high-profile example being 2017's 'Murder On The Orient Express'. But 'Knives Out' is something rarer still - it's not an adaptation and is instead an original work penned by Johnson himself. So for all the complaints about a lack of originality in Hollywood, might 'Knives Out' be the film people have been crying out for?
Soon after celebrating his birthday at a party with his family, wealthy mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead the following morning in his Massachusetts mansion. Having appeared to have slit his own throat, the police rule the death a suicide. However, an anonymous source has hired private detective Benoit Blanc to investigate. Almost everyone in the Thrombey family had a motive for murder, from the simple motive of money, to the prevention of extramarital affairs being exposed. But with so little physical evidence of foul play, surely Harlan's death must have been suicide. Right?
This is a murder mystery story - this review will contain major spoilers!
With posters of the sort that 'Knives Out' has, the obvious talking point is of course its large, incredibly prolific cast. Without a doubt, the film has one of the most impressive casts of 2019, and at least as far as performances are concerned I don't think there's a weak link among them. Headlining this cast is Daniel Craig as the enigmatic Benoit Blanc. Holy crap do I love this character. Craig appears to be having so much fun in this role, and I had just as much fun watching him. While I've never been massively enamoured with the show 'Columbo', I imagine fans of it will really enjoy Blanc's character. Craig hams it up just the right amount, opting to deliver his lines with a wonderful Southern drawl. Less of a star name than Craig, but equally as important to the film is Ana De Armas as Harlan's nurse, Marta Cabrera. Among such a colourful cast, Armas has perhaps the toughest job of making a very kind, likeable protagonist stand out but she pulls it off admirably and strikes up a great rapport alongside Craig. Through her, the film puts emphasis on the value of kindness which is always a message worth hearing.
What I especially like about these casting choices is the opportunities it permits its actors to go against their perceived typecast. Take Christopher Plummer for example. While he is playing the wealthy head of a family, as he did in films like 'All The Money In The World', rather than being a grouchy role, Harlan is endearing - he doesn't appear to take life too seriously in his old age and isn't afraid to cut off his family when necessary. Likewise, Benoit Blanc is such an entertaining break for Daniel Craig who is obviously synonymous with the much more serious James Bond. Rather than being the victim as she's famous for in 'Halloween', Jamie Lee Curtis gets to play the much more assured Linda. Chris Evans gets to play a very different character as Ransom than he does as Steve Rogers, and as outstanding as she is playing troubled mothers, Toni Collette gets a vastly different character to play as Harlan's daughter-in-law, Joni.
With an ensemble cast of this size, 'Knives Out' does find itself grapping with the problems that a crowded cast can bring: giving them all adequate screentime and giving each character something to do. It's this area which sees possibly my only real criticism of 'Knives Out': that because there are so many players, not all of them receive sufficient development. In some cases that works pretty well, such as Jacob, Harlan's grandson and Walt's son. He's not a key player, and he's established primarily as an alt-right dipsh*t glued to his phone. That I felt worked well, and I love how casually Blanc calls him the "Nazi kid masturbating in the bathroom" - that was one of the biggest laughs in the film for me. For other characters though, such as Richard or Walt himself and his wife Donna, I never really gravitated towards them and they failed to stand out in the same way as the likes of Linda or Joni. They're serviceable but not necessarily characters that you'll remember all that well. Likewise, the housekeeper Fran has a couple of scenes early on in the film but is absent for the bulk of it. That wouldn't be a problem usually, but she does turn out to be a key component in solving the mystery.
But speaking of the mystery, 'Knives Out' prompts some interesting questions on genre tropes and subverting expectations. Now mentioning Rian Johnson and subverting expectations in the same sentence is practically a summoning ritual to inundate yourself with disgruntled 'Star Wars' fans. So for the record, subverting expectations is not inherently a bad thing, nor a good thing and there's no cut and dry formula for calculating whether it's good or bad either. I've gone past the point of caring about 95% of obsessive 'Star Wars' discourse online. But I digress. Fortunately as 'Knives Out' is an original property, Johnson is more free to play around with the tropes of the mystery genre without receiving a torrent of abuse online.
