Mysteries… oh how I loathe them. 

But really. By the time my friend and I finished watching Knives Out, we had come up with a hundred different ways that the movie could have ended. Most of them were better than what actually happened. 

At least we have fodder to co-write a mystery book if we wanted. 

I know a lot of people love mysteries, not for the crazy process of figuring out who killed so and so, but for trying to figure out how the murder was pulled off. Granted, Knives Out was interesting. The ending was very sad. Still, I wasn’t shocked. It was very typical. A homage to the great mystery of the past, which I guess is a trend now that everyone is reading Agatha Christie - I can’t say that I have. 

Well, I hate mysteries because I tend to figure them out too quickly. I stick around to the end just to prove that I was right. The guilty party in Knives Out was so obvious that I didn’t want to believe it to be true. The film had such great reviews. There has to be a twist at the end. There wasn’t and it was a huge let down. What saved the movie was the cinematography and the characters. 

As my friend loves to say… “They’re so in love.” *insert heart eyes* I lost count of how many times she said that line and wacked my arm, drawing me back into the movie. I’m sure that key character development will be explored in more detail in the second movie. 

Oh yes my friends… there are already talks of a second movie. Good for Rian Johnson. Just another reason why he should have stayed for the third Star Wars movie. 

The characters were fleshed out if slightly canned. Honestly, there was nothing original about them. Just look at the fact that the nurse is a low-income immigrant. Wow… so different. But they still had their quirks that added to the overall aesthetic of the movie. I would have loved a bit more of the youngest grandchild. If anything, he was the most unique in the entire thing. 

If you can give me good aesthetics, there is a higher chance that I will love the movie. The camera angles and the backdrop lend a lot into the meat of a movie. They give something for the viewer to sink their teeth into. Knives Out was a perfect blend. The camera angles added a great whimsy to the film that fit well with the design. The jumping around in the story line, closeups, and overall changes as they each told their stories was perfect. It was the one thing that kept me wanting to watch. That and the strong hope that this movie would defy expectations. Nope… not a tiny bit. 

Though I know what is wrong with this movie, I keep holding onto the weird quirks of the film. That’s saying a lot, because they’re the items that keep popping up in my head. Like the way Blanc kept hitting the piano key during the interviews. Any point that may seem convenient to me one second, I see as a cool plot the device the next. My brain keeps flip flopping between whether I actually liked the film or if it was too canned to be worth saving. I’ve yet to give it a rating on Critiquer. Does this all mean that I should give it a fifty? Am I literally the definition of split down the middle? 

Happy Watching

Love Kait