CLUED IN TO KNIVES OUT
It’s Rian Johnson with a camera in the mansion
There’s a rule of thumb in comedies — the more fun the cast and crew seem to be having, the less joy is left over for the audience. But Knives Out, from writer-director Rian Johnson (Looper, The Last Jedi), is that rare exception that proves the rule.
Everyone from Daniel Craig with his Foghorn Sherlock LegHolmes accent to Chris Evans, cackling and cracking wise like a Marvel villain, seems to be having a blast. And yet at two preview screenings I attended — one a press and industry affair at the movie’s world première at the Toronto International Film Festival, the other one of those win-tickets-from-the-radio promos — the audience was having a grand ol’ time.
The premise could have been stolen from Agatha Christie,
which I suppose is the first of many wonderful crimes the film perpetrates. Mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) has been murdered in his bedroom, on the night the family had gathered in his Clue board of a mansion to celebrate his 85th birthday.
Whodunit? Could it be son Walt (Michael Shannon), who runs the publishing arm of his father’s literary empire? Daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) or her dodgy husband Richard (Don Johnson)? Black sheep Ransom (Evans)? Perhaps it was daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette). Or Harlan himself, who has spent his whole career plotting fictional murders. They’re all pretty horrible people, and I wouldn’t put it past the whole lot of them to have done him in, Orient Express style.
Certainly the least suspicion seems to fall on Benoit Blanc (Craig), a deep-southern detective who shows up with the police and announces: “I’m hee-ah at the request of a client.” And Harlan’s nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) would also seem to be above reproach, if only because she has a condition I’m going to call gastro-Pinocchio syndrome, which causes her to vomit if she tells a lie. Once Benoit figures this out, he adopts her as his personal Watson, though even she knows there’s more than one way to spin the truth without puking.
Settle in for this one, because Johnson spins out the tale over more than two hours, using dramatization, flashbacks, crosscuts, flash-cuts, cross-backs and a hefty dose of misdirection. “I keep waiting for the big reveal where it’ll all make sense,” Curtis notes at one point. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
It would, but there’s so much to enjoy along the way, including the fabulous set design: The mansion’s drawing room features a huge wheel of knives, while Harlan’s study is overlooked by a giant pair of eyes. There’s also a bevy of running gags, like the fact that everyone in the family assumes Marta is from a different South American nation. (The actress herself is Cuban, with roles in Blade Runner 2049 and the next Bond film — can’t wait!)
Good luck keeping up with the cruller-twisty storyline and cleverly crafted plot holes that caused fellow critic Eric Marchen to label this a “who-doughnut.” But fear not: Like any really tasty confection, there won’t be so much as a stray crumb left over when the feast is done. Though I’d argue that one mystery remains: Why can’t more films be this much fun?