Mystery abounds in brilliantly fun Knives Out

Daniel Craig, LaKeith Stanfield, and Noah Segan in Knives Out. Image courtesy Lions Gate.

At the center of Knives Out is a murder most foul. Legendary mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is discovered dead by his nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) the morning after his birthday party. The suspects are Harlan's flesh and blood. Could it have been his daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), or her husband Richard (Don Johnson), or his son Ransom (Chris Evans)? Was it Walt (Michael Shannon), or his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome), or his son Jacob (Jaeden Martell)? Or maybe it was his daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) or granddaughter Meg (Katherine Langford)? Everyone has a motive and opportunity, and it's up to private eye Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, sporting a brilliantly absurd southern accent), Lieutenant Elliot (LaKeith Stanfield), and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) to determine what caused Harlan Thrombey's demise.

Saying too much more would ruin the fun writer/director Rian Johnson has with Knives Out. This movie is a blast from start to end, zigging and zagging and zigging again from one deliriously clever twist to the next. Johnson weaves his tale tightly, providing the audience nearly exactly the amount of information to make the final big swerve ending nearly perfect. This is an incredibly difficult trick to pull off in a genre notorious for hiding vital information from the viewer just for the sake of maintaining the mystery. That isn't Johnson's style though. Rather, he employs storytelling and filmmaking sleights of hand to retain a scintilla of ambiguity, just enough to keep the audience from knowing for sure what led to Harlan Thrombey's demise. You could watch Knives Out for days on end to find the little Easter eggs and hints Johnson throws in to throw viewers off. He borrows liberally from films like Rashomon and The Maltese Falcon as little tricks, playing on audience expectations from years of precedent, only to upend the expectations early on because it's far more fun to play with a genre than adhere to the rules strictly.

Johnson fortunately carries over the mystery genre tradition of the terribly wealthy family being terrible. The characters (and cast by extension) in Knives Out are an absolute hoot, dropping bon mots and retorts with the perfect amount of spite and malice. They are designed to be perfectly detestable, wrapped up in their world of wealth yet trying ever so hard to think they've earned anything despite starting at third base. It is so, so much fun watching these folks squirm during Benoit Blanc's interrogations or realize everything they'd planned for in life has gone to pot. The Thrombeys deserve the worst, and yet there is something sad about the entire affair. The film depicts a family that long ago gave up on ever actually liking one another, effectively waiting for their patriarch to die to inherit their slice of Harlan Thrombey's millions. Johnson's sense of humor doesn't completely cover the sadness of that scenario; avarice tore the Thrombey family asunder and nothing can ever repair that lost connection. Harlan Thrombey's legacy is a family with motive to murder him, which is both tragic and apropos for a genre dedicated to greed.

It is easy to read the tragedy in Knives Out, but Johnson and company are far, far more interested in putting on one helluva show than reflect on the sadness of being. This is one of the most purely fun films to come out this year, balancing entertainment with a fun little mental puzzle to keep viewers enthralled and engaged in the action on screen. Almost everything works about this film – from the writing and directing to the casting and right into the spacing, lighting, and even costumes. Every little thing in this movie means something, every frayed thread on a sweater or confused memory leads to something big and interesting. Knives Out is a piece of exquisite filmmaking that never fails to entertain its viewers, which is about as high of praise as a film can get.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 130 minutes

Genre: Crime

tl;dr

What Worked: Script, Acting, Daniel Craig's accent

What Fell Short: One reveal is a little too obvious

What To Watch As Well: Brick, Murder on the Orient Express

Shape of Water an odd twist to a classic story

Michael Shannon and Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water. Image courtesy Fox Searchlight.

 

In less capable hands, The Shape of Water could come dangerously close to being unwatchable. A blend of four genres telling an utterly bizarre love story with many grotesque details, the movie lives right along a number of thin lines that would tip it into being completely unwatchable, a pretentious art house movie that fails to blend the works of Davids Cronenberg and Lynch. Director Guillermo del Toro, who wrote the movie with Vanessa Taylor, is brilliant enough to use the oddity of his premise as a means of telling a basic love story between two fragile beings. What results is one of the sweetest, most charming love stories of the past decade.

There has always been something strangely benign about the supernatural beings that lurk just outside the real world in del Toro's movies. Ghosts are tragic creatures whose intents are benevolent to heroes and malevolent to the villains, and mythological gods provide aid and assistance for the protagonist's quest toward self discovery. The Shape of Water inserts the supernatural being into the center of the story, having a strange merman creature (played by Doug Jones) start an odd relationship with mute cleaner Elisa (Sally Hawkins). Elisa and the creature grow more and more in love and who receive aid from gay copy artist Giles (Richard Jenkins), Elisa's very reliable and understanding friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer), and Michael Stuhlbarg's mysterious scientist Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, as they fend off the very dangerous Strickland (a typically intense Michael Shannon). The cross between the fantastical and the normal is much more direct in this movie than some of del Toro's older, non-action movie titles, but the concept of a surprisingly ordinary abnormal supernatural presence fits with his modus operandi. Yet even those other movies come nowhere close to being quite as brazenly weird as The Shape of Water. It remains difficult to reconcile the romance between Elisa and the merman given the physiological differences and just how intimate their love becomes. It's not entirely unusual for a movie to create an emotional bond that toes the line at a physical relationship, but The Shape of Water goes right over that line and shows how close their relationship has become.

Their relationship might not be the strangest part of The Shape of Water. What's really disconcerting, aside the unfortunate fate of an unlucky cat, is the multitude of genres thrown together for this film. The Shape of Water is a fantastical love story, with elements of a Cold War spy movie and an era piece that digs under the artificial happiness of the early 1960s. As characters, Zelda and Giles could fit in just as well, if not better, in supporting roles in a romantic comedy, there to support the female lead as she pines for the dreamy captain of the high school swim team. Del Toro and Taylor even toss in elements of musicals, including a lovely and heartbreaking musical number that shines through Elisa's imagination.

None of it is overly distracting though because The Shape of Water's attention is focused on the relationship between Elisa and the merman. It's a beautiful romance, told quietly through kind acts and courageous feats. Everything between Elisa and the merman is driven by love and devotion, an unspoken romance that never strays into being sappy or saccharine. Every tender look, every embrace is earned because of how well Hawkins and Jones connect their characters. The other elements are there to elevate the romance, adding the necessary complications to move the story forward while adding a dreamy, nostalgia-tinged element to the film.

Nothing about tale told by The Shape of Water is overly complicated. To quote another movie about a woman and a beast falling in love, this is a tale as old as time about two beings who are exactly right for each other despite the circumstances around them. What's different is the lens used by del Toro and Taylor to tell this tale, to provide their unique take at how far true love can stretch physical impossibilities. Del Toro and Taylor have taken a banal plot and turned it into an indelible, beautiful love story about two incomplete beings completing each other and finding love in an otherwise hopeless place.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 123 minutes

Genre: Drama

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Target audience: Romantics with a sense of the macabre, so anyone who likes Guillermo del Toro movies.

Take the whole family?: No for several reasons.

Theater or Netflix?: This would make for a pretty interesting date night event.

Academy Award odds?: I hope this gets a Best Picture nomination, although it wouldn't be too surprising if this was snubbed because of how weird it is. At the least Sally Hawkins deserves a nomination for her quiet brilliance.

Watch this as well?: Guillermo del Toro's backlog is unique and often excellent, highlighted by The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. The Shape of Water also has hints of Pedro Almodóvar, so check out the very fun but slightly supernatural Volver.