Let me ask you a question. What do you do when you make a film and the response to it turns it into one of the most divided options in recent history? The answer at least for Rian Johnson, who did just that, appears to be to make your next film a murder mystery throwback with the kind of ensemble cast that puts other ensembles to shame. The result is Knives Out in which an elderly crime novelist (Christopher Plummer) has his 85th birthday and invites his very dysfunctional family along for a party. He is then found dead the next morning, forcing the whole family to come back to the house, since a very-southern-accented detective (Daniel Craig) suspects one of them is the culprit.
In terms of the cast the word ensemble can't be stressed enough. We have Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michel Shannon, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield and a newcomer in Ana De Armas. It's clear we have a very talented group of people here, but unfortunately none of their performances feels particularly engaging or worth paying much attention to, at least from that lot. Plummer is unusually charismatic in the few scenes he's in, despite being the oldest cast member. And I do have to admit I admired the efforts of Chris Evans in going out of his comfort zone to play a character who is far away from his many clean-cut good guy roles (one in particular) that he is known for. His enjoyment in the role is evident and it's also very refreshing to see him show some skill in dark comedy. While I wasn't the biggest fan of his performance, his efforts almost pay off. Of course we have to talk about Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc; as mentioned before, he possesses a southern accent and all the personality traits that come with playing an eccentric detective. A mixture of those and Craig's commitment to the role are what make him easily the standout among the cast.
Johnson also wrote this film and he clearly has an understanding of how these whodunnit films are supposed to go. He goes for all the genre tropes, such as multiple people being asked where they were at what time, and there being several different motives for the murder. He also places quite a few twists and turns along the way. At times there was a sense of what felt like attempts to subvert the familiar tropes but they came off as forced and really unnatural, but I can't blame Johnson for trying. At the halfway point, the film has put us through so many of these twists, and relayed information we have already heard, just through different points of view, that the film can't help but feel bogged down. And for something that's a light-hearted mystery, it gets over-complicated and it becomes hard to stay interested in what is happening.
For cinematography we have Johnson regular Steve Yedlin who, if I'm going to give him praise for anything, comes up with a shot of the house at the start of the film which, combined with an unsettling background surrounding it, sets the appropriate tone for the next two hours; even if that tone is going to be the subject of much satire. There is also something to be said about aesthetic since the film goes from looking like an old-fashioned murder mystery with a middling budget, to a murder mystery set in rural America with a low budget - it's perhaps a bit inconsistent.
The score was composed by Nathan Johnson, and while I hate to admit this, the score is easy to overlook since so much of your attention needs to be on the plot, and I couldn't even remember a single piece of it hours later. Could it really have been much good?
Here is how I view Knives Out: it wants to pay tribute to a genre that still gives us good films from time to time; the ambition and passions of the director are clear, he has a cast of whom half don't particularly stand out while others can; but he couldn't help but indulge in forced subversion of tropes. There's a plot that gets too complicated in what should have been a very simple story. But worst of all, it's all dragged out for far too long. One day I'm sure the much-loved murder mystery genre will get the perfect tribute film, but personally I don't think we're there yet.
C+
Thank you for reading.
