December 11th: Knives Out REVIEW/POSITIVE RAVE?

I FINALLY SAW KNIVES OUT, GUYS. 

It was glorious. I enjoyed it so dang much. That's it. That's the review. G'day, folks. 

I'm kidding. I'm really excited to be talking about movies and such again, even if this one probably won't have much exciting commentary. BUT i do have a few visual moments that I love and want to point out. Anyway, onwards we go!

(WARNING: Spoilers Ahead)

To begin, I liked it. 

Oh boy, I liked a popular movie, how edgy for me. But seriously, I appreciated a lot of the framing of the movie. I really liked that the movie seemed to give us the culprit from the beginning, not trying to play the "who did it" game for too long. After all, flipping from suspect to suspect can be tiring and give watcher whiplash. In this framing, we got to follow Marta's story the entire time as things evolved. 

Also, despite the cheesy accent, the little idiosyncrasies and tells of Detective Blanc are fantastic. The way he hits a piano note when people are lying? His little stories that seem off the wall and random but are always relevant to the plot? 

The story is riddled with those kind of things, tiny visual cues that lead into something bigger later. Linda and all her notes, Harlan's off-hand comment about his fake knives versus real ones, Harlan's "My House" cup...

And even things that didn't lead to anything! Every time one of Harlan's family members mentioned Marta, they cited a different South American country as her family's place of origin. That's a hilarious in-joke that doesn't draw attention to itself but definitely deserves attention. 

But the coup de grace of the whole film was having the family say Marta was like family, that they love her, that they want to care about her, but treating her like the help. And at the end, Marta was now on the balcony and they were in the courtyard below, flipping their wealth and status. Marta was now the person above them, even though they always saw this kind, genuine person as someone lesser than them. 

Oh boy was it satisfying. 

I love visual planning and manipulation in film. So many directors and writers make pretty shots and interesting angles, but the ones that go the extra miles to make so many little things mean something and interact with the story?

Hell yes. It doesn't have the symbolism levels of Mad Max: Fury Road, but it has such visual efficiency, having viewers, characters, and the story interact with so many things on screen.

The actors acted their hearts out and were perfect fits for their roles. Marta had this core innocence about her. Detective Blanc was so offbeat and inquisitive. Ransom was charming, but always devious. It was fantastic. 

It was just a wonderful film exploring the things that unrestricted money and entitlement from birth can do to people, even ones that try to be good people. Entitlement is a serious bitch. 

I don't have much else to say, not unless I really sat down and went through some hardcore analysis. I just wanted to say how fun and fascinating the whole thing was. 

Now, just don't kill your family members, okay? We all know that doesn't go well (even if it's an entertaining story).