Film Review: "Knives Out" *** 1/2
“Dysfunctional families have never been so fun” - a family member of mine after seeing this movie around Thanksgiving.
Indeed. I can think of a few other movies where dysfunction rises to this level of comedy and satisfaction. Certainly, Wes Anderson has made a career out of comic dysfunctional families, none more so than the Tenenbaums. However, Anderson’s films retain a love/hate relationship with the members of those families and an air of melancholy permeates every action in his films, making them funny… but also, oh so sad. With Knives Out, Rain Johnson has done something extremely entertaining. He has created a family of backstabbers who deserve each other and although they are all mean, ugly people, we enjoy watching them go after each other and finally get what they deserve. Man, if only the real world worked this way.
Knives Out may not be one of the greatest films of the year, but I will say this is the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a while. There is a joy, an exuberance to the style and storytelling in this film. Yes, you can easily point out the timely social commentary about a hardworking immigrant (the main character Marta) who goes up against “so-called” self-made Americans who actually just used their privilege to buy their way into the American dream (I wonder if we can think of any reason that might be timely… hmmm…). But, for me, it is the self-awareness of being a “who done it” movie that grants the film the freedom to play with the common notions of the murder mystery sometimes making fun of them, and other times elevating them. This is a great “who done it” film.
If you grew up, like I did, watching the very underrated Murder, She Wrote then this is the film for you! There’s even a moment in the movie where we see Marta and her mother watching Murder, She Wrote in Spanish. I remember trying to convince my other childhood male friends to give Murder, She Wrote, a tv show about a female fiction writer who investigates, a chance… well, there wasn’t a chance that would happen. My other six or seven-year-old male friends wanted action and adventure. Murder, She Wrote had a different sensibility to it all connected to the great performance of Angela Lansbury who I tried to convince them was one of the great actresses, but this was before the internet and IMDB so what is a six-year-old supposed to do to prove his point? Anyway, Knives Out feels like a self-aware parody and at the same time homage to a good Jessica Fletcher or Columbo murder mystery.
The film begins in an ingenious manner. The police have already investigated the death of famed crime author Harlan Thormbey (a great Christopher Plummer) and ruled it a suicide, so everyone in the family including the hired help are surprised when the investigators ask to interview everyone once again. The film starts with a series of intercutting interviews about the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party and the whereabouts of each of the family members.
The first introduced is Harlan’s eldest child, Linda Drysdale (brilliantly played by a steely and cold Jamie Lee Curtis), who is probably the closest of Harlan’s children to him. She sees herself as the inheritor of her father’s life in that she believes, like him, she built her empire herself. That she, like her dad, is a self-made woman. It doesn’t matter that he gave her a million-dollar loan to start her company. It was all her genius and hard work.
Next is her husband, Richard (Don Johnson), who comes off a genial until you start talking politics or love. After him is Walt Thrombey, Harlan’s eldest son played with desperation and spite by Michael Shannon. Walt resents his father for not allowing him to actually run the publishing company that has been built on his father’s success. Finally, there is Joni Thrombey, hysterically played by Toni Collette. She is not a blood relation but was Harlan’s late son’s wife. She has become part of the family and loves to mooch off of them to build her lifestyle empire. All of them have children who play a role in the story as well, but none of them are interviewed in the beginning.
Rain Johnson intercuts these interviews with each other and scenes where we see the truth of what happened that night. Hard questions are sometimes asked by the detectives and we see the truth, before cutting back to hear the family member’s answer. They lie. The film establishes right at the beginning that we can trust no one.
As the detectives listen to these tales, an unknown man sits in a chair in the background and when he hears a lie, he hits a key on the piano interrupting. This is Benoit Blanc, a local but infamous sleuth who believes that he has the ability through asking questions and applying logic to have the truth dropped at his feet. He’s played with great relish and gusto by none other than Daniel Craig. Craig chews the scenery with an accent somewhere in between homage and parody. In fact, as the asshole son of Linda and Richard, Ransom (a great Chris Evans showing his range after being stuck playing Captain America) comments, “what is this… KFC?” Like Columbo or Hercule Poirot or Jessica Fletcher, those around Blanc are put at ease because he comes off as a bumbling fool, but as in all those stories, if you dare to underestimate them, it will be your undoing.
It is finally then that the main character is interviewed by Blanc. Marta Cabrera (played with such real-life ease by Ana de Armas) has been Harlan’s nurse for a while, providing him with medical assistance and company during his waning years. She is an immigrant whose mother entered the country illegally. Much is made about her background by the members of the Thrombey family who use her to try and make political points at an argument right out of the annals of Thanksgiving dinners from hell. Marta has a problem though. Blanc confronts her about it. He says that someone told him that Marta cannot lie; that when she tries to lie, she has an overwhelming need to vomit. Blanc places her in the position of lying and she does, but, right after, she vomits into a vase on the porch. Blanc is shocked, “I didn’t know it was literal!” This sets Marta up to be juxtaposed against each of the lying Thrombeys. Blanc asks her to become his “Watson” and with that “the games afoot”.
I have really tried to limit my comments about the film to the first sequence. Generally, I write with spoilers in reviews because I want to discuss the film in great depth and analyze it. There is depth to this film, and you can indeed analyze it, but this is a movie that operates so well on offering so many possible solutions to its mystery that I really think you should go into the film blind. Even though I called it early, it is written in such a way that even when you figure it out, there is another layer you haven’t figured out.
The end image is perfect. A great moment. If the film has faults it is that it doesn’t allow us with its huge cast to really get to know these people well. And while each actor is doing a superb job, and the moments they are given are great, it still feels too driven by two characters rather than an ensemble piece. Knives Out also carries its more complex social justice themes on its sleeves rather than really going into depth on them. In fact, the resolution of Marta’s family’s legal situation is not even dealt with. The movie doesn’t attain the genius of say Gosford Park where the murder becomes incidental to a story driven by discussions and thought on class. But these are minor complaints. I have seen the movie three times in theaters and enjoyed myself so thoroughly every time that I do something that I often reserve for only films that remind me of childhood. I watched it while snacking on popcorn and slurping a red icee. Man, Knives Out is a great time at the movies.
