Knives Out

  As one might infer from the title, this film is about knives — and their outing. When detective Benoit Blanc recites the mystery’s solution he’s backed by a huge halo of poised daggers. In Blanc’s parlance, that halo is the donut of the mystery, whose innermost donut core he penetrates. Like Marta’s winning strategy at Go, he’s “trying to create a beautiful pattern” by plunging to the center of the knives/donut. 

The portrait of the freshly killed patriarch Harlan has him posed with the scimitar by which he will die — if at whose hand provides the mystery. Indeed the entire whodunit plot pivots on that crime-novelist’s observation about the importance of distinguishing between a real knife and a theatrical prop. The murderer fatally incriminates himself when he stabs the main suspect with a stage knife which, like Marta’s confession, proves retractable. So, too, it was the murderer who anonymously hired the detective, in effect unwittingly turning his fake knife real. Thus Blanc’s “Physical evidence can tell a clear story with a forked tongue.” 

The film itself carries that ambiguity. As a theatrical construction, the plot presents an Agatha cozy family of corrupt, self-serving, vicious members pretending to innocence. Meanwhile, the purest member of the household, caregiver Marta, acts guiltily as she fears for her undocumented immigrant mother’s security. To solve the crime Blanc has to undermine Marta’s confession as well as the killer’s (ie., his employer’s) profession of innocence. For once the cop proves right in the conclusion to which he jumped: “I mean, the guy practical lives in a Clue board.” 

The dialogue teems with such theatrical references. Ransom rejects Blanc with a classic cartoon allusion: “Shut up with that Kentucky Fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl!” So too Blanc’s description of the typical will reading: “You'd think it'd be like a game show, but think of a community theatre production of a tax return.”

For all its theatricality, however, this film has a sharp contemporary political point. The prop knife turns real. The vile family embodies the American right’s assault on the immigrant since Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency. Trump is the unnamed reference in this exchange:

Joni: You don't like him cause you love him.

Richard: No, I don't like him, he's an asshole but maybe an asshole is what we needed.

Joni: Oh, God, yeah, and an asshole is what Germany needed in nineteen thirty whatever.

The particularly targeted Trump policy is his cruel crackdown on illegal immigrants. As Joni objects, “They're putting kids in cages!” 

Richard: I'm not saying that's not terrible, but the parents share some of that blame. 

Joni: For wanting a better future for their kids? Isn't that what America’s….”

                Richard: For breaking the law!” 

This family hardly lives in respect for the law. In one sequence Richard summons Marta over as a demonstration of her place within their family circle. A replay reveals she’s just a prop in his condemnation of needy refugees. He reduces her humanity to a legalism. 

Hence their attack when they learn Harlan has made Marta his sole heir. Walt uses Marta’s mother’s vulnerability to pressure her to resign her inheritance so the family could deploy their resources to legitimize her mother’s stay. That Marta sensibly concludes she could do herself. His condescension defeats him.

For all their protestations of affection and respect for Marta, the family members continually mistake her national origin. They make excuses for excluding her from her charge’s funeral. For this family “America is for Americans.” Indeed even Ransom’s claim to “our ancestral home…” is undercut by Blanc’s “That is hooey! Harlan, he bought this place in the 80's from a Pakistani real estate millionaire.” Even in this racist microcosm America is built on the immigrant.