Knives Out (2019)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Riki Lindhome, and Frank Oz, with cameos from M. Emmet Walsh and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Grade: B

I know the promotion of Knives Out was centered around Daniel Craig and Chris Evans, but the entire story revolves around Ana de Armas’s character Marta Cabrera.

Everywhere, this was billed as “The Daniel Craig Show”, but I assure you he isn’t nearly as important as they made him out to be.

Summary

The very wealthy and world-renowned mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Plummer) is found dead in his home. It is ruled a suicide.

One week after Harlan’s demise, Marta (Armas) is at her own home with her family, still grieving over his death. After her mother and sister console her, Harlan’s youngest son Walt (Shannon) calls for her to come to the house since the police have questions for everybody. She drives over and after being greeted by Meg (Katherine Langford), Linda (Curtis) sees Marta at the door and tells her she wanted her to be at Harlan’s funeral but was “outvoted”. Linda’s husband Richard (Johnson) interrupts to say that their son Ransom (Evans) isn’t coming, even though he missed the funeral too. Regardless, the police start taking everyone into the living room for individual questioning. Leading the investigation is Det. Lieutenant Elliott (Stanfield) and useless officer Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan). As each person gets their turn being questioned and they all talk about their recollection of the night of Harlan’s death, we weave in and out of a series of flashbacks.

We start with Linda. They discuss how the night of Harlan’s death was his 85th birthday party. She talks about the people at the party. This is where we learn that Marta was Harlan’s hard-working caregiver/nurse. Harlan’s ancient mother Wanetta (K Callan) was there, as was Ransom who left early. Just then, in real time, Benoit Blanc (Craig), seated behind Det. Elliott, presses his finger on a piano key after this detail is revealed. Moving along, Linda and Richard didn’t show up to the party at the same time as Ransom. She also runs a real estate firm and makes this very well known that Richard has nothing to do with it. As she talks about fond memories with Harlan, we transition to see Richard being questioned, with him doubling down on Linda’s love for her father, “one of the best-selling mystery writers of all time”. Next, Walt is questioned, and we learn he runs his father’s publishing company. They discuss the success of the company and Harlan’s books, with Trooper noting how big of a fan he is with how crazy the plots are. When Walt mentions how Harlan used to say the plots of his stories pop into his head fully formed and the intricacies of it all come easy for him, Blanc presses another piano key. Walt then talks about the party. He arrived around 8PM with his wife Donna (Lindhome) and 16-year-old son Jacob (Jaeden Martell) who the rest of the family accuses of being a Nazi. After Walt, we transition to Joni (Collette), Harlan’s daughter-in-law. Her husband Neil has passed, but she still has her daughter Meg and is still very close with the Thrombey family.

She runs a skin care company called “Flam”.

She says that Harlan has helped her and Meg through “tough times”, though when we move to Meg, she flat-out admits that Harlan gives Joni a yearly allowance and pays for Meg’s tuition. Det. Elliott notes that Meg left the party early, and she says she did to see friends. Joni thinks Linda was mad about it (because she didn’t even stay for the cake), but Harlan understood. Once again, Blanc hits a piano key.

This is when each person being questioned starts to ask who Blanc is.

We find out he’s a famous private investigator who has been hired by an unknown person to consult on this case. Blanc asks about Marta. Richard explains she was hired by Harlan to take care of whatever medical needs he has, but she has become part of the family after being there for so long. When talking with Linda, Blanc gives credit to her self-made success as well as others in her family like Walt, but Linda is annoyed with this statement because Walt just publishes the books that Harlan writes. He doesn’t really do much else. Blanc tries to bait her by talking about how Walt runs the merchandising, film and adaptation rights and such, but she flips out on him for trying to pry. Richard however falls for the bait and says that Harlan never wanted to adapt any of his material for movies or whatever else, and it pisses off Walt because this is where the real money is at. He argues with Harlan all the time over the subject and after some drinks at the party, Walt was doing it again. Richard saw it, but he explains that Harlan must have really given it back to Walt because he seemed shook for the rest of the night. When questioned, Walt denies this and though we see in the flashback that Harlan fires him privately, he tells Blanc and the others the conversation was minor. He changes the subject to talk about the “black sheep” of the family in Ransom. Ransom has never had a job and at the party, he’s the one who got into an argument with Harlan in his office and stormed out.