Experimenting with genre conventions is something Johnson clearly likes doing, and in 'Knives Out' he twists the mystery genre further than it's normally taken to see its possibilities. It starts out conventionally - a dead character, police interviews with various suspects, establishing possible motives etc. But about forty minutes in, it appears to deviate to its own path. A sequence of flashbacks shows precisely how Harlan died and the events that led to it, which seem pretty conclusive and answer any mysteries incredibly early. But as the film goes on, it becomes clear that even when we the audience think we've seen more of this case than Blanc and know more than him, what we've seen are only fragments of a picture that's wider still. You might say that the doughnut with a hole in it, has itself another doughnut with a hole inside that. As screenplays go, 'Knives Out' is about as tight as they get and it knows exactly what it's doing. Even the parts of it that might seem strange or out of place in a murder mystery turn out to have a place. Marta not being able to lie without literally throwing up seems a little redundant in this type of story, as if she can only tell the truth, surely that removes any kind of conflict or mystery, right? But no, it's all in service to a twisted web of a resolution, but one which is precisely and satisfyingly calculated.
'Knives Out' is an incredibly smart murder mystery but even more than that it has a unique, cheeky sense of humour about it too. Over the course of a couple of hours it induced plenty of laughs from me. There's the casual "Nazi kid" line from Blanc, but also just the mere presence of Great Nana Thrombey, the oldest family member and who mostly stays silent could elicit a chuckle. Blanc singing along to music on his earphones, oblivious to the events going on around him is a great gag, and the ending gag with Marta, Ransom and the prop knife shouldn't work but it absolutely does. But to its credit, the film also knows its limits and when not to opt for the joke. One great little example of this is a scene where Marta lies to Blanc causing her to throw up, which she does into a drink cup in her car. When Blanc gets in the car with her, unaware he's been lied to, you expect he'll try and drink from that same cup at some point. But he doesn't and I was glad of that, not only because it would be a pretty obvious gross-out joke, but there wasn't a need for it. The film is a very good judge of when to try and make its audience laugh, and when not to.
Alongside the humour, I'm sure that the political commentary on class and immigration won't go unnoticed - after all, 'Knives Out' is a film where the wealth and mansion of a rich man is denied to his family and instead goes to his nurse: an immigrant who is repeatedly maligned as an outsider by the family once she threatens that wealth. The film vaguely reminds me of Jordan Peele's 'Get Out' in the way that it tackles privileged white capital-L Liberalism. While the family initially support Marta after Harlan's death, once her existence threatens an actual change to their power structure, they become a lot more hostile. The reading of Harlan's will is a great sequence, and I love the immediate panic that follows as they clamber around Marta - it's a small detail but when she escapes to her car, I love how the shot is noticeably shaky and handheld as Marta herself becomes shaken. There's plenty of lovely touches like that scattered throughout the film (side note: keep an eye on that painting of Harlan). 'Knives Out' overtly condemns the instilled prejudices of the Thrombey family, and of the wider anti-immigration stance that has grown prevalent in both the U.S and just as equally here in the UK. All of this is signed, sealed and confirmed in a really pleasing throwback at the end of the film, with Marta drinking from the "My House, My Rules, My Coffee" mug seen right at the start of the film.
Overall, 'Knives Out' is a pure joy to watch and another great film from Rian Johnson. To call something a "crowd pleaser" has some negative connotations associated with it, such as it being dumb or only for the masses. But 'Knives Out' is a crowd pleaser in all the best possible ways. It's tightly written, has a great cast and is never boring. Not to mention that it's refreshing to see an original film perform so well both critically and financially. Lionsgate have reportedly given the go-ahead for a sequel which should feature the return of Benoit Blanc, and if it's any bit the film that this is, then I can't wait.
Knives Out
8/10
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