Knives Out perhaps is not the best written movie out in this year, but surely it is one among the most entertaining.
Saying the film is predictable is not wrong, but it is missing the point. Just toward the first halves the film dropped plenty of clues toward pointing the suspect of the crime, but the point was not about "who did it", but "how and why it was done." Indeed, perhaps in the first half audience is intentionally misled to get the impression of typical murder mystery through Knives Out stylistic "who did it" fashion, but as the film goes it shows that there is more to it especially since what and who cause the murder is already revealed in the middle of the film.
If one pays attention to the details. audience have been invited to ask ourselves about the mystery of the process of the murder - on the continuously shaking legs and the barking dogs - and even the especially charming Daniel Craig asked us, almost invitingly, who really hired him and why? The twist and turn is not about the result; but the process.
And doing that, Rian Johnson is still able to slip a neat "moral of the story", with a rather bittersweet moment when the truth is finally revealed. "You're a good person who follows your heart" might be one of the most repeatedly cliche, but taking a backdrop of distrust and money in a family drama, Johnson's words spoken through Craig's character with his characteristic accent made the delivery much more impactful. The slick cinematography and excellent music directing in the whole movie supports this perfectly paced murder mystery.
There is a notable questionable holes that may push you from your suspension of disbelief, but still: a delightful Christmas story to end the year; Knives Out is one film I'd recommend to get you absorbed to its intricate details.
There are two things that bugged me in this episode:
Rose, the actor for Liv, seems to have issues staying serious while acting. You see her smiling several times when she says her lines and it gets cut shortly after. At minute 3, when she turns back to the corpse for example.
Or the significant amount of scenes where she generally seems too lively. This was the opposite in episode 1. While there she said at the end she can step her game up, she's still undead. Even if she eats the brain of an artist who's upbeat and she behaved like that even before she did.
The second thing is the zombie make-up. From scene to scene it sometimes looks very unevenly applied, especially around the eyes and you can see it when Liv raises her eyebrows.
Other than that I loved it. The "lesson" at the end was great. The chemistry between Ravi and Liv felt much more natural. The introduction of the second zombie was better than I expected.
But I must admit, that I do understand if people don't like this show. It's - at least so far - nowhere near an action/suspense driven show, it seems to be one of those lesson at the end of each episode type of shows. These tend to be less good received overall.
This episode gets bonus points for a female character being protective of a male character as well as the male objectification through a female without any kind of specific buildup or social comment on it as if it is natural. Something that is usually not done in our oh so equality centered society/media but frowned upon when it is vice versa.
