KnivesOut is Rian Johnson's all-star tribute to the classic whodunnit—and it's a blast. Our TIFF19 review of the film's premiere
Claire Folger
of those ’60s and ’70s takes on her work, when it was common practice to watch a who’s who cast dress up in period finery and challenge audiences to guess the culprit before the climax. Thehomicidal Orient expresses, deadly Nile trips and crack’d mirrors, and delivered something that’s part reverent homage, part self-aware stab at playing around with the mustiest of crime fiction tropes.
Everyone has their reasons for wanting the famous paterfamilias dead. Everyone endures endless questions from the police lieutenant assigned to the case. And there are two outliers from the family that are involved with the proceedings as well. One is Marta , Harlan’s nurse and confidant.
So Benoit and his partners in crimesolving go sniffing about every hidden nook and secret-door cranny of the Thornton estate , trying to suss out who, in fact, done it. From there, Johnson runs his stars through their murder-mystery-weekend paces like an expert, sticking to the genre’s rules when it suits him and bending them when need be. It’s not a spoiler to say that things are not what they seem, because they never are in these types of things — that’s part of the appeal.
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