Mystery crime has long been a neglected genre in the movie industry with cheap and boring TV flicks like Murder She Baked, etc. With its star-studded cast and intelligent plot, Knives Out is certainly a refreshing and hopefully a revitalizing comeback. Although it feels like a modern day Agatha Christie adaptation with little new to offer, all its cinematographic qualities like acting, directing, scripting, editing are top notch. Despite the abundance of leading figures, the characters are surprisingly well developed and they are far from simplistic and single-dimensional. Take Joni, for example. When it comes to her personal interests and benefits, she sees nothing wrong with scheming a large sum of money from her father-in-law. Her political views on a polarizing subject like immigration, however, are progressive and humanitarian.
Indeed, the subject of immigration is the permeating subtle theme of the movie although the main plot revolves around a crime puzzle. The protagonist is a daughter of an illegal immigrant family from Latin america. She works as a caregiver to a bunch of wealthy white people none of whom has no real accomplishments but lives a posh life by simply leeching off of the rich patriarch. Most of their qualities are pretentious and skin-deep. Even the impressive "ancestral manor" turns out to be an estate bought from a Pakistani tycoon some 40 years ago. I don't want to give away too much from the plot but the final scene metaphorically and hilariously clinches the underlying subject-matter.
All in all, Knives Out is an entertaining movie which certainly deserves seeing.
Review of Knives Out
