When the first trailer for Knives Out prominently featured Captain America (aka Chris Evans, duh) telling a whole host of characters to eat shit, director Rian Johnson set himself a very high bar to meet.
And boy, did he meet it.
Knives Out is a supremely entertaining update on the classic whodunnit a la Agatha Christie. Johnson has brought a potentially-dated concept into the 21st century with a bang.
The movie follows the Thrombey family, reeling after the apparent suicide of 85-year-old patriarch and murder-mystery novelist, Harlan. Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig with a slightly suspect but charming Southern accent) is called in to investigate the case.
As the case unfolds, you follow Blanc on the twists and turns as he (and the audience, undoubtedly) try to figure out who murdered Harlan. Because, surely, he was murdered. The timing was just too suspicious.
Though Craig is framed as the star, Knives Out is a brilliantly performed ensemble show. Each character has complex motivations and desires, and you learn so much about them simply by looking at them: what they wear, how they hold themselves, a roll of the eyes or heavy sigh reveal almost as much as dialogue does.
Above all else, Knives Out is so much fun to watch, a genuine laugh out loud two hours that somehow doesn't take itself too seriously and yet still maintains the stress of its incredibly high stakes. There was a murder, after all.
Or was there?
Though you might think the movie is about finding out whodunnit, it's actually about so much more: wealth, entitlement, immigration, expectation, and jealousy to name a few. But Knives Out doesn't get bogged down in needing to say something. It just does.
Its characters speak for themselves, even when they're saying nothing. All of it is cloaked in an autumnal New England wash: soft and chilly, grey and brown, fireplaces crackle and leaves crunch underfoot and everything is a clue.
Or is it?
We won't tell you, you'll have to head to the cinema to be sure.
And it's worth seeing in the cinema. The expansive landscape, the plush knits, the bated breaths are all attention-arresting, yet don't distract from the humour and tension which juxtapose smoothly like lemon and sugar.
See Knives Out! You'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll make your guess and when the two hours and ten minutes is up you'll want to watch it all over again.
Knives Out is now playing in UK and US cinemas.
Director: Rian Johnson; Starring: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Christopher Plummer; Running time: 130 minutes; Certificate: 15
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