Knives Out

Knives Out is an amazingly fun genre bending murder mystery who-done-it full of clever twists and turns that never makes its redirections or red herrings obvious and always makes its subversions totally earned and enjoyable. Although I don’t make a great effort to keep up with recent theatrical releases, this is very likely my favorite film from 2019. It also might be my favorite Rian Johnson film since his breakthrough hit Brick.

Both Brick and Knives Out share a kind of postmodern desire to remix their respective genres. Brick sets a classic noir story, complete with brooding P.I. protagonist archetype, at a modern high school. Knives Out plays with the fundamental assumptions of a murder mystery. It has all of the markers of a Victorian mystery novel, though set in contemporary times. A dysfunctional family assembles for a party at a remote mansion full of secret entrances and hidden doors. The old, wealthy, and reclusive patriarch is killed during the night and everyone is a suspect. There is a contested will involved. But from there, Knives Out goes in anything but a cliche direction. At times, it does not even behave like a murder mystery at all. Every time you think you’ve got the movie pegged it reinvents itself again. This winding structure isn’t foreign to mystery stories, but here it shapes the flow of the plot, rather than the resolution of the mystery itself, which gives the movie a fresh and unique feel.

What is brilliant about the film is that it is able to accomplish these twists and turns without cheating. It doesn’t hide things from the audience for the sake of a “gotcha” moment. Instead, everything is meticulously planned out. Every change in the story, often down to individual moments within a scene, is foreshadowed earlier in the movie. The foreshadowing is subtle, too, being careful not to draw too much attention to itself while still being present enough that a keen observer can enjoy speculating about where the movie is heading. This is yet another way Knives Out excels as a mystery: it gives the audience enough clues that they can try to solve it along with the main detective as things unfold, even through all the genre redirects and other trickery.

The cast is superb. Every actor, bar one, makes the most of their role no matter how small the part is. Even the police officer that loves mystery books, who has very few lines, makes the most of his limited moments. The only part I didn’t like was the alt-right grandson. His part, of all the family members, was given the least to do and what he did offered very little to the story. He felt more like a one dimensional reaction to online culture than an actual three dimensional person, a problem that may lie more at the feet of the script than the skill of the actor.

Knives Out is inventively directed as well. Again, the movie makes a lot out of small details. For example, when the police interview each member of the family individually, about the birthday party the night of the murder, they all recount minorly different versions of the story. This plays out like a miniature Rashomon. We see each person’s version of the events portrayed on screen as they describe it, with the discrepancies between stories laid bare visually. This both reveals aspects of the characters being interviewed and draws laughs from how each version paints the person telling it, or their immediate family, in the best possible light.

There are also tons of more technical tricks that elevate the quality of the movie. There is clever editing that emphasizes the movie’s physical humor, juxtapositions of statements and actions that emphasize the movie’s written wit, thoughtful deviations from the film’s main style of fixed tripod shots for more jittery handheld work to emphasize heightened emotions, and so much more. All these choices help build the visual language of the film: something stylized but not overbearingly so. This kind of aesthetic isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t like anything that is so up front with how it heightens reality in the frame, like those who hate the works of Wes Anderson for being too twee. In Knives Out, however, I think the stylistic choices create a mood, a mood that helps the film feel like a traditional murder mystery even as the story is playfully tweaking the assumptions of the genre.

Honestly, it is hard to find fault with this movie. It’s joyously fun. It is put together like an intricate puzzle box and, at least on first viewing, it doesn’t rely on suspension of disbelief or a stupid audience to make the puzzle box function. It subverts genre in clever ways, but also knows when to stick to the genre staples to keep the piece familiar. It can be very funny. It can be very tense. It knows how to shift from tone to tone with a natural ease, not awkwardly whipsawing the audience hither and thither as some less deftly made films do. This movie is great and I really can’t recommend it enough.

Would Recommend: If you love a good Agatha Christie ensemble mystery.

Would Not Recommend: If all stylized visuals read as annoyingly unrealistic.