In razor-sharp 'Knives Out,' Johnson revives the whodunit

Actor Daniel Craig poses for photographs with fans for the new movie"Knives Out" at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Saturday Sept. 7, 2019. TORONTO -- The whodunit, with its puffy armchairs, missing murder weapons and meandering trail of clues, never exactly went out of favour. But in "Knives Out," Rian Johnson has revived the genre with an affectionate ode to Agatha Christie that has some contemporary twists of its own.

Johnson, whose last film was the contentious "Star Wars" installment "The Last Jedi," has already put his deconstructionist touch on film noir and sci-fi . But his love of whodunits runs deep. He grew up reading Christie paperbacks and loving their film adaptations -- particularly those with Peter Ustinov as Poirot, such as "Death on the Nile" and "Evil Under the Sun.

"Knives Out," which Lionsgate will release Nov. 27, faithfully abides many of the traditions of the whodunit while playfully inverting others. Though saying much would spoil the fun, the mysteries of "Knives Out" hover around issues of class disparity and immigration. "It wasn't a break in the sense of 'Oh god, I've got to get out this Star Wars machine,"' said Johnson of "Knives Out." "But there was something really nice about the contrast of doing a very dialogue-based movie. I could hire all these fantastic actors and give them a lot of words. It's just been an essential part of 'Star Wars' to some degree you're always trying to figure out the simplest way to say any thought.

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