Knives Out (SPOILERS)

[kate_nepveu]

Here there be FULL-MOVIE SPOILERS for Knives Out, which isn't officially released until next Thursday. (We caught an early screening.) I have very short nonspoiler comments in a separate post. If you're thinking of seeing it, maybe go read that instead? I recognize there's many reasons for wanting spoilers, but it is a mystery and, more importantly, it's a lot of fun watching it unfold, so if you enjoy that experience, I recommend preserving it. Come back when you've seen it, I'll be here.

and now: FULL-MOVIE SPOILERS

Gosh, Chris Evans was the perfect actor for that character. The charisma to make the initial asshole behavior charming, and to sell the "you're not going to give up" speech, very Steve Rogers-style . . . while still retaining plausibility by saying, and then you'll give me my cut. I did think that he might have been the blackmailer, because the effect of the blackmail was to push Marta even harder to clear her name, therefore getting him closer to his cut. I didn't get that he had actually attempted murder, though, until Blanc had him brought in; I knew something was up when Blanc saw the toxicology reports, but it was moving too fast for me to guess what.

(I'm so glad that the toxicology reports finally made an appearance, I was sitting there the whole time thinking, surely they'd do one routinely in a suicide? Won't that ruin everything? And then, instead of being the linchpin of an idiot plot, it was the linchpin of the solution.)

I will say, by the way, that I am not sure that Marta would have been barred from inheriting if she accidentally killed Harlan—and I am resisting the urge to look it up now, especially since I don't know what state they were in—but at the very least it would have complicated things enough that the family would have been in a better position to browbeat her into renouncing or at least settling. (The lawyer not knowing the contents of Harlan's will is potentially a little unlikely, but it doesn't actually have any plot effect, so it doesn't matter.)

Anyway, I thought "will Marta save herself and her family?" was enough tension for the second half, especially once Ransom forced her to tell the truth and the blackmail started, so I didn't see the final twist coming. I, like everyone else in the audience, did see that Marta was lying about Fran's survival and knew what the result would be, but we didn't care because it was so satisfying (though gross). [*] I do wonder if all those blades in the ridiculous sculpture were fake? I choose to believe so, because otherwise it's too much of a coincidence that Ransom grabbed that particular one.

[*] Inevitably vomiting when you lie is absolute nonsense, of course, but generally speaking you get one piece of nonsense per work, as long as you use it well.

Such nice construction, the way everything fit together: Ransom missing the funeral, and "back again already," and making the help call him "Hugh," and the dogs barking. And that last shot! I loved how it depended on the audience remembering the early shot of the full mug, because it didn't show all the text, and how it so beautifully answered the question of what Marta was going to do about the family. Which was totally the right call: fuck them and their entitlement in the ear, truly. (Even the college student, for telling them about Marta's mom.) And, also, it was the right thing to do, as Harlan recognized himself.

I was pleased that the audience in the theater recognized that every member of the family gave a different country of origin for Marta and her family. I loved the female associate doing all the work for the male lawyer—who was Frank Oz, of all people! Though to be fair, the male lawyer did absorb the family's abuse, letting her take a nap, so he wasn't completely useless.

That sure was a choice, in Daniel Craig's accent. I suspect it was to give the audience some doubt as to whether he was actually brilliant, as part of his exaggerated mannerisms. It was great that he waited until the end to reveal that he'd noticed the drop of blood on Marta's shoe right from the beginning; it did seem like he suspected her, to deliberately enlist her as his Watson, but I didn't know that was why.

Anyway, this was just entertaining and satisfying, from the intercutting of interviews at the beginning, to the delightful set design, to the very good dogs, to the stupidest car chase ever. I had an enormous amount of fun, and I'm so glad that we lucked into discovering the early screening.

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