1.“Knives Out" is a Masterful Murder-Mystery
Director Rian Johnson’s film Knives Out, which arrives in theaters across Japan on January 31st, is a masterful murder-mystery that also cuts deeply into the issues that define modern American society.
At a time when superhero films and remakes are a dime a dozen, Johnson has written and directed a completely original story full of thrills and laughs that is brought to life by a wonderfully eclectic and talented cast. It was the perfect Thanksgiving movie last November in the U.S., and now it will be the perfect movie to get us through the coldest winter months in Japan.
At the same time, the movie tackles themes like wealth, the state of the American family, social class, and immigration. And in the process it puts into relief the hypocrisy and myths that so many in the U.S. are unwilling to let go. The box-office success it achieved in that country is a result of the fact that it is more than just escapist entertainment.
In this review, I will consider the role of mystery/detective stories in our world, and unpack some of the main themes of Knives Out.
2.Agatha Christie and the “Whodunit"
Detective stories like Knives Out are known as “whodunits".
Whodunit is a colloquial elision of the phrase “Who (has) done it?", or to be more grammatically correct, “Who did it?" It is a complex, plot-driven story where the audience follows along and attempts to solve the “puzzle" (the murder or other crime) before the identity of the perpetrator is revealed in the climax. This genre had its golden age between the 1920s and 30s, and is known for the many classic works penned by female British writers. In Japan, author Yokomizo Seishi’s books featuring sleuth Kindaichi Kousuke belong to the whodunit genre; his best known work is arguably The Murder in the Honjin.
The whodunit author that Johnson pays tribute to in Knives Out is “Queen of Crime" Agatha Christie. Christie published over 60 mystery novels across her 50-year career, many of which became global bestsellers. Her best-known works include Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None.
Through works like these, Christie established what became a template for classic whodunit mysteries: a murder is committed, after which a private or amateur detective arrives on the scene; the detective finds that all of the people present have both a motive and an alibi: an ingenious twist occurs in the second half to drive the story toward its conclusion; at the story’s climax, the detective calls everyone together, names the culprit, and breaks down how they committed the crime. Knives Out pays tribute to this formula while also playing with its tropes.
Another defining characteristic of Christie’s stories is that they depict upper or upper-middle class British society. Christie’s characters are always very aware of their class, and through their propriety and adherence to convention, the author pokes fun at snooty British uppityness.
For many American readers, Christie’s novels were a window into British society and culture. That fascination continues today in the form of enthusiasm for British TV dramas like Downton Abbey. The simple but delightful prose also made Christie’s books popular among ESL students in Japan and around the world.
3.The Myth of the Self-Made American Man
With Knives Out, Rian Johnson has taken the British whodunit and uprooted it to New England, and centered the story on a family of WASPs in place of the British upper class. In doing so, he brings into relief the conflicts and contradictions of the American upper class.
Patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is the quintessential “self-made man", a mystery writer who has amassed the family fortune from his bestselling books. His children (and grandchildren) have grown up to become selfish, entitled snobs, each of whom, to varying degrees, relies on their father/grandfather’s legacy and largesse to make ends meet. Their main preoccupation is to protect what they believe is their birthright, by any means necessary.
There’s second son Walt (Michael Shannon), who oversees his father’s publishing house and has the weaselly habit of calling them “our books". There’s daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette), who presents herself as a social media influencer and lifestyle guru in charge of a Goop-like company, but who actually lives off of an allowance she receives from Harlan. And then there’s eldest daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), who says she built her real estate company from the group up, but who in reality had a helping hand in starting her business in the form of a million-dollar loan from her father.
Linda’s story immediately evokes U.S. President Donald Trump, who presents himself as the quintessential self-made man. During the 2016 presidential election, however, he acknowledged that he had received a “small loan of a million dollars" from his father to build his own company. Later, the New York Times said that it had found that Trump’s father had lent him a total of at least 60 million dollars.
Americans have a reputation around the world for taking pride in picking themselves up by the bootstraps and forging a path for themselves. Knives Out shows us that the story of the self-made man is more often than not a myth, a lie WASPs tell themselves in order to protect their wealth and vested interests.
All of this only becomes clearer following Harlan’s death. After the funeral, they make no effort to hide the fact that their number one concern is Harlan’s will and how the family’s fortune and assets will be divided among them. Instead of going out and building something for themselves, most of them are content to sit at their father’s dining table, knives out and forks in hand, waiting and waiting to be served the fruits of their father’s blood, sweat, and tears. They believe they are entitled to it.
4.A Southern Gentleman Comes to the World of New England WASPs
Agatha Christie’s books also feature an out-of-place detective character through whose eyes the reader is further made aware of the quirks, traditions, and foibles of the British.
Her two most iconic creations are the Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot, and the spinster sleuth Miss Marple. As a foreigner, Poirot sees past airs and observes British society from an objective and irreverent viewpoint. Miss Marple is able to take advantage of the fact that her gender and age make her essentially invisible—allowing her to come and go as she pleases.