Next, Blanc asks Richard about an argument that was had before the party, around the time Richard showed up. The caterer said they could hear the argument in Harlan’s study was between two male voices and the statement “You tell her, or I will” was heard. In a flashback, we see Harlan outing Richard for cheating on Linda. He’s got pictures to prove it and put it all in a letter, giving Richard the option to tell her, or he will. However, Richard instead lies and says Harlan was going to put his mother Wanetta in a nursing home which Linda always opposed, but Harlan wanted him to tell her.

Nobody in the room believes his ass. You can tell.

Joni was also there early, and she said she was there to talk about a mix-up with Meg’s tuition payment. In a flashback, we see that Harlan’s people caught Joni finding a way to send both Meg’s tuition payment and Joni’s own allowance directly to Joni. As a response, Harlan cuts her one last check and says the payments will cease to continue. To Blanc and company, she just passes it off as a wiring issue and no big deal. The group decides to take a break from questioning. Following this, we see Richard going into the study to find Harlan’s letter that he planned on giving to Linda. He opens it up to see there’s nothing written on it. Det. Elliott thinks this is an open and shut case of suicide, but Blanc knows there’s something bigger at play here. After seeing Marta listening in on their conversation by the window, Blanc brings her out to talk. She’s a registered nurse hired on a part-time basis. Originally, it was only for fifteen hours a week, but it grew over time because he “needed a friend”. Since she has this little issue where the thought of lying makes her puke and they know this, Blanc begins his questioning asking if Richard is having an affair. A direct flashback has Harlan showing Marta the pictures, but she says “no” anyway. This causes her to immediately puke and prove Blanc’s theory right. Elliott still thinks it’s a weak motive though. We go through the same strategy of asking Marta about Joni stealing the money and getting caught, and it’s admitted too. When Blanc is about to ask if Harlan was going to fire Walt, a noticeably worried Marta asks to wait inside, and Elliott allows for this. Privately, Blanc admits that these stories don’t necessarily equate to the murder of Harlan, but the fact that he’s here shows there’s a bigger issue at hand.

Truthfully, he doesn’t even know who hired him. An envelope filled with cash just showed up at his apartment the day before with a news clipping of Harlan’s death. Someone involved suspects foul play, and this is why Blanc was hired.

They then discuss some crucial details. The party ended around 11:30PM, and Marta took Harlan to his attic office to take his meds. The stairs leading up to Harlan’s bedroom and office creak horribly. Linda is a light sleeper and hears anytime someone uses the stairs. A thud is heard in the middle of the night, so Joni goes upstairs to check on Harlan, waking Linda. Harlan was in his attic office with Marta. Apparently, they accidentally knocked over a board game they play every night. Ten minutes later, Linda is wakened a second time by Marta leaving. Walt and Jacob were on the porch and saw Marta leave around midnight. Fifteen minutes later, Linda is woken for the third and final time which was Harlan coming downstairs for a snack and Walt telling him to go back to bed from the porch. The medical examiner determined the time of death to be between 12:15AM and 2AM. As Walt was finishing his cigar on the porch around 12:30, Meg came home and went straight to bed. Walt and Jacob went to sleep shortly after. At an undetermined time (possibly around 3AM), Meg woke up because of the barking dogs. She used the bathroom and went back to bed.

Everyone’s stories matched and every moment was accounted for. There is no other staircase to Harlan’s room too, just the creaky one.

Trooper says they know Ransom didn’t do it because he wasn’t there, Marta couldn’t because he was alive when she left, but Meg might have because she came home during the time of death. Elliott still thinks it’s suicide.

