The whodunit genre has been a favourite of mine for quite a while. I’ve always been a fan of the Agatha Christie-styled film adaptations like Murder on the Orient Express, so when I found out that director Rian Johnson was in the process of creating Knives Out, the film enthusiast inside of me definitely jumped out.
Before even watching the film, the cast anticipated such a level of excitement due to their previous performances. James Bond’s Daniel Craig, Captain America himself Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette just to name a few. The cast is filled with so many stars from so many amazing films, I found it was very difficult not to go into the cinema with such high expectations. Spoiler: expectations were met.
The film was focused on a very wealthy family who all, in some way, benefitted off the wealth of the head of the house, Harlen Thorp, played by Christopher Plummer – who was a very successful crime-fiction writer. Another spoiler: he dies, and the basis of that film is to figure out who did it!
The story in itself was something you couldn’t keep your eyes off, with so many of the actors providing such hilarious and intriguing performances. The vile nature of Chris Evans’ character Ransom Thorp, the bizarre portrayal of a young, internet-obsessed teen by Jaeden Lieberher and the most intriguing character in my eyes, Ana De Armas performance of a Cuban migrant who was employed to be Harlen’s nurse, and ultimately, more so, his best friend. Her performance was beautiful, and in my opinion, carried the film to the very last minute.
It’s an equally hilarious and thrilling film, with a character for everyone. The contemporary humour in relation to the current political and social climate kept the audience on their toes, the displaying of family affairs and get togethers which often coexist with the political arguments that happen around the table were all too relatable.
The film also displays a family on such a wealthy pedestal in such a funny, self-aware type of way. The level of privilege and ignorance that coincides with this level of wealth was very clearly satorised for the audience through the expectations many of the characters held, and it was often more difficult not to laugh at the level of pompousness of many of these characters.
Admittedly, I didn’t predict anything correctly during the film, yet my housemates got everything right (maybe I’m just a little bad at the whole guessing side of it!). Safe to say I’d never make a good detective. The complete inability I had of guessing the murderer was one of my favourite things about this film as it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time but was then eased with such a level of humour. It was such a perfect balance between the two.
Knives Out is currently on every night at 8:30pm, as well as some showings varying from 6:00pm-7:30pm throughout the week. Of course, exams/ essays are taking up most of our time at the moment, but if you catch a free moment, I would definitely recommend this film.
Rating: 5/5