Benoit Blanc, the private detective called to the scene in Knives Out, is Johnson’s homage to Poirot. Despite his French name, Blanc speaks in a thick, slow southern drawl. (A significant part of the U.S. was previously a French colony from the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, and the influence remains in geographical names and the culture.)
Blanc is a southern gentleman, the kind of person who despises wickedness and underhandedness; it’s no surprise that he sees right through the Thrombeys’ lies, secrets, and evasions. On the flip side, it’s clear by the snide nicknames employed by the Thrombeys to refer to Blanc that they look down upon him.
Intriguingly, Blanc is played by the British actor Daniel Craig (best known to international audiences for playing the British spy James Bond). One of the biggest pleasures of Knives Out is getting to see an iconic British gentleman portray an archetypal southern gentleman.
It is because Blanc—and Craig—is an outsider that he is able to see through the smoke and mirrors and recognize that Harlan’s death is most likely not a suicide. Through his unclouded eyes, the hypocrisy of the American upper class is brought into stark relief.
5.Being an Immigrant in the U.S.
The Thrombeys are not the only ones in Blanc’s sights. There’s Harlan’s housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson), who was the one who discovered the body, and Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s nurse and caretaker. The viewer assumes that they were closer to Harlan in his final years than anyone else, as most of his kids and grandkids likely only visited him when they wanted something.
In contrast to the Thrombeys, Marta is a demure, kind-hearted Latina immigrant whom we believe would do anything to take care of her mother and sister. She is someone who actually started with nothing and became a nurse through hard work and diligence. She is depicted as having had a close relationship with Harlan, acting as his conversation partner/confidant, and defeating him regularly in the board game of Go. The other members of the family express their gratitude to Marta for being there for their father, and assure her that she’s “like family".
The “like family" line immediately raised a red flag for me, as it is the kind of phrase you’d expect to hear from a white person trying to present themselves as progressive and welcoming of immigrants but who deep down is actually as conservative as they come. The Thrombeys do not think of Marta as family—they only say so because political correctness demands it.
This is made clear by the fact that the family is unable—or unwilling—to remember Marta’s country of origin. Throughout the movie, they describe her as being from Guatemala, Paraguay, Brazil, and various other Central and South American countries. As someone who has a Salvadoran father, I experienced my share of microagressions like these throughout my time growing up in the U.S.
In another telling scene, a member of the family hands Marta a used plate, as if she was one of “the help", as one of the Thrombeys calls them. No matter how hard Marta works and regardless of what she achieves, in their eyes—and in their house—she will always be someone only there to attend to their needs.
Through Marta’s interactions with the Thrombeys, Johnson shows the viewer what it’s like to live as an immigrant in American society today. And watching the family engage in heated discussions about the future of the country, it becomes clear just how uneasy American whites have become at the prospect of losing their privilege and entitlement.
6.What Lies Ahead for America
Going back to the classic whodunits of the 1920s and 30s, it’s important to recognize that the books provided readers more than just the thrill of solving a puzzle. What they actually offered was the comfort of moral order. Every time a crime throws the community into disarray, a detective shows up to bring the perpetrator to justice and restore public order.
Remember that it was between the first and second World Wars that the Great Depression sent the world in a downward spiral. And while it’s true that the decline in Great Britain was more moderate than in the U.S., Europe also had other problems to deal with—namely, the rise and expansion of ultranationalism and fascism. In such times of confusion and declining morals, the simple message that good would triumph over evil and order would be restored was like morphine for the soul.
Meanwhile, across the pond in the U.S., people were becoming more nihilistic. While there were some American authors who wrote whodunits, it was another, more cynical genre of crime fiction that would capture the public’s imagination: hardboiled fiction.
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out arrives as a kind of antidote to the post-truth world we now live in—an assurance that lies do, ultimately, crumble, and that justice will prevail. The care and attention that Johnson has put into crafting this movie certainly speaks to his love of the genre, but it also speaks to the parallels between our times and Christie’s times.
Johnson even goes one step further, giving us hints of how the Thrombeys have become increasingly embattled in the face of the changing times and demographics. Even within their own tribe, nearly all of them live small lives in the shadow of their patriarch. The low-key panic that they feel is a symptom of the coming reality—specifically, the looming prospect of a white minority and the end of their white entitlement.
This change will come, sooner than later. Until then, Johnson warns, things are bound to get worse before they get better, as people struggle—or refuse—to come to terms with the changing face of the U.S. When backed into a corner, people will bare their fangs and swing away wildly in a last-ditch effort to protect what they believe they’re entitled too. They stand with their knives out.
The other day, thousands of gun-rights activists rallied in Richmond, Virginia to protest against proposed tighter firearms laws. Outside of the security gates of the Virginia Capitol building, many arrived openly carrying assault rifles and other weapons—a tense, “guns out" situation that many feared would end in violence. Although the rally ended up being largely peaceful, it was clear to me, watching footage of the event, that American society has a long, perilous road ahead.
