Murder Written for Actors

Rating: 8/10 (13 March 2020)

Critics and audiences are right, this is a fun movie. "Knives Out" is a clever twist on the whodunit, murder-mystery genre. There's a bit of a commentary on immigration and entitlement in regards to contemporary American politics and the inheritance of wealth, but more interesting methinks is how this narrative unfolds around a writer and actors, as well as the usual detective. Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a writer of murder-mystery books (although, ironically, he doesn't allow for them to be adapted into movies), is found dead of apparent suicide, but a detective, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), suspects foul play. Ordinarily, we might share the position of the detective in regards to solving the crime, with much of the fun being in seeing whether we could keep up with or figure it out before him. All of the others, essentially, are actors playing actors--lying and scheming for various reasons, at least one of which is presumably because they're the murderer--misleading the detective and us during their interviews and interactions. Much of this remains the case here, but it's complicated by Harlan's nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), becoming the protagonist, the seeming dramatic irony of the early reveal, and her character's seeming inability to "act," for she vomits whenever she lies.
Turns out, in a sense, Harlan was right to be weary of his books being acted out, as he tries to write (indeed, he makes a written note of the plot of switched medications down during his final minutes) and stage his own death. Marta inevitably proves incapable of adapting or enacting his instructions, though. She's an ideal protagonist, however, as she cannot lie, and although she tries to withhold information from the detective, through flashbacks and other means, she never withholds from us, the spectator. The same can't be said of Blanc, or of other fictional detectives, for that matter. Even Craig's over-the-top accent--at one point, a crack is made that it's "CSI: KFC"--marks him as actorly. (Personally, I couldn't help but think of Michael Scott from "The Office" saying "There's been a murder in Savannah.") Not so with Marta, who also has a common and relatable backstory, of having an undocumented mother, of being self-made and hard-working in the face of the indignities thrown at her by Harlan's spoiled offspring. Although she's a nurse, in one scene, one of them hands her a dirty plate as though she were a maid, while he also barrages her with leading questions about illegal immigration, and as he and the rest confuse from what country she immigrated from. Both sides of the Tronmbey clan play out a parody of a left-right debate over immigration policy under the Trump administration, including a teenage son supposedly trolling alt-right vitriol on social media. They unite, however, upon their shared greed for an inheritance they feel entitled to, been born into and raised on.
The irony of the murder mystery is even richer: that there wasn't even a murder at all until the writer, Harlan, wrote it and tried to help his suspect get away with it, as though she were a character from one of his books. He didn't count on a detective seemingly also straight from his prose--indeed, Blanc relates how his father knew Harlan--taking the case, though. All of these writerly and actorly characters play out the whodunit, as we honestly follow Marta, the only honest one of the bunch, trying to make sense of it all. Sure, there are clues, too. I especially appreciate how the mug, that piece of notepaper, and the business with knives come back in the end. But, solving the mystery is secondary here to merely enjoying the amusing, reflexive construction, with all the twists and turns. I was content to remain as informed or as ignorant as Marta to the end, to wait until Blanc inevitably gathers everyone together and explains everything.