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| Daniel Craig and Ana de Aramis in 'Knives Out' |
Here again is that creepy remote mansion stuffed with scary bric-a-brac. Hidden entryways, dangerous staircases, convenient trellises. Dogs that bark in the night or don’t. The lordly patriarch who ends up with a cut throat after controlling an immense fortune. Squabbling relatives who clearly have their Knives Out.
A sweet immigrant companion who cannot lie without throwing up and is convinced of her own guilt while the audience prays she has misread the events. The mysterious sleuth with a funny name (Benoit Blanc) and an exaggerated Kentucky fried accent but the same word salad as Hercule Poirot about his own remarkable mind (“these little brain cells”).
No, Agatha Christie is not alive, nor is “Murder She Wrote” still filming though we get a brief reminder of its methods on a living room TV. This is a constant sub-genre of Hollywood films that can be played straight but with laughs or spoofed to death in parodies like Neil Simon’s “Murder by Death.” It is walloping fun without a single serious thought except trickery in its melodramatic flourishes, with welling music and tableaus of scary family vultures circling in. It still makes audiences jump all together.
Writer-director Rian Johnson, enjoying a vacation from the “Star Wars” franchise, clearly loves the category and has concocted a delightful frolic of whodunit misdirection. He plays the constantly suspicious faces of spoiled relations (Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon and Don Johnson among them) against the guileless ingénue appeal and lustrous eyes of Ana de Aramis as the young nurse we pray will escape from the suspicious circumstances of mixed up medical bottles and night-time creeping around.
Christopher Plummer is delightfully demanding as the soon to depart patriarch and Daniel Craig, broad Southern drawl and silent observation, is having a feast as an actor showing a different sort of authority than he does as James Bond, to which he will finally return in April with Aramis as a Bond girl.
The plot – nominated for an Oscar as best original screenplay but placed in particularly fast company -- is too convoluted to explain but falls into Agatha Christie aha!! by the conclusion. The actors relish every opportunity to blow smoke or behave conspiratorially, with Evans relishing being the most hateful. Director Johnson, through rapid cuts and bizarre car chases, keeps the viewers off balance in headlong ways, mainly so we don’t re-examine the premises that got us here.
He is so enamored of this style that he has contemplated more adventures for his Kentucky thoroughbred Benoit Blanc (which literally means Blessed White), but I hope not. This is the sort of film that benefits from one and done though Hollywood will be tempted by the money in sequels.
Other recent film reviews with Oscar nominations added here:
JoJo Rabbit:
Oscar nominated as best picture, supporting actress (Scarlet Johansson), adapted screenplay, production design, film editing and costume design.
Little Women:
Oscar nominated as best picture, best actress (Saoirse Ronan), best supporting actress (Florence Pugh), adapted screenplay, costume design, music.
1917:
Oscar nominated as best picture, director, original screenplay, production design, sound mixing, sound editing, cinematography, music
Dark Waters, The Report and Just Mercy. (The last treated as a 2020 release.)
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