Knives Out
Knives Out is a 2019 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The film's eleven-actor ensemble cast is led by Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a famed private detective who is summoned to investigate the death of a bestselling author. Police think his death is a suicide but Blanc suspects foul play and investigates to ascertain the true cause of it. Johnson produced Knives Out with his longtime collaborator Ram Bergman. Funding came from MRC and tax subsidies from the Massachusetts state government.
Johnson conceived Knives Out in the mid-2000s. Wanting to create work reminiscent of whodunit films of the mid-twentieth century, the director was influenced by his interest in movie adaptations of Agatha Christie's stories. Development of Knives Out continued after Johnson finished filming Star Wars: The Last Jedi. He wrote the screenplay in six to seven months. Principal photography on Knives Out began in October 2018 on a $40 million budget and ended that December. Location filming took place in suburban Boston. Nathan Johnson composed the film's classical score, which was inspired by his and Rian's favorite symphonic movie scores. Knives Out has been read as a work that investigates class warfare, wealth inequality, immigration, and race in contemporary American society.
Knives Out premiered at the 44th Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2019, and was distributed by Lionsgate to American theaters on November 27. The film was a critical and commercial success; the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute chose it as one of the year's top films, and it grossed $312 million. Knives Out received highly positive reviews from critics, who praised the plot and actors but occasionally criticized aspects of the writing and performances. It was nominated for multiple awards, including three Golden Globes, a British Academy Film Award, and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Knives Out is the first entry of a series of films that also includes Glass Onion and Wake Up Dead Man.
Plot
The family of wealthy mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey attends his birthday party at his estate. The next morning, Harlan's housekeeper Fran discovers him dead with a slit throat. Police detectives Lieutenant Elliot and Trooper Wagner believe Harlan died by suicide, but private detective Benoit Blanc is anonymously hired to investigate Harlan's death. Blanc learns Harlan had strained relationships with his family members, giving several of them plausible motives for murder.Unbeknownst to Blanc, Harlan's nurse Marta Cabrera believes she injected Harlan with a lethal dose of morphine after mixing up his bedtime medications the night of the party. To protect Marta from being blamed for his death, Harlan instructed Marta to create a false alibi before he slit his own throat: she was to be seen leaving the house, sneak back in through a window, and disguise herself as Harlan in order to make it appear that he was alive after she left for the night. Marta cannot lie without vomiting, so she gives accurate but incomplete answers when questioned. She agrees to assist Blanc's investigation and conceals evidence incriminating her. At the reading of Harlan's will, Marta is bequeathed his entire fortune and property, stunning the Thrombeys. Harlan's grandson Ransom Drysdale helps Marta flee but manipulates her into confessing to him. Ransom offers further assistance in exchange for a portion of Marta's inheritance. Meanwhile, the other Thrombeys unsuccessfully attempt to influence Marta to renounce the inheritance, even threatening to have her undocumented mother deported.
Marta receives a blackmail note containing a partial photocopy of Harlan's toxicology report. She and Ransom drive to the medical examiner's office, only to find it burned down. Marta receives an email proposing a meeting with the blackmailer; Blanc and the police spot them, leading to Ransom being arrested. At the meeting, Marta finds that Fran, the blackmailer, has been drugged; she performs CPR on Fran and calls an ambulance. Marta confesses to Blanc, but discovers Ransom has already implicated her. Out of moral obligation, Marta believes she must confess to the Thrombeys, which would invalidate the bequest under the slayer rule.
At the mansion, Marta finds Fran's copy of the full toxicology report, which shows Harlan had only trace amounts of morphine in his blood. Blanc reveals his deductions to the police, Marta, and Ransom. Blanc deduces Harlan told Ransom about his will, prompting Ransom to swap Harlan's medicines to cause Marta to kill him unknowingly. However, Marta actually gave Harlan the correct medication, recognizing it by viscosity without reading the label due to her experience as a nurse; she only believed she had poisoned Harlan after reading the label on the bottle with the switched content. When the death was reported as a suicide, Ransom anonymously hired Blanc to entrap Marta. Fran saw Ransom tampering with the crime scene to remove the switched medications, and sent him the blackmail note. After Ransom realized that Marta was not responsible for Harlan's death but believed she was, he forwarded the blackmail letter to Marta and burned down the medical examiner's office to destroy evidence of her innocence. Ransom then overdosed Fran with morphine, intending for Marta to be caught with Fran's corpse.
The hospital calls; Marta relays that Fran has survived and will implicate Ransom. Ransom insists he will avoid criminal charges because his attempt to kill Fran failed. Marta then vomits on Ransom, revealing she lied: Fran is dead. Realizing he has confessed to the murder, and that the police officers recorded his confession, Ransom grabs a knife from Harlan's collection and attacks Marta, but the knife is a harmless retractable stage knife, and the police promptly arrest him.
Blanc tells Marta he suspected early on that she played a part in Harlan's death, noting a drop of blood on her shoe. He tells Marta her innocence prevailed because she made ethical choices that obstructed Ransom's attempts to incriminate her. As Ransom is taken into custody and the rest of the family is gathered outside in defeat, Marta watches from the balcony of what is now her mansion, sipping from Harlan's coffee mug that reads "My House, My Rules, My Coffee!!".
