Knives Out (Film Review)

[selenak]

A year after everyone else, I saw it, and it was indeed every bit as entertaining and fun as was promised. (I'm starting to build up a decided fondness for Rian Johnson; he directed some of my favourite Breaking Bad episodes, Looper did something (then) genuinely new and interesting with its premise, flaws not withstanding, and of the three sequel movies, I like The Last Jedi best.) (Yes, it has its own share of flaws. But unlike the two Abrams movies, it didn't try to copy the OT movie in question beat by emotional beat, instead, again, trying to do something new within the universe it was set in.) (Seriously though: Ozymandias! Neither the Shelley poem nor the Watchmen character, the Breaking Bad episode. Fifty-One! The Fly!OZYMANDIAS.)

Anyway: Breaking Bad with its mixture of black humor, drama and pulp works as a great precedent, mood-wise for Knives Out, which takes the pattern of Agatha Christie's Whodunits and gives them a delightful twisty twirl upside down while still managing to obey all the rules. Everyone is a suspect, we get the interrogations with the flashbacks, there are clues as to the last twist planted ahead if you rethink everything, the central detective has excentric mannerisms and at first seems to fail in getting the job done, but is cleverer than he at first appears, and Johnson employs a star cast, complete with good old Christopher Plummer as the dead body (much alive in flashbacks).

Where this is totally unlike the pattern originator(s) is that our main character and heroine, Marta, is a Latino nurse, and this is central to how the dead man's family treats her (which the movie uses to mercilessly skewer the Thrombey family). And for all that, true to form, even the "nicer" family members get unmasked in their selfishness and condescension as the film goes on, the overall work isn't at all nihilistic. By which I mean: when you watch, say, Robert Altman movies, you are likely to meet an entire cast of jerks and not much faith in humanity. For all the social satire, black humor and genre spoofing, Knives Out actually does believe in human goodness and treating other people decently. Which I'm always on the lookout these days. Well done, Rian Johnson!

Acting: Ana de Armas as Marta, whom I'd last seen in the Blade Runner sequel, gets so much more to do here and does it really well. Making a good person endearing instead of overlooked or one dimensional in favour of the villains is often tricky, but here it works, and I'm glad we got to see some of Marta's family and her background, her own context, instead of the narrative treating her solely in the context of the Thromberrys. It's clear everyone playing one of the dastardly suspects has a blast. (Given his part here and in Watchmen, is Don Johnson having a late career revival playing Good Ole Boys in need of a comeuppance? And ) So does Daniel Craig as a detective with a truly weird accent for the ears of this German watcher at least. And Chris Evans - whose brief stint as Loki in Thor: The Dark World show he can do something like this part here!

All in all: when reality and its injustices makes you more furious by the day, this movie provides a few relaxed hours in between.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I really did enjoy it while not expecting it to be DEEP.

And yes, Craig's overdone US Southern accent was every bit as over the top as you guessed.

[moon_custafer]

Still haven’t seen it, but Evans can definitely play a jerk when required—he was Johnny Storm a few Fantastic Four adaptations back, and he was one of the Evil Exes in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

[tree_and_leaf]

Huh, I watched that the day before yesterday for the first time, too! And it is excellent.

My US raised spouse informs me that Craig is mostly, but not quite, pulling off Very Posh Southern.

[selenak]

The only other time I've seen him try an American accent was in Infamous, and it was okay - not as good as Hugh Laurie, but not OTP bad, either. But the accent certainly fit in the genre here.

[jesuswasbatman]

Yes, Don Johnson previously played villains in Machete and Django Unchained, as well as the ones you mention.

[sovay]

For all the social satire, black humor and genre spoofing, Knives Out actually does believe in human goodness and treating other people decently. Which I'm always on the lookout these days.

Agreed, and none of the reviews I had read of the film before I saw it had highlighted this aspect, and I found it a lovely surprise. The playing fair by the rules of Golden Age mysteries was also delightful.

So does Daniel Craig as a detective with a truly weird accent for the ears of this German watcher at least.

It's weird to an American ear, too, and I admire it deeply.

[selenak]

none of the reviews I had read of the film before I saw it had highlighted this aspect, and I found it a lovely surprise.

Same here. All the profesional reviews I'd seen praised the movie for its black humor, but none mentioned the praise of kindness and decency inherent in the narrative. Mind you, perhaps those reviewers knew what they were doing, given that "rich people getting made fun off" might be a larger draw than "...and kindness wins the day!"

[sovay]

Mind you, perhaps those reviewers knew what they were doing, given that "rich people getting made fun off" might be a larger draw than "...and kindness wins the day!"

Two great tastes that taste great together!

(I love also that the mechanics of the murder itself presumed a certain incompetence on the part of its intended patsy and instead, even though no one realized it at the time, was thwarted by her actually just being good at her job. There are assumptions and refutations there, too.)

[likeadeuce]

My notes on this movie were that I loved how Marta and Benoit were both fundamentally kind, and that while Ana de Armas is self evidently gorgeous, the movie wasn't giving us any of the typical signals that we were supposed to gawk at her, and that the story doesn't rely on assumptions about her desirability or feminine wiles.

Re: Craig's accent it's definitely supposed to be unusual though whether he picked a specific person or region to copy or was just having fun, i can't say

[selenak]

while Ana de Armas is self evidently gorgeous, the movie wasn't giving us any of the typical signals that we were supposed to gawk at her, and that the story doesn't rely on assumptions about her desirability or feminine wiles.

Very true. And she wore practical clothes for her profession and for the wintery season.

I've seen the theory that Craig's accent is supposed to be a parallel to Hercule Poirot's, which doesn't sound much like a real Belgian but is a distinctive established personality trait.

[moon_custafer]

According to interviews he based it on a specific writer/historian named Shelby Foote, who narrated parts of Ken Burns’ American Civil War documentary in the 1990s.

[tree_and_leaf]

He does sound quite a bit like Foote, although he doesn't quite get it all the time.

The Footes were an old, well-established Mississippi family, but Foote's grandfather gambled away the family money and they struggled financially thereafter, so arguably Benoit's being positioned as posher, but poorer, than the new-money Thorowby family. Which would probably explain why he is quite so contemptuous when one of them refers to it as a "family estate" when the paterfamilias bought it in the 80).

[lilacsigil]

I really liked how much fun everyone was having in this movie!

[selenak]

Same here!