Gosford Park meets The Brothers Bloom in an all star cast extravaganza that out Christies Christie, KNIVES OUT is a who donut that sees Daniel Craig as a screwball sleuth a little bit Sherlock a tincture of Clouseau and a touch of Poirot, all wrapped up in Southern drawl and nonchalant charm.
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey, majestically played by Christopher Plummer, is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the gumbo gumshoe, Benoit Blanc, is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a finger pointing fricassee of meaty motive and sinister sauce, aided and abetted by a local police detective and his State Trooper deputy.
Central to the puzzle is Marta, the late patriarch’s Latina caregiver (and possibly the last person to see him alive), a heart of gold innocent, incapable of telling a lie without literally losing her lunch, who proves a useful, if conflicted, ally for Blanc, as he chips away at each Thrombey’s potential motive, dubious alibi, and clamorous protestations.
Blanc’s dogged devil may care interrogations act as a catalyst revealing underlying tensions and he watches, seemingly from the sidelines, as the family proceeds to slowly devour one another, until – when all of the hints, insinuations, allegations, and assumptions about themselves and each other are finally upended in a jingle jangle jigsaw puzzle of secrets and lies.
An all-star ensemble has been assembled to play the family: Christopher Plummer as the patriarch victim sparkles in esteemed playfulness and poignant paternalism.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays the eldest daughter with Don Johnson as her husband and Chris Evans as their entitled son.
Michael Shannon is the mildly crippled son, single parent to a bookish son, and Toni Collette is the widowed daughter in law double dipping on daddy in law’s largess using her daughter’s education as an excuse.
Ana de Armas plays the pivotal role of Marta, the patriarch’s nurse. Publicly the family respect her for her service but each of them resent her place in Harlan’s affections. None of them can remember which Latin American country she is from and couldn’t care less. Like a microcosm of the United States, the family see her as a servant and regard her with some social suspicion.
So KNIVES OUT is more than a pastiche parody in the manner of Murder By Death. Its wit is akin to Oscar Wilde, skewered with social observation, honed with hubris and hypocrisy to produce a gleefully grand entertainment.
The scene where Frank Oz as Harlan’s solicitor gathers the family for a reading of the will is alone worth the price of admission.
KNIVES OUT is the sort of story you can’t imagine happening outside a movie, a murder mystery which is the sum total of all the paths leading to an ingenious plot.
Follow the breadcrumbs to discover a donut disguised as a pretzel, as a baker’s dozen of suspects, victims, and sleuths wade through a cake mix of death, disinheritance and doughty detection.
There’s a death in denial, for is it murder or is it suicide?
KNIVES OUT is a mysterious affair of style with a sly degree of substance. And what style!
Production designer David Crank has born a manor marvellous, a balconied space featuring two-story bookshelves and wrought iron railings, going so far as to design his own comic tinged book titles and covers. As a finishing touch, there is, suspended from the ceiling, an eye-popping sculpture made from glistening, crossed knives that becomes the centrepiece of the set.
Nothing, it seems, is too over the top for Harlan’s aesthetic, the rooms feature plush furnishings, rich brocades, ornately carved wood, imposing portraits, marble fireplaces and stunning antiques, the sophisticated, museum-like ambience is constantly undercut by a slew of shocking knickknacks and curious taxidermy.
An embarrassment of riches in plot and design, KNIVES OUT is more of a hoot than a parliament of owls. What a carve up!