Ghostwire's Thoughts - Knives Out

[Ghostwire]

*Slow Clap* I had heard good things about this movie, and that is honestly the only reason I gave it a watch. I tend to be very picky about what movies I give my time, and this one was definitely worth it.

I have always enjoyed a good mystery, and a murder mystery is as classic as you can get. But this movie is anything but your classic murder mystery. Now I don’t want to give away any spoilers, because honestly that would ruin the movie, but suffice to say that what starts out as a classic “who dunnit” quickly becomes a much more involved mystery that, cliché as it sounds, had me on the edge of my seat right up to the big reveal. While most murder mysteries have you pointing your finger at everyone because everyone seems like the culprit, Knives Out flips the script in a way that has you thinking you know exactly what is happening and who did what, and you are wrong.

I will say that the cast in this is great. Everyone nails their role. Daniel Craig is a wonderful PI in the same style as Hercule Poirot, and Ana de Armas was so convincing in her role that I felt every emotion poor Marta experiences throughout the film.

Normally I would go into more detail on what elements and scenes I liked or disliked in the movie, but I refuse to spoil this one for anyone who hasn’t seen it. If you are a fan of murder mystery than I highly recommend you give Knives Out a watch. You wont be disappointed, unless you think you know who dunnit

[PopeLinus1]

Definately one of the best films I saw last year. Absolutely brilliants.

[Continental Op]

I agree wholeheartedly. I have been a fan of Rian Johnson since Brick - if anyone likes film noir, Brick is a must watch film. And yes, I even liked Rian Johnson's take on Star Wars - The Last Jedi.

Regardless of what you think of the Last Jedi, though, Brick is worth it.

[Caledonian]

Every good movie about a con includes a con on the audience. Did you notice this one's?

I found it striking that all the female characters, save one, are sympathetic, and all the male characters, save one (maybe two), are unsympathetic.

Very entertaining movie, good performances.

[Kitten Champion]

Every good movie about a con includes a con on the audience. Did you notice this one's?

I found it striking that all the female characters, save one, are sympathetic, and all the male characters, save one (maybe two), are unsympathetic.

Very entertaining movie, good performances.

Everyone in the Thrombey family are varying degrees of terrible other than the victim himself (though he's fairly questionable objectively speaking) and his mother. Even the supposedly sympathetic ones were pretty condescending and self-absorbed underneath a mask of supposed geniality. That's the point of the movie's last shot, they'd done everything they could to manipulate and bully this otherwise very kind young woman and she wasn't having it anymore.

The only actual sympathetic characters - outside of the two mentioned above - were the protagonist and her family, the other member of the house staff, the police, and Daniel Craig's character.

[Peelee]

Every good movie about a con includes a con on the audience. Did you notice this one's?

I found it striking that all the female characters, save one, are sympathetic, and all the male characters, save one (maybe two), are unsympathetic.

... No? I fail to see what makes the women in the family any more sympathetic than the men.

[PopeLinus1]

I found it striking that all the female characters, save one, are sympathetic, and all the male characters, save one (maybe two), are unsympathetic.

Did we watch the same film...? Linda is just as entitled as the men, and her company is all thanks to her father, Toni is a thief and all around terrible, and while Meg is arguably played sympathetic despite betraying the main character... she's a kid and the protagonists friend.

And as for the men, Harlan isn't unsympathetic, Blanc, isn't unsympathetic, the two cops aren't unsympathetic, and that's not even counting the more minor characters like the lawyer and the groundskeeper.

I'm really curious, what "con" do you think the movie plays on the audience.

[Kitten Champion]

while Meg is arguably played sympathetic despite betraying the main character... she's a kid and the protagonists friend.


I saw her as sort of a false ally who merely wanted to make herself feel better by acting friendly with Marta until it genuinely inconvenienced her. She had the same entitled narrative as the rest of the Thrombey's and made no real effort to know her as a person. There's a lot of amusingly hypocritical moments in the movie.

I especially loved the ongoing bit where they all name a different Central/South American country Marta was supposedly from while supposedly complimenting her to other people. As much as they called her "family", no one bothered actually asking.

[PopeLinus1]

I saw her as sort of a false ally who merely wanted to make herself feel better by acting friendly with Marta until it genuinely inconvenienced her. She had the same entitled narrative as the rest of the Thrombey's and made no real effort to know her as a person. There's a lot of amusingly hypocritical moments in the movie.

