Knives Out

Saw Knives Out, a delightful mystery film about a the death of a an author who writes mostly murder mystery novels.  It seems to have been a suicide, but there's no motive.  There had been a family reunion the night before and the house is laid out, as one detective puts it, like a clue board.  To complicate matters more, the writer had been quite old and many family members had definite designs on his fortune.

The film immediately becomes politically inflected as the protagonist is established to be the live-in nurse of the writer.  She's from uncertain but Spanish-speaking background.  There's a running gag that the family member can't remember where she comes from ("She's from Cuba", "She's from Portugal", "She's from Paraguay.")  The family is a mixture of conservative and progressive folks but they all either side-line her or actively look down on her.  In one hilarious scene, one of the family members defends her right to be there and her dignity before absentmindedly handing her a dirty plate to clean up.  So callus!

The film is directed by Rian Johnson and there's a little twitter shit-poster character who I think is supposed to be a swipe at the online trolls who thought there was too much femininity in the Star Wars sequels.  Hilariously, those same trolls identified this film as being anti-white and while that is absurd, the film is clearly commenting on how white america treats its immigrants and presents itself.  Much of the dignity and tradition of the family is just naturally assumed and implied by the writer's money.  Later in the film, it's revealed that there's no tradition here at all.

This was a nice cream puff of a movie.  It had some nice jokes and some commentary to share on American politics but, since it is a mystery, the rewatchability is probably not that great.  Not so clever as to be confusing, it makes you feel clever as you notice that the opening and closing shots are mirrored, and as the plot is unfolded in front of you.  So nice!