Old fashioned murder mystery with a twist

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2020)

Directed by Rian Johnson, Knives Out is a very stylish, very classical murder mystery. A whodunit story, following in the footsteps of Agatha Christie and other masters.
This is most apparent in style and the visuals. The head of a family is dead and the family is gathering together to bury him and to settle such minor questions as inheritance and what really happened to grandfather. And obviously a gentleman detective just happens to turn up, ready to help. A premise straight from a Christie book. And the manour itself is also gloriously weird, filled with odd angles, bizarre knickknacks, scary mementos and enough Baroque aesthetic to make you fear the dark.
However, while it is clear Johnson obviously loves this genre and wants to do it justice, he's not content simply rehashing old tropes and doing them correctly. He wants to take the genre forward, do something different with it. Innovate. And he succeeds. The film can be called a whodunit, but that's not entirely accurate, at least not the whole way through. Can't really say more about that without spoilers, but suffice to say the film has a few surprises in store for you.
It's also brilliantly acted, benefiting from an ensemble cast of actors. A couple who stand out are Daniel Craig as the gentleman detective Benoit Blanc and Ana de Armas as Marta Cabrera, nurse of the late head of family and the supposed main character of the film. But all the actors are great. True, there are a couple of characters that don't get much screen time, making them rather one note, but that's the price of telling the story, I suppose.
Knives Out is what happens when someone takes something he really loves, but not so much that he's unwilling to see it change. Rather he loves it so much that he wants to make it even better. And that's when the magic happens.