Knives Out REVIEW
“It looks impossible, it looks incredible, but it is not. I believe that someday it will be found out that peasants are people. Yes, beings in a great many respects like ourselves. And I believe that someday they will find this out, too—and then! Well, then I think they will rise up and demand to be regarded as part of the race, and that by consequence there will be trouble.” – Mark Twain
First let me start by saying that this is a brilliant and subversive film that entertains first and packs a powerful political message besides. The subject is the Thrombey family, a passel of parasitic jackals living off the largess of their famous 85-year-old multi-millionaire patriarch, Harlan Thrombey. Opening shots reveal that Harlan is a wealthy man and that his wealth was based on a lifetime of writing and publishing mystery novels. That is, he earned his fortune by means of his own creativity and hard work. Every other character in the family suffers in some way from a severe case of entitlement. One gets the sense that were it not for Harlan’s money, the whole brood of his offspring would all be lost in a world where their actual talents and virtues would leave them destitute. They all pretend to be the source of their own good fortune when actual facts say otherwise. They have all been born on third base thinking they hit a triple and they are desperate to keep receiving their benefits until they can eventually get their hands on the inheritance and dispose with their need for the family dole for good (Harlan is 85).
Daughter Linda wants the mansion (she has money). Son Walt wants the publishing company (he has debts). Daughter-in-law Joni wants the cash (she is helpless to make her own way).
There are only two really decent people to be found in the household. One is Harlan’s immigrant nurse Marta, and the other, Fran the house cleaner. Everyone else is an oily Machiavellian leech. The sort of people you wish you could but for what they are actually worth and sell for what they think they are worth.
As the movie progresses, we discover that Harlan Thrombey had decided to use his 85th birthday as the stage and moment to let them know that he believes it is time to “cut the umbilical cord” attaching them to his patronage entirely. Thus the title, “Knives Out.” And then he is found dead with his throat slit. Who done it?
- Was it Linda Drysdale, Harlan’s eldest daughter, the real estate Moghul who got her start by borrowing a million dollars from Harlan while pretending to be a Horatio Alger story of some sort?
- Was it Walt Thrombey, Harlan’s youngest son who has been syphoning money off his father’s publishing company to pay his debts for years?
- Was it Harlan’s daughter-in-law, Joni, who claims to be making money selling skin care products when in actuality she is funneling all of her income from her father-in-law’s accounts claiming that it is to pay for his grand-daughter’s education?
- Was it Richard Drysdale, Harlan’s son-in-law who clearly married into the family for its money? (He is having a affair that Linda does not know about and Harlan has threatened to expose it).
- Was it Harlan’s wastrel grandson Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the only member of the family who does not pretend to be self-sufficient? (What a great name for this character as he literally would be the sort of young man to try and make his money by holding someone ransom and the name Drysdale harkens back to the banker in the Beverly Hillbillies).
We also are introduced to two other grandchildren (Jacob Thrombey and Meg Thrombey) both of whom attend elite expensive schools on their grandfather’s dime and exhibit all the traits of their family’s entitlement (Jacob a self-confessed “alt-righter” and Meg a “liberal snowflake” as Jacob puts it).
The characters in the film all stand in for an entire class of people in American society. A class of people who siphon off the earnings of other people’s work, live lavishly, and hold tenaciously to the conduits of their unearned allowance. They pretend that their bread is earned by the sweat of their own entrepreneurial brows (except for Hugh). Ironically, they all pretend to themselves that they are generous folk, promising the immigrant nurse that they take her to be one of the family and assure her that they intend to reward her for her kindness to their father, . . . until Harlan makes her the sole beneficiary of his entire estate of course.
The scene where they find this little bit of information again makes clear reference to the title “Knives Out” because they are all clearly in a mood to chop poor Marta into pieces. Even the most kind and liberal minded of them, Meg, calls Marta to tell her
“You should do whatever you think is right. I think you should give it back to us . . . Grandad always took care of us. We are is family and I know he was like family to you but we are his actual family. You know this isn’t fair. We’ve always been good to you and you are like family and we will take care of you but you have to make things right. You know what right. Marta. Mom’s broke. She says I will have to drop out of school.”
When Marta says she will take care of Meg’s school bill, Meg ends the conversation. She is, as it turns out, only the family’s *liberal version* of a leech.
“A pack of vultures at the feast. Knives out and beaks bloody” is the way that Detective Benoit Blanc refers to them.
I won’t give any more plot spoilers here but I do love the last sequence of shots as the movie closes. Marta asks detective Blanc if she should have some pity on this family of unscrupulous mooches. Then, we see a portrait of Harlan Thrombey with his “knife out” as if to say “not a bloody dime.” One of the Thrombeys is escorted to a police car and looks up at Marta on the balcony of the mansion. She holds a coffee cup with her fingers over the words on it. We see Richard Drysdale with a black eye (no doubt Linda just gave it to him). All the other Thrombey’s look up to see the new owner of the Thrombey fortune in full command of her new home. She holds her coffee mug. The words “My House” are now revealed. Under the fingers we can just make out the next two lines:
“My rules.”
“My coffee”
If that is not hinting at an all out “knives out” progressive take-over of the American political system and a resultant redistribution of power and eventually wealth to a deserving but previously exploited underclass of blue collar workers and immigrants, then you should stop reading this blog for insights forever.
Question for Comment: If you got a chance to take some metaphorical knife out and completely sever some undeserving sort of person or people from their completely unearned income, so as to reallocate that income to someone else you regarded as hard working and totally deserving of more than they presently get, how would you use it?
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