Yeah, this movie keeps you on your toes like very little else.
Harlan Thrombey is a rich old mystery novelist who "practically lives in a Clue board" of a house, and is found dead holding the knife that slit his throat. Despite this being an open-and-shut suicide, detective Benoit Blanc has been summoned to the scene to probe further into the death. There, we meet the dislikable members of his family who are politically varied representatives of privilege.
Mysteries work by revealing everything that happened at the end. With mystery films, that's not as effective because with a controlled runtime, the audience isn't really given the space to work it out for themselves. Knives Out runs a different strategy— repeatedly appear to tell the audience everything that's going on with huge swerves until the end reveals the final layers on top of all the insane shit that's already been disclosed to the audience. It's a WILD ride and masterfully keeps you on your toes. The narrative turns are so huge you wonder why the film thinks it's prudent to disclose them already, and the character dynamics become so gripping that the film successfully rides on a policy of telling the audience a lot a lot rather than slowly unfolding. It feels like the movie is always topping itself, yet there are still surprises ahead.
The turns manage to be both emotionally agonizing and emotionally satisfying, without it being an angsty film. Finding out the answers isn't just an exciting intellectual revelation, but it makes you very happy with where it places the characters. It's easy to take mysteries as puzzles and clinical cases, but this film invests in humanity and makes its stakes and answer a lot more powerful for how the people turn out for it.
The cast is great. The Thrombey family are mostly caricatures, but all rooted in something real and often entertainingly so, while Blanc is a Southern detective whose competence feels dubious until it might not be. The film's best trick is not making Blanc the protagonist or POV character so we're able to connect to the mystery through more personal terms of the entangled people—we're not left picking this apart from outside, and I hope that even as Blanc carries the sequels, he'll stay to the side for this reason. Still, Blanc himself isn't a detached jerk who only does it for the game. He stands up to injustice for the right reasons and plays his investigation with human care.
The film's themes skewer whiteness and privilege with the motivations of the characters, and uses class and race well as an underpinning commentary without speaking over the oppressed it stands up for.
This is the kind of movie I'd love to talk about, but responsibly cannot talk about. It's a fantastic empathetic mystery that shocked me with how much it tells the viewer without giving the game away.
I'd be a bigger mystery fan if THIS was what the genre was.
What the- how- oh no-whooooaaaa...
Yeah, this movie keeps you on your toes like very little else.
Harlan Thrombey is a rich old mystery novelist who "practically lives in a Clue board" of a house, and is found dead holding the knife that slit his throat. Despite this being an open-and-shut suicide, detective Benoit Blanc has been summoned to the scene to probe further into the death. There, we meet the dislikable members of his family who are politically varied representatives of privilege.
Mysteries work by revealing everything that happened at the end. With mystery films, that's not as effective because with a controlled runtime, the audience isn't really given the space to work it out for themselves. Knives Out runs a different strategy— repeatedly appear to tell the audience everything that's going on with huge swerves until the end reveals the final layers on top of all the insane shit that's already been disclosed to the audience. It's a WILD ride and masterfully keeps you on your toes. The narrative turns are so huge you wonder why the film thinks it's prudent to disclose them already, and the character dynamics become so gripping that the film successfully rides on a policy of telling the audience a lot a lot rather than slowly unfolding. It feels like the movie is always topping itself, yet there are still surprises ahead.
The turns manage to be both emotionally agonizing and emotionally satisfying, without it being an angsty film. Finding out the answers isn't just an exciting intellectual revelation, but it makes you very happy with where it places the characters. It's easy to take mysteries as puzzles and clinical cases, but this film invests in humanity and makes its stakes and answer a lot more powerful for how the people turn out for it.
The cast is great. The Thrombey family are mostly caricatures, but all rooted in something real and often entertainingly so, while Blanc is a Southern detective whose competence feels dubious until it might not be. The film's best trick is not making Blanc the protagonist or POV character so we're able to connect to the mystery through more personal terms of the entangled people—we're not left picking this apart from outside, and I hope that even as Blanc carries the sequels, he'll stay to the side for this reason. Still, Blanc himself isn't a detached jerk who only does it for the game. He stands up to injustice for the right reasons and plays his investigation with human care.
The film's themes skewer whiteness and privilege with the motivations of the characters, and uses class and race well as an underpinning commentary without speaking over the oppressed it stands up for.
This is the kind of movie I'd love to talk about, but responsibly cannot talk about. It's a fantastic empathetic mystery that shocked me with how much it tells the viewer without giving the game away.