Knives Out
One of the most enjoyable things about Rian Johnson’s films is how he recontextualizes genre and narrative in a way that reveals something new about them, and how flexible they can be. Though I’ve never seen any of his television episodes he’s directed, it’s certainly true about his films, whether it’s his high school noir, “Brick,” his romantic crime caper, “The Brothers Bloom,” his sci-fi thriller, “Looper,” or the ever-controversial “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” In “Knives Out,” he’s moving back into the world of quirky crime stories, and he, once again, shows himself adept at flexing well-worn tropes into something fresh and entertaining.
I want to get one thing out of the way before digging into the film proper, and that’s any political “agenda” some people have seen in the characters. Yes, some of the characters here are Trump supporters, and one of the teens, whom is always on social media, is called an “alt right Nazi troll,” but political affiliation plays little into the character traits that most substantially define these individuals, and how they factor into the mystery of how Harlan Thrombey, the renown author- and patriarch- of the family played by the great Christopher Plummer, dies. Hell, the “Nazi troll” even provides important information to the case. Yes, Johnson is not a fan of Trump supporters, but no one is above his scorn in the Thrombey family.
The film begins the day of Harlan Thrombey’s memorial service, and the first person we meet is Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), his longtime homecare provider, as she drives to the great Thrombey house, which looks like one of those mansions you might go to for an all-weekend murder mystery. A week prior, Harlan was found, dead, in his study, with his throat slashed with a knife. His death has been ruled a suicide, but naturally, suspicious exists of something more insidious. While everyone is gathered, Lieutenant Elliot (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) are asking the family about the night of Harlan’s death, which also happened to be his 85th birthday party, with a mysterious individual in back of them, observing the questioning. He is private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), and he is looking for anything off about the way Harlan’s family is answering the questioning. But who hired a private investigator to look into the death in the first place? One of many mysteries afoot in this film.
If you think a story is going to go in one direction, you can count on Rian Johnson to take it in another. The trailers make this film look like an Agatha Christie mystery, and it still very much is, but Johnson makes a shrewd narrative choice that not only stands in contrast to how this type of thriller typically goes, letting us in on a key piece of information before revealing it to any of the cast, letting the motives of Harlan’s family- his daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband, Richard (Don Johnson); his son Walt (Michael Shannon), whom publishes Harlan’s books, and his wife, Donna (Riki Lindhome), and their son, Jacob (the alt right Nazi, played by Jaeden Martell); his widowed daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette), and her daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford); and Linda and Richard’s son, Ransom (Chris Evans, whom steals every scene he is in), whom didn’t make it to either the funeral or memorial service, but arrives early for the will reading- linger as pieces of a puzzle that doesn’t quite add up. The way this is built, everyone has motive, and no one is completely innocent. These are characters we are interested in, even if it’s hard to empathize with any of them personally. We are drawn to Marta, however, and de Armas is fantastic in the role of a woman with a very pronounced tell when she tries to lie. And it’s fun seeing this cast bounce off of one another, and thrown for loop after loop by Blanc, in probably Craig’s best work outside of the Bond series. One hopes maybe he and Johnson will continue to show us more Benoit Blanc cases in the future.
“Knives Out” is probably Johnson’s most personal film. Even if I said the political aspects of some of these characters don’t really matter in the grand scheme of the narrative (and they probably don’t), the film deals with a community of narcissists throwing daggers at individuals they don’t really know anything about, and presume to understand the motivations of people, and believe something more sinister might be afoot, and even look to sabotage their future. Johnson has made no secret that his experience with the most toxic side of “Star Wars” fandom post his polarizing “The Last Jedi” inspired him in writing this smart, entertaining script. It’s a tribute to his talents as a storyteller that not only does that come through, but that it is something that helps pull us further into the web he’s tasking Benoit Blanc to untangle. Rian Johnson brings out his knives, as well; the fun thing about him, though, is that he manages to make it something genuinely enjoyable to sit through, rather than a pretentious slog.
