Knives Out

Knives Out (2019), written and directed by Rian Johnson, is, in my opinion, one of the best movies I have seen come out in the past few years (if ever even) that truly masters the tension of trickling down information bit by bit to keep the audience on their toes the whole time. I’m not usually one for murder mysteries, I find them all the same honestly, following a very cut and dry formula to get to the finish. But I did not find that so with this one.  I did have my suspicions as to who the murderer might be, but I could never be sure of myself or of anything anyone was saying due to the mass of twists and turns, the refreshing motivations and their updates. It reminded me of the many hours spent playing the boardgame Clue growing up, something I did before I could read even, connecting the dots between what information was given and reserved, what was spoken and shown. To be short, the cast of characters here were unique and I changed my opinions about each of them as they changed with their environment and morphing information.

The movie does start with a fairly classic trope of a murder mystery of intermingling interviews of family and possible suspects to allow the audience to see things almost chronologically. It is a trope that has proven itself to work so well that it’s nearly become overused, making even good mystery movies dry out like overcooked chicken. What Knives Out does to switch this up something I, a former student of movies, notices and greatly appreciated, is that it changes small details of the flashbacks. So, each flashback from the various individuals seem to line up in places, and don’t in others. It helps destroy the stories, builds the confusion, points us in different directions, but leaves us to wonder what is a fabrication and what actually happened. It is a subtle affliction that makes us question how we think about movies and the reality of the situations they tell. Nanna says a passing comment in this story, but not in the same situation of someone else’s. My favorite example of this was when Marta (played by Ana de Armas) is recalling Harlan’s (played by Christopher Plummer) orders, “Before the carved elephant. After the carved elephant. Be-after the carved elephant.” She can’t remember, and we are just as confused as she is. In some instances, it may seem like a film maker’s way of not giving us information we already know, but it also subconsciously dilutes our trust for these people, immediately sewing confusion.

By leaving out specific people and only allowing us small snippets of information, Knives Out sets up things to be desired later, questions that need answers, so we are with Mr. Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) as he wants to push more and urges the reluctant Lieutenant Elliott (played by LaKeith Stanfield) to pursue the possibility of fowl play, even though all standing evidence points to suicide. Why? Because one of the great story engines Knives Out has that many murder mysteries do not: his hirer was anonymous, which gives us and him another layer to this already wildly intricate puzzle. It’s something we know we will have to face but are too busy dealing with the here and now, the there and then, so we can’t look too far ahead.

This movie, at times, jumps around in its timeline based on people’s memories, mostly Marta’s really helping the audience know she is our main focus here, and something more will come from her. Attention comes to her often, a tension that grows throughout the movie. Everyone in the family seems to be on her side but are always “outvoted” in including her in certain situations. They all seem to either love her, or exclude her when it fits their needs at the moment, which only adds to our inability to trust anyone and is only amplified and truly set into gear when our major twist halfway through the movie comes through. Marta’s mistake, or so it seemed, of switching Harlen’s medications and of his actual suicide that she witnessed. But was this a dream? Was it reality? Is Marta remembering it correctly? So now, Harlen has motive for suicide, to protect Marta, which is disrupted by the reading of the will, the reveal that Harlen was giving up his fortune to her, pushing the family to turn on her like dogs, and giving her motive for his death. The desperation, the hatred, comes out of them, and takes us away from believing it may have been Ransom (played by Chris Evans).

I don’t want to get too much into plot or just saying the wha-ha-happened, but that piece of information was necessary to noteb because that incident and that information totally switches Knives Out to being Marta’s attempt to cover her tracs, literally.  Up to this point we have been rooting for both Blanc and Marta, but now pushes them against each other, leaving us with a desire to figure out how it will play out, my favorite kind of drama. The shift takes Knives Out away from finding the murderer, the figuring out what happened, but focuses on the build of blackmail, and to what could become a second murder. Still we can trust no one, even if Marta thinks she can, because still there are so many questions left unanswered, so many new ones, all of which continue to evolve.

This movie has an abundance of wild cards, and as everyone is in a way wild, Greatnana Thrombly (played by K Callan) and Harlen are the wildest. Harlen being dead, he cannot inform anyone of anything, yet at a certain point we believe anything he could say would be useless anyway, another depiction of the many rabbit holes we’ve been sent down. Greatnana can see but does not speak, or so we think. She is the stash of information, that if known how to extract it, will upset this delicate balance, which in the end is about figuring out who hired Mr. Blanc. That is the hole within the hole, so he puts it. Blanc himself is rather poetic. This whole movie does a great thing with poetics of character, plot, and how we are revealed information. But Blanc specifically speaks through his process like the narration of a mystery novel. He sits, in the chair with the massive circle of knives all pointing towards his head as he speaks about the person at the base of it all, another inclination that his hirer is the key to the mystery of what and why. The small things like the baseball, the blank letters in invisible ink, the phones. They all feel like a mystery novel, something that does not go unnoticed by the characters.

Knives Out plays off beautifully as there is no one person harrowing forward with stronger motives than another, until new information trickles down, and it does trickle, slowly. It’s not until we are at the end of our two hours that we have a glass of water, only not be sure if it is water at all, or deadly poison. We cannot trust any accusations, even when everything lines up at the end. We believe Marta is good because she is kind, she won by playing the game her way, no Harlen’s way, but just perhaps, she is hiding something too. We are so thrown and distrusting of everyone and everything that even now we cannot trust this woman’s motives. It is a perfect play of set ups and pay offs, with all the set ups early on seeming to be off characters emotions, which at first, we may take for who they are as people. Marta’s throwing up anytime she lies is set up early on when it is crucial for her and could give things away, and comes back when things get even worse, building tension along the way. Even the cinematography and other “technical elements” of this film follow this system. We see similar types of shots, noises, music playing to evoke our emotions, to twist them, confuse us, make perceive when we are not even aware that we are perceiving.

Knives Out is a technically beautiful movie, but it heralds forward with its plot, characters, and structure of information, leaving us salivating at each turn. It sets the bar high as it has achieved something that I think is extremely difficult to do in story. Everything is brought full circle and I believe this movie has what I would consider a perfect set up to the ultimate pay off, “He can’t tell a prop knife from a real one.” Something said in passing. Hell, even the final image is a payoff. We watch this whole family fall apart. This family that was both loving and dismissive to Marta whenever it suited them. Now they are at her mercy, they who had everything and are left with nothing. Knives Out is truly one of the most satisfying movies to watch in the sense that it wraps every single thing up while leaving some ambiguity, as Marta takes a sip out of the coffee mug from the beginning, the one shown in second shot after only the establishing shot, the one she was going to serve to Harlen only to find him dead, that which reads, “My House, My Rules, My Coffee.”

July 21, 2020