A parody of a familiar genre: Knives Out

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) is a send-up/parody of the British-style/Agatha C-mode murder mystery, with the mysterious murder – or was it a suicide? – of a world-famous, tremendously wealthy mystery writer Harlan Thronby (Christopher Plummer), who dies on his 85^th birthday as all of his extended family members and servants are present for the celebratory party and all have some kind of motif for wanting the cantankerous patriarch dead (mostly because he announced to various family members, on the morning of the gathering, that he was cutting them off in his will). Enter a “world-famous” detective (profiled in the New Yorker!), played by Daniel Craig doing his best to channel Kevin Spacey’s Underwood Southernisms (a failure – they should have had an American actor or just let Craig speak in his own voice). Your enjoyment of the movie will depend largely on how much you like the genre-under-review, as Knives Out has a plot line so elaborate and improbable as to be nothing but comic. The heart of the story is Ana de Armas’s portrayal of Harlan’s loyal and devoted nurse, named the benefactor in Harlan’s will, which of course suggests that she had something to do w/ his sudden demise, which in fact she did – but is she guilty? The movie has plenty of action and nuances and, unusual for a murder mystery, actually will hold your attention for its 2+-hour length, but for me, ultimately, it was neither fish nor foul so to speak: Not satisfying as an old-fashioned who-dunnit, nor funny enough as a send-up to make it worth a pandemic evening of my time.