I especially loved the ongoing bit where they all name a different Central/South American country Marta was supposedly from while supposedly complimenting her to other people. As much as they called her "family", no one bothered actually asking.

I mean... probably, but she's fairly young, so I don't feel like condemning her the same way we condemn the others. Also, I think she probably was the only one who actually did know Marta. Hell, she knew her mother was an illegal immigrant, so I suspect that they were actually close.

One of my favorite bits is toward the beginning, when people tell Marta they wanted her at the funeral, but that they were "outvoted".

[Caledonian]

Did we watch the same film...? Linda is just as entitled as the men, and her company is all thanks to her father

No, it was due to a major loan. She presents herself as self-made, while in reality she had critical help. But she still accomplished major things on her own, and built something of her own, which her father didn't continue to support. Everyone else had nothing of their own and accomplished diddly. We're also supposed to feel sorry for her because her husband is cheating and she has an emotional link with her father through their 'game' (somewhat twisted though it may be, as she notes it was yet another way her father demanded compliance with his wishes).


Toni is a thief and all around terrible She's the one unsympathetic female, yeah.


and while Meg is arguably played sympathetic despite betraying the main character... she's a kid and the protagonists friend. Her betrayal is portrayed as being due to overwhelming family pressure, and her apologies seem to be accepted by the protagonist. I didn't buy it, but it seems we're expected to.


And as for the men, Harlan isn't unsympathetic, Blanc, isn't unsympathetic, the two cops aren't unsympathetic, and that's not even counting the more minor characters like the lawyer and the groundskeeper. All right, the minor male characters are often somewhat likeable. But we really don't need to sympathize with them, to feel that they have valid concerns and we should be on their side and approve of them. They're just... background.

All the family men - ALL of them - are presented as being jerks, even the one kid with a blog that everyone keeps condemning as "alt-Right", a "Nazi", and a "dead-animal fetishist". I ended up feeling sorry for him, but there's nothing in the movie which seems to feed into that. The man who ran his father's publishing house and was never allowed to do anything or achieve anything might seem worthy of sympathy, but his later intimidation and threatening behavior to the nurse negate that.

And, of course, the detective is more like an avenging angel than an actual human being. If you'll consider him sympathetic I'll grant him as the one major male character who is so. Everyone else is presented as wholly despicable. The writer seems more sympathetic at first, but later revelations show that his actions were as much about getting what he wanted as protecting the nurse. His motivations weren't pure, although they weren't necessarily awful. He was a control freak and very domineering.


I'm really curious, what "con" do you think the movie plays on the audience.

We're told how long it takes for a morphine overdose to kill, but the housekeeper is alive far longer than that - long enough for the nurse to make a decision about whether to try to save her. She should have been dead long before being found.

[Peelee]

She's the one unsympathetic female, yeah.

Linda is still in lockstep with the rest of the family in lying to Marta about being outvoted, tossing out a random Latin American country as Martha's ancestral home, and trying to bully her out of her inherigence due to greed.

Nobody in the family is sympathetic. Well, nobody who lived, at least.

[Caledonian]

Greed? We're talking major money, here. Very few people would be indifferent to being cut off from millions of dollars.

I will also note that it's entirely possible for a character to be presented as a bad person, even villainous, and still be intended to be sympathetic. The point I'm trying to make is that that intention doesn't seem to have been evenly distributed between the female and male main characters in this film.

[Peelee]

Greed? We're talking major money, here. Very few people would be indifferent to being cut off from millions of dollars.

I will also note that it's entirely possible for a character to be presented as a bad person, even villainous, and still be intended to be sympathetic. The point I'm trying to make is that that intention doesn't seem to have been evenly distributed between the female and male main characters in this film.
Linda owns her own multimillion dollar company, which she misses no opportunity to point out she built herself. So yes. Greed. She doesn't need one red cent of that inheritance yet she acts exactly as her siblings who are dead broke.

Aside from that, she seems the most level-headed of the surviving family, but I wouldn't call her sympathetic at all.

[KatsOfLoathing]

Linda owns her own multimillion dollar company, which she misses no opportunity to point out she built herself. So yes. Greed. She doesn't need one red cent of that inheritance yet she acts exactly as her siblings who are dead broke.

Aside from that, she seems the most level-headed of the surviving family, but I wouldn't call her sympathetic at all.

