Movie Analysis for Knives Out

HOW KNIVES OUT SUBVERTS OUR EXPECTATIONS

"We must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center. It is not a doughnut hole, but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not holed at all!"

"The complexity and the gray lie not in the truth, but what you do with the truth once you have it."

 -Benoit Blanc 

Knives Out is the recently acclaimed film by Rian Johnson and features an ensemble cast of Daniel Craig, Ana De Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Micheal Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Katherine Langford, Lakeith Stanfield and Christopher Plummer. The film is a modern take on the Agatha Christie's whodunnit which details on the mystery of the death of Harlan Thrombey, the patriarch of the rich, spoiled Thrombey family. Originally conceived as suicide, the film delves deeper into the lives of the Thrombey family which causes a series of twisting and turnings of the knife to occur as though the knife used was  either by Harlan or was it by someone else in the family?

After causing massive fan backlash due to the shortcomings of The Last Jedi which he failed to please Star Wars fans with his vision of how Star Wars: The Last jedi would go. I couldn't help but notice under all the criticism of the film. The Last Jedi was actually pretty good on first viewing, however when I started to delve deeper into where were the strengths and weaknesses of The Last Jedi, I realised what was wrong. Rian Johnson subverted our expectations in a way that was shocking but felt unsatisfying as if he was pulling the rug from underneath us and we fall onto our faces breaking our noses. Thankfully, he learned his lesson from The Last Jedi and that is what made Knives Out all the more enjoyable.

Knives Out Switches Genres

Benoit Blanc flips a coin, symbolically showing a flip in 

genres

At first glance, the audience believed that they were about to watch a traditional styled murder mystery unfold. It has a confined setting, a large cast of colourful characters as the suspects and the ingenious super sleuth that is to uncover the missing pieces of the puzzle and put them together where everything makes sense. The audience believes that they are aware of where the film will go from here until director Rian Johnson throws a curve ball in which was unexpected. Instead of following the story structure of a detective film, the film breaks down that structure and is revealed to be a crime film underneath. That is when I realised that Rian Johnson is taking the audience for a roller coaster ride that kept me on the edge of my seat for almost the entirety of the film.

It is revealed that the nurse was responsible for Harlan Thrombey's death. She accidentally gave Harlan Thrombey an overdose of morphine into his bloodstream and he will be dead within 10 minutes. Although the identity of the killer has been revealed, the film immediately paints the nurse, Marta Cabrera as someone who you root for to not get caught by the detective. The film sides with Marta Cabrera to help her escape murder. Hence, tensions arise when Detective Benoit Blanc decides to cooperate with Marta Cabrera in this investigation. 

Instead of being an ordinary whodunnit film, the film becomes a cat-and-mouse-esque thriller where we see Marta's efforts of eluding the Benoit Blanc who was at first established to be one of the finest, ingenious detectives working there. However, the film subverts our expectations as we see in reality, Benoit Blanc isn't as what he was described to be. The film comedically sees Marta Cabrera covering up any evidence of her murder. Hence, showing the audience how incapable the detective is in collecting any evidence.  Another way of how Knives Out subverts the audience's expectations is by having a new subplot to who hired Benoit Blanc in the first place to solve the mystery behind Harlan's death. At first, we were lead to believe that he was hired by one of the family members only to realise he was hired by Ransom Thrombey the entire time. It subverts our expectations only to realise that this was the true villain's scheme the entire time.

Marta carefully avoids suspicion from Benoit Blanc by 

misdirecting him to fake evidence

Ransom is revealed to be the true killer

Meaningful Twists and Turns

Rian Johnson's take on Knives Out has a lot of twists and turns in the story where he starts twisting the knife more as he begins to show the audience that they were missing something all along. In truth, it was Ransom who was responsible of Harlan Thrombey's death. On paper, it may seem predictable but through Rian Johnson's direction, it was unpredictable. Why? Because the director makes use of the twist to shock the audience after they have seemingly guessed who killed Harlan Thrombey. Therefore, it comes as a rewarding experience to the audience because there was a hidden mystery layered in the story which helps to elevate the drama and the tension of the story.

