Knives Out Review

Johnson's trick is to give away the murder inside thirty minutes and then dare you to work out what film you are actually watching. The whodunit becomes a chase, then a will reading, then a class comedy about a family of leeches convinced they are self made. Ana de Armas anchors it as Marta, whose inability to lie without vomiting is a gimmick that keeps paying off structurally rather than as a joke, and Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc is a delighted drawling absurdity who narrates the case as a doughnut inside a doughnut hole.

Steve Yedlin shoots the Thrombey house in autumnal browns and lets that knife sculpture do the framing for him. Chris Evans arrives forty minutes in wearing a cream sweater and steals the picture outright. The politics are broad and the relatives are types, but the plotting is genuinely first rate, with clues planted in plain view and a reveal that recontextualises instead of cheating. We found it the most purely enjoyable studio release of its year, and the last shot from the balcony is a punchline the whole movie has been building.