Now that Christmas is over, let's knock something.
Knives Out. In actual fact, "Knives Out" is a very good Radiohead song. Based on a beautiful guitar line and the kind of vocal melody the band would kill to write at this point in their career... But that is neither here nor there, of course, because I am here to talk about Knives Out the movie.
The critical reviews are glowing, which did not make too much sense to me initially. After all, this was supposed to be an old-fashioned detective story, a murder mystery, an Hercule Poirot kind of conundrum, and movies like that do not tend to get universal acclaim. Were the twists especially clever? Was the final revelation of Roger Ackroyd variety? Did the acting transcend the detective genre? Well, read on.
What we are dealing with here is a rich American family. They all gather in the sumptuous setting of their father's mansion, the father being a renowned writer of detective novels who invited everyone to his birthday celebration. However, he dies tragically at the beginning of the film, and an old-school detective (played by Daniel Craig doing a hammy brand of Southern accent) is tasked with investigating the death. Last person to see the writer alive? A young girl who is the old man's carer. It is a decent set-up for a two-hour murder mystery - but, alas, the makers of this film had loftier ambitions.
The young girl is an immigrant, and apart from the detective and a couple of cardboard cutouts masquerading as minor characters, she is the only decent human being in the whole film. The family members are all pigs, you see. Murderous and greedy, they only chase their father's money. It is a decent detective story, mind you, with just the right amount of the absurd and the ridiculous. What makes Knives Out a complete artistic trainwreck is the political angle, which at some point gets absolutely unbearable. You do not have to be a Donald Trump supporter to find the whole thing blatant and fake. (And, for the record, I do not like Donald Trump. I do not see him as the end of the world, granted, but I do see him as an inept politician and a dishonest human being.)
Propaganda in art is unacceptable. Be that communist, religious or liberal propaganda. I am sick of being taken for a snowflake by artists with an agenda. I am sick of reading once decent critics whose view of a book or a film is now blinded by a million issues completely irrelevant to art. Had Knives Out been a detective story, it would have worked. It would not have been a classic, but it would have still been a really good flick for a Christmas Eve. As a political comment, though, Knives Out is shallow and dull. I mean, the big mansion as a metaphor for the white and the rich who cannot keep their house clean and need immigrants to take over? Fucking please.