The twists are not there for the sake of being there. For example, in The Last Jedi, the death of Snoke was shocking because we were not expecting it to happen so soon. However, after the audience has absorbed the shock, they will feel dissatisfied because they felt Snoke was the true villain and his death made the audience feel as if The Last Jedi has ended its story arc too soon. The problem with The Last Jedi was that Rian Johnson was writing it into a corner. Thankfully, Rian Johnson learns from this mistake in Knives Out. Another example is when the Harlan's lawyer is reading the will, we were lead to believe that every family member will have their share of Harlan's assets.

However, at the same time, Ransom, the spoiled kid of the family makes his appearance there. While it is confusing of why Ransom was there during the reading of the will since he will not be getting his fair share of the will. It is later revealed that all of the assets will left to Marta Cabrera. Again, this is another shocking twist which helps to elevate the tension between Marta and the Thrombey family because the Thrombeys wanted Harlan's assets so badly that they revealed their true colours. This results in the Thrombeys blackmailing Marta into returning what was rightfully theirs, eventhough they don't deserve to inherit his fortune. Ransom, on the other hand, was only there to see the entire family tear itself apart which he enjoys watching.

The family during the will 

"Eat Shit, Eat Shit, Eat Shit, definitely Eat Shit"

Detective film vs Crime Film

I would love to say that Knives Out is a combination of the Detective film genre that is also a crime genre. The film cleverly intertwines the two genres together by having the killer to be revealed early on in the film. But, it not only reveals the identity of the killer, the film smartly humanises the killer which is revealed to be Marta Cabrera. 

A detective genre follows a tiresome formula that many audiences are aware of and has become a trope. During the beginning of the detective films, we see the world around the characters through the detective's point of view. We see how the murder has taken place, later on we get every characters' backstory and points of view. At first he will not understand, nevertheless, at the climax we will get a Sherlock-esque reveal and the killer is caught. Sounds boring right. I KNOW

Crime genre is slightly different than the detective genre because the story revolves around the points of view of the criminal going against the lawman. It is a battle of brains and brawn which is much more engaging and endearing because you want to see who will come out as the winner between the criminal and the lawman. While it is not a mystery to the audience, but in some cases, can be for the lawman.

How is this related to Knives Out?

In Knives Out, the killer is Marta Cabrera and the film humanises her because she is unlike the family members - She has a kind heart and she tries to tell the truth because of her physiological condition which prevents her from lying. If she lies, she will puke. This immediately puts the audience in a position to side with Marta because we don't want her to get caught, get punished or receive any sort of bad treatment because she is genuinely guilty of her actions. The film becomes a crime film as we see the Detective Benoit Blanc attempting to discover clues to distinguish the killer while Marta tries to cover up that evidence. It is a brilliantly comedic scene as we see that the worst murderer at covering up crimes slowly outsmarting the not-so-ingenious detective.

CAST PERFORMANCES

Lastly, I would like to congratulate the ensemble cast for giving their 110% in making their characters feel more fleshed out and understandable. Daniel Craig,  Ana De Armas, Toni Collete all gave standout performances. I was entertained by Craig's new southern Kentucky accent he makes use of for the film. While it was distracting at first, I got used to it and I thoroughly enjoyed his comedic, and not-so-serious Benoit Blanc. Ana De Armas stole the show as Marta Cabrera, she does an incredible job of making us feel for her character during the film's cathartic moments. After all, she is the main protagonist of this story. Toni Collete manages to make the most of what material she has been given as Joni Thrombey. Coming after Hereditary, the film which brought her international recognition. She is given the opportunity to play a more comedic role than her previous one. Overall, I still believe that every character had just enough contribution to the story and is at the same time very engaging.

I do have to point out that I admire Chris Evans for being in a nice, comfortable sweater. He plays Ransom in which he swears a lot coming after Avengers: Endgame, where he plays Captain America.

(If you caught my joke. NEVERMIND)

I appreciate your feedback for my analysis thank you.