Simply brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2020)

What a gear movie. This is probably one of the most brilliant detective movies of the recent years. To begin with, this movie does what each detective movie should do, namely, subversion of expectations. And it does it greatly at that.
This movie begins with a simple murder mystery. At first, we are presented with a simple set of events, and we are left to guess who the murderer is. Seemingly, we manage to discover who that person is, and, unexpectedly, the movie actually shows us what happened. At this stage, we are left confused, since we are only in the first act, and yet we know who killed the guy. This makes us believe that the movie is not a murder mystery at all, but rather, a story about right and wrong, where we get to either side with the detective, or the murderer. Soon enough, however, we realize that perhaps there is something more to it. And sure enough, the story unravels in yet another direction, one that we've yet to discover.
I find it simply brilliant how the movies keeps an incredible balance of atmosphere, mystery and humor. Writing a good murder mystery is very difficult, especially for fans of the genre, since there are only so many possible scenarios. However, this movie develops in a brand new direction, and it manages to achieve everything that it sets to achieve.
Furthermore, this movie utilizes Chekhov's gun astonishingly. Usually, if we are shown a certain object in a mystery movie, we already know that it is going to play a role in solving the case. This is a good thing, since having redundant scenes in a limited screen time is not a good idea at all. However, camerawork is a tool just like dialogue or any other mean of conveying information, and thus it should be used carefully. This movie achieves to utilize this tool to a great scale without spoiling the plot or tipping us off, which in itself is achievement.
To conclude with, the ending is very satisfying and it is probably one of the best mystery movie endings I've seen in a long time.