I'd argue that Linda is portrayed in a somewhat more sympathetic light than the rest of the adult Thrombeys. She's the only one who seems to genuinely grieve Harlan's death and the only one of his adult children and children-in-laws who had anything approaching a healthy relationship with him. And Richard cheating on her is treated as a negative act, not something she drove him to or prompted in any way.

That being said... she ultimately shows she's not really any better than the rest of the family when the chips come down. If anything, she does the biggest heel turn of anybody towards Marta, going from actually being somewhat nice to her to being the most vicious and cruel out of any of them.

[hungrycrow]

Remember this wasn't just money. It was the house, the book rights, basically everything you would generally remember someone by. And everyone else knew Harlan was already building to this; Linda had no idea. So of course she'd be suspicious and angry when some nurse managed to take everything.

[Peelee]

Remember this wasn't just money. It was the house, the book rights, basically everything you would generally remember someone by. And everyone else knew Harlan was already building to this; Linda had no idea. So of course she'd be suspicious and angry when some nurse managed to take everything.

All the assets were presumably to be split evenly, so Linda would not have a controlling interest. She could buy the others out, but she still has that option with Marta, though it is unlikely that would have been successful in any event; a percent of the income stream from the book rights would have gone to each person holding those rights, so they would have no reason to give up the golden goose. So her gains would have been mostly financial.

Also, nobody else knew Harlan was building to this; they all thought that they and only they were being cut off, not that he was systematically cutting out everyone. Ransom was the only one who had any idea of what was coming.

I'd argue that Linda is portrayed in a somewhat more sympathetic light than the rest of the adult Thrombeys. She's the only one who seems to genuinely grieve Harlan's death and the only one of his adult children and children-in-laws who had anything approaching a healthy relationship with him. And Richard cheating on her is treated as a negative act, not something she drove him to or prompted in any way.

That being said... she ultimately shows she's not really any better than the rest of the family when the chips come down. If anything, she does the biggest heel turn of anybody towards Marta, going from actually being somewhat nice to her to being the most vicious and cruel out of any of them.

I agree, she is 100% the wronged party in her marriage. That is sympathetic, but it's not the focus of the movie, and in light of how she treats Marta, all sympathy I would otherwise have flies out the window.

[hungrycrow]

Also, nobody else knew Harlan was building to this; they all thought that they and only they were being cut off, not that he was systematically cutting out everyone. Ransom was the only one who had any idea of what was coming.

What i mean is that since the others had already been cut off, they could put two and two together. For Linda everyone being cut off comes completely out of left field, so it makes sense that she would jump on the idea that Marta somehow manipulated Harlan.

[Peelee]

What i mean is that since the others had already been cut off, they could put two and two together. For Linda everyone being cut off comes completely out of left field, so it makes sense that she would jump on the idea that Marta somehow manipulated Harlan.

Except from what we see of Harlan and Marta separately, she couldn't manipulate a child and he largely kept his own counsel. Nobody else knew Harlan cut anyone else out until the bomb dropped, and since nobody else knew they were cut out as well, it was a good cover to insist on manipulation to get everyone out.

[Lvl45DM!]

All the family men - ALL of them - are presented as being jerks, even the one kid with a blog that everyone keeps condemning as "alt-Right", a "Nazi", and a "dead-animal fetishist". I ended up feeling sorry for him, but there's nothing in the movie which seems to feed into that. The man who ran his father's publishing house and was never allowed to do anything or achieve anything might seem worthy of sympathy, but his later intimidation and threatening behavior to the nurse negate that.

And, of course, the detective is more like an avenging angel than an actual human being. If you'll consider him sympathetic I'll grant him as the one major male character who is so. Everyone else is presented as wholly despicable. The writer seems more sympathetic at first, but later revelations show that his actions were as much about getting what he wanted as protecting the nurse. His motivations weren't pure, although they weren't necessarily awful. He was a control freak and very domineering.


Buddy, teenagers who spew racial epithets when noone else in their family does, aint worth sympathy.

The writer, though not a perfect father, I thought came across as a very good man, who, even in his twilight years, was constantly improving and seeking to help his family as much as possible. I mean, he was supporting both the hyper-left wing mother and daughter, and the man with the racist son. So its not like he was picking favourites. He supported Chris Evan as well, even though he shouldnt have, he did it out of love. Chris Evans didn't follow his rulebook, didn't do anything his way, but still got support.

