Stars Out - Knives Out
How do you take a formula as staid and stale as the murder mystery and make it feel fresh and original? By assembling something akin to ‘The Avengers’ of acting. Even Captain America (Chris Evans for the uninitiated) is in on the fun here. All that starpower is used as a propulsion device for this whodunnit and the end result is two of the most fun hours of cinema of the year.
Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is a fabulously wealthy novelist who is celebrating his birthday with his entire family. On the night of his party, he winds up dead. Given that it was his 85th birthday, this wouldn’t have come as much of as surprise—except that Harlan is found with a slit throat. Add in the fact that everyone in his family had reason to resent him at that moment and you have the markings of potential foul play.
As detectives work to determine whether Harlan committed suicide or was the victim of a heinous crime, a private eye by the name of Benoit Blanc (played zealously by Daniel Craig) swoops in to keep everyone honest. Was in Harlan’s immigrant nurse, Marta (played by Ana de Armas)? Was it his high achieving daughter, Linda (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) or her philandering husband, Richard (played by Don Johnson)? What about their son, Ransom (played by the aforementioned Chris Evans)? No one really knows until the pieces come together and all are shocked.
Why this formula isn’t relied upon more is beyond me. This many famous people in a room yelling at one another on screen was always going to work. Their petty family squabbles serve as the comic relief for a series of revelatory bits meant to show you who these people are and what they might be capable. As a story, it just works.
Part of the reason it works so well is that these people are really reveling in the material. Craig’s Benoit Blanc seems destined to become the new model for the over-the-top caricature, ridiculous accent and unbridled dramatic flare. Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, et al., shine in their limited screen time. The result is something like star pitcher after star pitcher showing up in an all-star game to mow-down three batters and retire after a single inning. In a word, spectacular! What a luxury to have Oscar nominees and box office heavyweights serve as relief pitchers.
But beyond that superficial reading, the film has a surprising amount to say about the world. Namely, it comments wryly on the ways we divide ourselves and the ‘others’ we create in the process. The film speaks to immigration in both form and substance—which makes it feel as smart as it is silly. The laughs never stop, but that much was to be expected. It’s the heartfelt moral center of the story that is a genuinely pleasant jolt.
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