They meet again with Marta in the living room, and Blanc asks for all the details that happened between 11:30 and midnight. In a flashback, we see a drunk Harlan refuse to take his medicine until they play his boardgame. Marta is annoyed but goes through with it. Marta kicks his ass at the board game, so Harlan jokingly flips the board game to the ground. He does agree to take his medicine though and as he does, he tells Marta how he cut everyone out of the fortune which may have been indirectly influenced by Marta’s advice in their conversations. As he goes on about how the hard-to-deal-with Ransom is so much like a younger version of him, she gives Harlan the 100 milligrams of Toradol he’s allotted. Sadly, after injecting him, she sees she gave him 100 milligrams of morphine accidentally (instead of the 3 milligrams it usually is). Now, he’s about to overdose, and they have about ten minutes before he dies. As she frantically searches for her emergency Naloxone, a calm Harlan writes this down because he likes this motive idea for a future book. She then realizes it’s not there, so she goes to call for an ambulance. Strangely, Harlan hangs up the phone. Marta tries to get the family, but Harlan trips her. He’s already come to terms with his own death. This thud is the sound Joni heard and she comes up to check on them, with Harlan blaming it on the board game (as we know).

After Joni leaves, Harlan reminds Marta that her mother is undocumented and if she is blamed for his death, her mother will get deported. So, Harlan comes up with a plan to help her get away with his own murder to save her. This is how much he cares for her. He tells her to leave as loudly as possible, say goodbye out loud, and note the time aloud if possible (which she does). Drive out the gate and take a different route to avoid the security cameras. Park the car in the forest area, come back to the house on foot, and come through the gate. Since the dogs know her, they shouldn’t bark. To get to the third floor without being seen, she has to climb the trellis and come through the window. Once inside, she has to put on his robe and cap. She goes down the stairs for a moment, but Walt tells her to go back upstairs from the porch, thinking it’s Harlan. Because her exit is known by everyone else, and Walt sees “Harlan” twenty minutes after, this frees her from being a suspect. On the way out, she comes face to face with Wanetta but she’s so old, she thinks she sees Ransom. We go back for a moment where Marta explains to Harlan she won’t be able to lie because she’ll puke, but he tells her she doesn’t need to lie. All she has to do is tell fragments of the truth in the exact order he tells her. In the present, she does this exactly and it works. Blanc doesn’t suspect a thing…

…or does he?

My Thoughts:

Knives Out is a hard movie to make. To make an intricate and modern whodunit capable of bringing in the masses, you need a lot of creativity. You also need to have some level of intelligence, a love for puzzle-solving cinema, and an ability to still be unpredictable even when the audience starts to catch on. On top of this, it still needs to make sense. The last thing you want out of one of these movies is for an audience member to think, “Yeah, there’s no shot that would ever happen”. Rian Johnson does it all with Knives Out. His direction and screenplay masterfully bring you into the mystery surrounding Harlan Thrombey’s death impressively well, with a layered screenplay that delivers on the excitement and detective work that makes these types of movies so much fun.

The star-studded cast is very good. Usually in a cast as big as this, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. It’s just hard to put together a well-written ensemble in a film format. In theater, it’s not too hard, but in films, it can be hit-or-miss. Thankfully, due to how well-written these characters are, you become entrenched in each member of the Thrombey family’s lives. You start to take sides, you try to understand things from their point of views, and you start to understand where everyone is coming from. Even with all of this, we come to the same conclusion: Regardless of what’s right and wrong and what is deserved between these family members, they’re all assholes. Harlan wasn’t the easiest person to get along with either, played powerfully by another great Christopher Plummer performance, but he’s been funding their attitudes for quite some time and has had a hand in all of their “self-made” successes. He doesn’t ask too much of them though. He hopes that they won’t depend on him, giving each person in his family a little push in the right direction to make them achieve their independence by giving them money. For example, he gave Linda a million-dollar loan, and she created a multi-million-dollar business. All things considered, she did pretty well for herself. Now at 85 years old, he wants to do the same with Walt, Joni, and Hugh, and they’re not happy. Seeing how he affects them, their personal reactions, and what they tell Blanc and Elliott is a very interesting setup for the rest of the film.

What makes Knives Out the movie it is isn’t just about the main question of how Harlan died, the aftermath of his will and how the family reacts to Marta’s sudden importance in the situation is just as important and almost supersedes the entertainment of the full story.