I dont see what later revelations reveal that his motives were impure. Everything he wanted was to help his family become better people and Marta to have a good life. Nothing selfish at all. Maybe i've forgotten something

Also the housekeeper, though a victim, was also super scummy.

Even Jamie Lee-Curtis, who got the sympathy vote for being cheated on, was the first to accuse Marta of sleeping with the old man, the first to say she should unilaterally surrender the inheritance, and the least co-operative with the cops.

Plus the two cops were present through the whole movie and contributed to scenes in a major way. The lawyer might be background, but the fanboy cop? No, he's a real character.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Ghostwire
If you are a fan of murder mystery than I highly recommend you give Knives Out a watch. You wont be disappointed….

Just watched this, or at least just finished it. Sadly, while I love good mysteries, I was indeed disappointed.

The movie is far too pleased with its own cleverness, just like most of the characters, and like most of the characters it gets caught up in that cleverness. Yes, twisty can be fun, but I’d like a meaningful story beneath all the winks and subversions, and there just wasn’t much here.

Instead much of it was just tedious. I quit watching after the first thirty minutes, and that was going into it with high expectations and in a thoroughly good mood. But I just couldn’t feel any enthusiasm for it, and I had to force myself to pick it up again the next day. I plowed through it more out of a vague interest than any actual investment in the story or the characters.

Daniel Craig was ridiculous and unwatchable with his country-fried accent, the police officers were cardboard caricatures, and Marta somehow never had me rooting for her, even though she was about the only decent human being in the story. I had the sense that the movie thought I should be laughing constantly at all its cute antics, but I just didn’t see much worthwhile humor.

I’m apparently one of the few people who likes Rian Johnson’s previous movie, the one in the middle of a certain trilogy, and because of that I had high hopes for this one. Instead I’m wishing I’d rented something else instead.


Originally Posted by Caledonian
The man who ran his father's publishing house and was never allowed to do anything or achieve anything might seem worthy of sympathy….

Throughout the movie I kept wondering if Carl was supposed to be a commentary on Christopher Tolkien, who spent much of his life organizing and publishing his father’s unfinished stories and notes. The parallel seems too close to be accidental.

[Caledonian]

Except Christopher Tolkien was perhaps his father's greatest fan, published the Silmarillion and the complete History of Middle-Earth, and was recognized as a major scholar. (He also drew the maps of Middle Earth.)

The guy in the movie wasn't allowed to do anything with his father's works that he wanted to do, like sell the rights to television and movie versions of some of them. CT had pretty complete control, and didn't WANT to give away more rights - reportedly he regretted that his father had sold movie rights, even though the Tolkiens probably needed the money at the time, and I have to say he's probably right. (I'm not a fan of the various Peter Jackson versions, which are pretty terrible adaptations.)

[Palanan]

It may not have been a fair or accurate commentary, but I still can't shake the feeling that the resemblance was intentional. Entirely possible that it's not.

Now I'm wondering what other writers have seen their work continued by their children. I know Anne McCaffrey's son has continued writing Pern novels (and her daughter as well?) but I can't think of anyone else offhand.

[Cikomyr2]

It may not have been a fair or accurate commentary, but I still can't shake the feeling that the resemblance was intentional. Entirely possible that it's not.

Now I'm wondering what other writers have seen their work continued by their children. I know Anne McCaffrey's son has continued writing Pern novels (and her daughter as well?) but I can't think of anyone else offhand.

"Son of very popular writer" is an archetype that will ring familiar whenever you do it in a certain way. It's already pretty specific.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

It may not have been a fair or accurate commentary, but I still can't shake the feeling that the resemblance was intentional. Entirely possible that it's not.

Now I'm wondering what other writers have seen their work continued by their children. I know Anne McCaffrey's son has continued writing Pern novels (and her daughter as well?) but I can't think of anyone else offhand.Rhianna Pratchett, of course. Writer in her own right, and controls all of the adaptations/licensing of her father's work.

[comicshorse]

It may not have been a fair or accurate commentary, but I still can't shake the feeling that the resemblance was intentional. Entirely possible that it's not.

Now I'm wondering what other writers have seen their work continued by their children. I know Anne McCaffrey's son has continued writing Pern novels (and her daughter as well?) but I can't think of anyone else offhand.

Frank Herbert's son Brian has collaborated with another sci-fi author to finish the 'Dune' series with a couple more novels and then gone on to do six prequel novels as well. Then added another four novels set during the gaps between the original novels.