Knives Out

Knives Out (2019) takes the country house murder puzzle and does something genuinely new with it, not by winking at the genre but by breaking one of its rules. Crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead the morning after his eighty fifth birthday. The house is full of wealthy relatives and every one of them has a reason. Detective Benoit Blanc arrives to sort it out. Rian Johnson's trick is that the film hands you information early that a whodunit would normally save for the end. From that moment the question stops being who did it and becomes what happens if this comes out. The suspense is built on your genre instincts working against you. Daniel Craig's Southern accent is divisive and you will know within a minute which side you are on. Ana de Armas is the one actually carrying the film, and she plays it with a straightness the genre rarely allows. The family's conversations about immigration are not set dressing either, they are the subject. Good for: murder mysteries, ensemble comedy, sharp scripts, and watching with family. Less good for: anyone wanting a realistic procedural or a dark crime film. The tone is light on purpose.