Film Review: Knives Out

Knives Out is an original murder mystery from Rian Johnson, the director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Going into spoilers to any significant degree would be a disservice. I’ll try to avoid them as much as possible.

The film focuses on the Thrombeys, the family’s patriarch Harlan (Christopher Plummer) and his nurse Marta (Ana de Armas). Harlan dies on the night of his 85th birthday and everyone in the family is a suspect. Detective Lieutenant Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) are assigned to the case and joined by private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Blanc demands that each family member stay in town while the investigation is ongoing and the film is off to the races.'

One might think a murder mystery such as Knives Out would put all of its energy into its screenplay and acting. That’s mostly true here, but Johnson and his technical collaborators put as much energy into the editing and production design. Those elements are in service of the screenplay yet are good enough to stand on their own.

The editing takes a ton of weight off the screenplay. The film’s first act jumps around the night of Harlan’s murder as various characters are interrogated. Characters’ stories flow seamlessly into another with the assistance of Bob Ducsay’s editing. Ducsay wrangles these different threads that don’t quite match up and makes them easy to follow without giving up the ghost until the script wants to.

Knives Out has no less than 12 main characters. All of them are incredibly fun to watch. The actors behind the Thrombeys elevate the script beyond its already stellar heights. The Thrombeys (outside of Harlan) are such spiteful and ignorant human beings that they’re entirely unaware of their privilege even as they claim to be as self-made as Harlan was. This is mined for quite a bit of comedy; none of the Thrombeys know where Marta is from, they each dress in extravagant clothes and claim to have seen Hamilton at the Public Theatre. As the film goes on, though, they’re revealed to be so out of touch that they consider Marta family while still treating her like dirt.

That political aspect could have backfired spectacularly. Instead, the film treads the middle between a more classical “eat the Republicans” and a more South Park-style equal opportunity assholeishness. The politicial discussion that permeates is an opportunity for self-reflection about who we are as people and how we got to where we are today. It’s refreshing to see a major Hollywood film take a political idea as a honest attempt at self-reflection.

The production design and settings further underline that disconnect. The Thrombey’s home is extravagant, detailed and custom-built for someone to die in. It’s a New England manor with spires, false rooms, endless priceless tchotchkes and several rooms that are probably bigger than the average apartment. The Thrombeys’ dress code is just as flashy. Each characters’ costuming screams wealth and privilege. Marta, by contrast, is limited to t-shirts, sweatshirts and cardigans when she’s feeling fancy. She lives in a small apartment with her mother and sister and has constant money problems. She is, after all, only a part-time nurse.

The real stars of the film are Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas. Craig resurrects his Southern drawl from 2017’s Logan Lucky and makes Blanc both an interesting character and a complete buffoon. De Armas plays Marta with such sincerity and naivete that she seems like the perfect character in a murder mystery and a great foil for Craig. The script also throws a particular quirk her way that throws a fun wrench into a straightforward murder mystery. Craig and de Armas play off each other incredibly well and I’m excited to see them pair up in the next Bond movie.

My sole problem with the film is that it doesn’t quite earn its ending. It loses some of the characters along the way and brings them back for the ending in a jarring fashion that only almost makes sense.

Knives Out is an entertaining movie. It’s not going to blow anybody away or change lives, but it isn’t trying to do that. It’s trying to be a solid and entertaining murder mystery. On that front, it succeeds in spades.

Final score: 8.1/10