The Elusive Heiress

"The family is truly desperate. And when people get desperate, the knives come out."

"Knives Out"

I haven't seen any mystery films in 4DX theatres yet, but you could do fun things with detective films produced with 4DX in mind. Think clues like rain or wind, or perhaps conveying the 'feel' of something through the haptic feedback from the seats... I did see Dragon Ball Super: Broly in 4DX, and experienced how it was being beaten to a pulp by a monstrous force of power, so you'd imagine someone could apply that to a murder mystery film...

Highly succesful mystery writer Harlan Thrombey is found dead, with his throat slit in his stately country house the morning after his 85th birthday. The police initially believe Harlan committed suicide, even if it's not exactly clear why he would have done such a deed. However, the famous private detective Benoit Blanc receives an anonymous letter hiring him to look into the death of Harlan more closely. Harlan was a loving father and grandfather who looked after his family, and his family loved him back. At least, that's what seems at first sight, but as Benoit starts poking around, he learns that on that fateful night, at his birthday party, Harlan had antagonized more than a few members of the family: he was going to expose son-in-law Richard's affair to his daughter, daughter-in-law Joni would be cut-off from her allowance because she stole money from Harlan, youngest son Walt would be removed from Harlan's publishing company and he even got enough of the senseless spending of his grandson Ransom. In order to learn more about the family dynamics, Benoit decides to use Harlan's nurse Marta as his Watson: not only does she know the family well, she also has an odd physical condition that causes her to vomit if she tells a lie, allowing him to pump her for information rather easily. However, it turns out Marta does have something to hide from Benoit, so she desperately tries to keep her secret a secret from Benoit (without lying) while helping him in the investigation in the 2019 film Knives Out.

I usually simply assume the most interesting mystery movies of any year will be released in Japan nowadays. At the very least, there's always a new Detective Conan film each year (save for this year, due to special circumstances), which I look forward to every year. So in 2019, Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire was already long on my to-watch schedule last year, and I also knew I had to watch the live-action adaptation of Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead") the moment it was announced, but that was basically the whole list for me in terms of new mystery films on my 2019 radar. So I have to admit I completely missed the news surrounding the initial release of Knives Out, which was probably the biggest mystery film release of 2019 worldwide. By the time I first heard of it, it had already been running for some time in the theaters here and ultimately, I decided I would catch it later. While I didn't read any of the reviews in detail, I did gather the story was about a classic, Agatha Christie-inspired mystery plot and that many viewers thought it as a very entertaining film too, so it was always a matter of when I was going to see it, not if.

Anyway, Knives Out sure doesn't pretend it's anything but a homage to the classical mystery story with all its tropes. The gorgeous Thrombey manor functions as the background location for most of the movie and is filled with characters who of course all have a motive for wanting Harlan dead. The first part of the movie is filmed pretty good: not only does it give you a good sense of the important parts of the layout of the manor, but the scenes where the police and Benoit question the family members are surprisingly amusing to watch. In mystery fiction, whether it's a movie or a book, you often have flashback scenes where suspects have to talk about their alibi and what went on in the time leading up to the murder, but the presentation here is quite smooth, giving the viewer an informative, but also funny view at the discrepancies between what the suspects tell the police and what actually went on that night. As the film goes on, we'll see how all these short fragments told from various points of view eventually come together, and it's here where the film feels a lot like a Christie story, with characters overhearing muffled fragments of conversations and fights and other people trying to interpret the meaning of those lines. Some of this even comes back in the conclusion, when Benoit explains his interpretations of said lines and how it ultimately ties back to the identity of the culprit and these moments are far from rare in Christie's work.

And while the film is set in current times and we see people use smartphones and grandchildren fighting with each other because one is an 'alt-right troll' and the other a 'feminist SJW' (and to be honest some of the characters here are hardly fleshed out and little more than labels), the workings of the plot of Knives Out feel distinctly... old-fashioned? I mean, you could just transport this plot to a 1930s setting and change some minor clues like the usage of e-mails or SNS to regular letters, and the plot would still work as is. I would have believed it if someone told me this was originally written in 1930 and that it was only slightly altered for a modern film adaptation in a contemporary setting. It's all of this that makes Knives Out feel like a mystery story from the period of Christie, while it's definitely filmed in the present: the film looks really good visually in terms of presentation and camerawork.

Early on the film starts to focus on Marta as our protagonist instead of Benoit: the viewer learns Marta has a secret regarding Harlan's death which she is desperate to hide, but because of her physical condition she can't lie to Benoit without throwing up. Well, she can of course still deceive him without actually telling lies, but that isn't easy, and from this point on, Knives Out changes into something that feels more like a inverted mystery with a slight comedic tone, somewhat reminiscent of Columbo: we follow Marta as she's 'helping' Benoit in his investigation, while in truth she's constantly trying to hide or destroy any clue that could lead him to uncovering her secret. It's an interesting change in tone, but it works pretty well to make for a more 'thrilling' viewing experience, rather than just following Benoit constantly walking around and asking questions. There's that small comedic connection that occurs between the viewer and Marta like we know from Columbo, where "we" are in it together because know more than the detective and have fun seeing him being deceived. The last third of the movie actually throws more thriller-elements into the plot, until we arrive at the denouement where Benoit reveals he's not just been posing and been as clueless as he sometimes appeared to be and where he manages to connect all the clues together to show the truth behind Harlan's death.

This core mystery plot is... okay? It does nothing wrong, and there's some subtle clewing going too, but Knives Out is perhaps too much of a send-up to classic mystery fiction in this regard, as there's very, very little that stands out in terms of plot, and a seasoned fan of the mystery genre will recognize a lot. Early on in the film, it becomes pretty clear that there are certain circumstances regarding Harlan's death, and I was soooooo afraid it was supposed to be the surprise twist at the end of the movie: I was more than relieved when the film revealed these events to the viewer early on instead of sitting on it until the climax, and I had hopes that Knives Out would do more of these trope inversions, but surprisingly, the rest of the film just runs its course in the way you'd expect. Again, Knives Out does do its job as a classic, fair-play mystery story with proper clewing/foreshadowing in a competent manner, but the film follows the classic tropes and tricks/twists to a T, and if you have read a few Agatha Christie novels or anything from that period, it's likely that you'll quickly catch on the truth.

So what is Knives Out ultimately? It's definitely an entertaining mystery film to watch. While it does take on thriller tropes to present its story at times, Knives Out is firmly settled within the structures of the classic mystery plot, at times even too much so: if you are not very familiar with the mystery genre, the film will have some nice surprising twists for you and the path to that answer is nicely paved with proper clewing like you'd expect from a proper detective plot, but for those who are more comfortable with the genre, most elements will come across as rather familiar, even if the execution is done competently. Knives Out is not remarkable in terms of its core plot, but the whole package is a fun watch and I'm glad I finally got to see it. In a way, it's a nice contrast to 2017's adaption of Murder on the Orient Express: both feature an all-star ensemble cast, but Knives Out features an original plot, rather than being a straight adaptation of an existing classic detective novel, and I'd love to see more original mystery movies in the same spirit. I believe a new film with Benoit Blanc as the detective is planned and I'll make sure that this time, the sequel won't go unnoticed on my radar.