Cast
Production
Development
Director Rian Johnson first conceived of Knives Out after the completion of the low-budget thriller Brick, his first feature film. His idea was influenced by film adaptations of books by detective fiction writer Agatha Christie that he enjoyed as a child. Johnson referred to Alfred Hitchcock's advice on plot development for guidance, which said conventional whodunits too often relied on formulaic suspense, especially a climactic plot twist, to culminate the story. Once he had determined the story's goal, Johnson began conceiving ideas for the plot structure, mainly a framework of tonal shifts he devised to incite tension in the story. The director said his greatest challenge was modernizing a genre studios deemed too antiquated for release.Johnson planned to draft Knives Out after the release of his science fiction thriller Looper, but he suspended the project when Lucasfilm hired him to direct Star Wars: The Last Jedi. His experience witnessing the intense culture war backlash to The Last Jedi became another source of inspiration for the Knives Out story. Johnson began scriptwriting by January 2018, immediately after finishing his press tour for The Last Jedi, in a process lasting between six and seven months, depending on the source. When Johnson showed a finished draft to friends, he recalled the response was cynical because the director's motivations were poorly understood. Johnson took the film's name from a Radiohead song, saying it was a good title for a murder mystery. He took the name Harlan Thrombey from a 1981 Choose Your Own Adventure whodunit, Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?
Media coverage of Knives Out gives conflicting accounts of the film's funding. One report circulated by Deadline said MRC secured the script in an auction hosted by Creative Artists Agency and FilmNation to investors at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival. Johnson's longtime collaborator Ram Bergman disputed this account; according to him, no auction was held and MRC was always the intended financier because of its sustained success with mass-market films by auteurs—directors who wield significant autonomy over the artistic vision of their projects. MRC financed the film's $40 million budget and generous back-end compensation for Bergman, Johnson, and Daniel Craig, per the condition of their agreement. For Knives Out commercial distribution, MRC partnered with Lionsgate, which was trying to recover from a year of mediocre box office showings and purchased a partial share of the distribution rights.
Casting
Employing an ensemble cast of established stars was one of Johnson's initial demands. He drew upon the Agatha Christie movies—chiefly Peter Ustinov-starred projects à la Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun —for his casting choices because he felt they have a sense of spectacle that was worth replicating. The filmmakers focused on actors who were available in the six week period before filming for Knives Out began. Actors were chosen for their ability to stand out in bit speaking parts and master an exaggerated, but not caricatured, comic performance. According to Johnson, the film's rapid progress readily facilitated his casting ambitions. Most of the Knives Out ensemble were signed in October and November 2018. Johnson named each of the characters after musicians whose works he enjoyed because it was a simple practice to remember—for example, Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen.Daniel Craig came to Johnson's attention for his stage work and non-James Bond film roles. Johnson regarded Craig as a versatile actor who wanted to challenge his abilities in a playful comedy role. Craig declined the offer due to his contractual obligations as James Bond to No Time to Die, which was preparing to film around the same time, but logistical and creative disputes postponed the film's production by three months, giving Craig enough time to accept Johnson's offer. Once Craig read his copy of the script, he agreed to join because the writing's tone and humor captivated him. The treatment of Blanc was initially a fruitless task for Johnson; his first concept had been a Hercule Poirot clone "that was just a bunch of crazy quirks". To distinguish the character, Johnson outlined Blanc as a slightly pompous man with a flamboyant Southern accent, turning to Craig's ongoing feedback for a unique characterization. Craig undertook speech training with a dialect coach for two to three hours per day, studying playwright Tennessee Williams and author Shelby Foote via interview footage from C-SPAN and the Ken Burns-helmed docuseries The Civil War to model Blanc's voice.
Casting director Mary Vernieu was responsible for casting Marta Cabrera. Vernieu and the filmmakers did not favor a particular person for the part, unlike the other Knives Out characters, and based their search on Johnson's preference for a relatively unknown actor that could exhibit an underdog-like quality. They considered several candidates, including Ana de Armas, whose work piqued Vernieu's interest enough to be suggested in casting discussions. Johnson was not familiar with de Armas' repertoire save for her starring role in Blade Runner 2049. Johnson liked de Armas' acting but believed she was too beautiful to convincingly portray Cabrera. When Johnson met de Armas for her audition, he noticed her ability to emote, saying, "She's got that Audrey Hepburn-type thing, where her eyes just bring you in, and you're instantly on her side, and that's what we needed for the character". De Armas nearly rejected the role because she found Cabrera's original character description clichéd; she was persuaded to accept after reading the complete script, which she found emphasized resilience as a fundamental attribute of Cabrera. Cabrera's immigrant backstory also resonated with de Armas.
For the self-indulgent Ransom Drysdale, Johnson envisioned Chris Evans after seeing him in the 2018 Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero, having been impressed with his performance as a contemptible villain. Evans was mainly known for his live-action role as Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Johnson aimed to use Evans' everyman persona to create tension between moviegoers and Drysdale, saying: "You've got to see it not as baggage, but as ammunition. If there was someone in that part who the audience inherently wanted to like, that would help the arc overall". Although Evans was preparing to take a hiatus after finishing his work on Avengers: Endgame, he reconsidered when the producers told him they would be filming near his home in Massachusetts.
Toni Collette said her biggest purpose for playing Joni was to find humor in her character. Christopher Plummer, in one of his final film appearances before his death in 2021, described Harlan as a "stern, bright and rough-hewn" father with a crass sense of humor. Michael Shannon did not audition for the role of Walt and was contracted following an arranged lunch with Johnson. For the part of Linda, Jamie Lee Curtis sympathized with her backstory as a woman who is fiercely scrutinized for her privilege. She stated:
I've been an actress for a long time, and I am also the daughter of someone famous, and people have a funny way of taking away anything you do creatively and reduce it to your privilege. Linda is very defensive about the assumption that she was given anything, and I've had the same defense.To prepare for her performance, Curtis immersed herself in activities she thought befitted her character's position as a matriarch, such as cooking meals.