Every actor fully understands what they need to bring to the table to make their role memorable, nuanced, but also not “too much” where they’re trying to one-up each other. The fact that no egos overtook the film is what especially impressed me. Everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis to Toni Collette nail every aspect of their character. This may be in terms of the phony personality they portray to people outside of the family, or the real, desperate, money-hungry side of their true selves. Don Johnson arguably steals the show, and Michael Shannon continues on his never-ending quest to try and make his role creepy even when it’s not written that way.

I’m starting to think Michael Shannon is just creepy himself.

Chris Evans was also very good, channeling the inner douchebag he used to be so good at playing years before he became Captain America.

Everything revolves around Marta, played by Ana de Armas in her breakout role. Marta is Harlan’s sweet caregiver/nurse that doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. She comes from a poor family and after being hired by Harlan, she quickly develops a friendship with him the rest of the family recognizes. She becomes a part of their family, though you can tell she doesn’t want the attention from the toxic Thrombey family. She’s perfectly fine interacting on a smaller scale with everyone else but working directly with Harlan because she knows that despite his status, he’s very genuine with her like she is to him. This is why they connect and why Harlan appreciates her more than his own family. It’s obvious they use him for his money. Marta may need the money, but she never asks for more than what she’s employed for. It’s the humility she possesses that makes her such an easy character to get behind, despite her accidentally giving Harlan his fatal dose of morphine. She’s innocent by nature, doesn’t want any attention, and possesses a warm heart and soul. In fact, she’s such a genuinely good person, you could argue it’s the one negative about her characterization. The only wrong thing she did was the fatal mistake that ignited the plot. Usually, this would be an annoying thing to point out for a protagonist, but it works within the story. All of the other characters are so well developed and greed-filled, phony people that having someone who is as pure as Marta is at the center becomes the perfect balance needed for us to want to watch things play out.

Ana de Armas shows everyone the star she is in her first lead role in a major Hollywood production. Her expression-filled, teary-eyed performance is exactly what the film needed for us to understand how serious the twists and turns this story has and how deep the hole she finds herself in.

When we got the image of Harlan cutting his throat and she has to cover her mouth immediately from screaming because it would ruin everything, forcing her to go through with Harlan’s plan, we react just as she did. What a great scene to show the gravity of what’s about to happen!

I can’t help but think that Marta’s issue where she throws up if she lies is a glaring hole in the narrative. It’s a funny trait to have, but I don’t understand why they can’t just interrogate the fuck out of her until she tells them everything. If they pressed hard enough in the scene on the porch, they could’ve gotten all the information right then and there. She would’ve been tired of puking after the fourth or fifth time and would’ve broke. She was too innocent of a person not to. However, Det. Elliott lets her go back inside the house in the midst of Blanc’s interrogation, despite the fact he got her to reveal two major secrets. Why would any detective in their right mind hit pause on this momentum? Even if they didn’t press the situation in this scene, why didn’t they go right back to this method after she took her small break since they know she has this issue and has the details of Harlan’s entire life and family? Why not pester her and find out the truth? She’s too nice! She would’ve cracked in five minutes! They know this, so why don’t they do it?

Oh, it’s because the movie would be over in ten minutes.

You can’t tell me otherwise. There’s no good reason given as to why they can’t continuously interrogate her and end the movie immediately.

Daniel Craig as a private investigator is cool, and Benoit Blanc is a cool ass name. However, his performance was outrageously distracting. Ransom was right. This Foghorn Leghorn southern accent is totally over-the-top. I don’t buy it. He felt like a caricature more than a real person and tried too hard with the drawl. Other than the line of his describing a will reading as a “community theater production of a tax return”, I thought Craig’s Blanc was relatively disappointing, especially with all the hype regarding the character.

Knives Out is a solid whodunit movie in the vein of those old mystery films that used to be so popular. If you like those, you will really love this modern throwback of a movie. You do get invested in the story, it’s very well acted, and has a good sense of humor. Other than that, Daniel Craig is way too much, the setting starts to feel too limited after a while, and there’s not enough action to warrant the length. I still enjoyed a lot of it, but I can’t help but feel like it wasn’t as good as everyone made it out to be. I thought Glass Onion was much better.

Regardless, Rian Johnson is a talented filmmaker and screenwriter and despite some issues I had with Knives Out, it was still creative and funny enough to prove his worth in Hollywood.