All the right movies. Why is Benoit Blanc here?
I'm here because this morning someone dodged a very important
question. Who?
Me. Linda asked.
Who hired me? Who hired you?
I do not know. An envelope of cash showed up at
my apartment yesterday with a news clip and a throb is dead.
An envelope that worked. An envelope of cash for somebody
suspects foul play and goes through this hot chair dancer
hiring me of staying anonymous. It makes no damn sense.
Compels me though. When renowned crime novelist
Harlan Thrombie is found dead the morning after his 85th
birthday, his sprawl and dysfunctional family all become
suspects. But when a master detective
arrives to investigate, the web of lies, inheritance and
resentment begin to unravel. Wildly out of control, Ryan
Johnson's Knives Out sliced through the box office in 2019,
a love letter to the whodunner genre with a modern twist.
Boasting an All Star ensemble led by Daniel Craig and Anna
Amos, it proved that murder mystery was alive and kicking.
My name is Luke and the two fellows with me who have a
regurgitative reaction to Miss Truthan R Matt.
What were the overheard words by the Nazi child masturbating in
the bathroom? And Westie.
That was the dumbest car chase of all time.
ATRM are investigating A doughnut hole.
In the doughnut hole, the game is afoot.
Hi everyone, welcome to All the Right Movies, a podcast on
classic and hit films where we will not eat one I order of
shit. No, no, definitely not.
We're telling the story of Hollywood one film at a time,
and this time it's a bonafide modern classic.
Is that? Yeah, Daniel Craig with that
accent. It's Chris Evans in that
sweater. It's Ryan Johnson's delightful
Knives Out. Wonderful.
Yeah. Should be on fucking TV with
that accent. So before go rummaging through
the Thrombie estate, it is that time when we tell you about
becoming an ATRM patron. Lovely.
Now what you're listening to is our flagship podcast, a brand
new episode of which comes out every two weeks.
Huge, huge, huge deep dives into the biggest films and the most
recent 20 episodes are available on all podcast platforms.
The rest, well over 100 episodes now, are in our podcast archive.
There's certain to be a load of films that you like in there.
We've covered all the classics. You can listen to everything in
there by signing up on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and
Payreon. And also on YouTube and Page
Ron, you can listen to two brand new podcasts that we create
every month. These are the watch list where
we review new release movies and Double Feature where we talk
about films that we wouldn't necessarily get to on this show
just yet. Yes, indeed, that's the plan.
There are hundreds and hundreds of episodes, a whole dynasty of
content waiting for you on Patreon.
You can also vote for the films that we talk about and ask us
questions for the show as well. That's patreon.com/all the right
movies. Easy as that.
Easy peasy. If you do like us and you can't
support us, we'll make sure you're not written out of the
will. Thanks everyone.
Yes. Thank you so much.
Guys, you'll be in there. Now, Matt, you chose this film,
so the spotlight is on you first.
You've been talking about it for a while.
You've wanted to do it for a while.
That's true. Why do you want to talk about
Knives Out? I mean, I'm just a fan of
talking about films where their success is completely against
expectations. I mean, where did this come
from? The Who didn't murder mystery
wasn't exactly ripping up trees. No one was begging for that
genre to come back. So for Ryan Johnson to come up
with this, to come up with a completely new ID, with a new
character, he doesn't do what Guy Ritchie did with Sherlock
Holmes. Take an old one and just
reinvent them so he didn't even recognize them anymore.
Create someone. You cast Daniel Craig of all
people, in the lead with this outrageously entertained and
central performance that no one could predict.
This should have been just a moderate success, maybe a cult
film. But for it to land in the way
that it did critically and commercially, I think the
achievement of this to be as massive as it was can't be
understated. And I think one of the great
things about it is it doesn't matter that you know how this is
going to end now because the journey is just so much fun
every time. The way.
Johnson twists and turns the plot.
It becomes this ride of not knowing where you're going, but
the joy of it is trying to keep up with it all the same and
realizing you're on the hands of someone who's treating the
audience with intelligence. And ultimately, if you don't
like Knives Out, then eat shit and eat it.
You definitely eat it. One day?
What about USD? Yeah, this is one that escaped
me at the cinema. I was kind of put off by it,
just thinking, oh, this was, it seemed a bit try hard and a bit
needy. I wasn't a big fan of Brick.
I really like Looper. And then I saw the Star Wars
stuff and I was like, oh, not too sure.
About this down with. Johnson just really up and down
with him and I just thought, I think it looked really try hard.
Like I say, like you swing in the back at something that
shouldn't really exist and he's just going to really fall flat
on this because I didn't realize how into this genre he actually
is. And when I, when I watched it, I
was so surprised, so relieved, but just so entertained.
From start to finish takes 2 hours and 10 minutes.
And like Matt said, it's just kind of being at the theme park
where waiting in the queue is actually more entertaining than
the ride itself. And then when you get on the
roller coaster, you're like, I was, I was really entertained
just looking at everything that was around there in the queue.
Just kind of the anticipation is better than the payoff.
And it is such a lovely ride. And he does so well.
It's so intricate. There's so many brilliant
filmmaking techniques and he has so many narrative swerves.
He's writings incredible, he's directions incredible, and all
the performances just deliver. And they've all seem to have
their little niche within the film.
Nobody overlaps at all with their own performances.
There's really original characters built into it.
There's not like, oh, there's the Butler or there's this
person who you've seen a billion times.
There's no real stereotypes in this.
And even Blank is a stereotype of a stereotype of Daniel Craig,
which is almost like a stereotype of Bond really, which
is what he's tapping into. And I think Daniel Craig, like
I've said before, I think he enjoys in this character more
than he does enjoy playing James Bond much more.
Yeah, I would agree, definitely. And I think the whole film just
lands. It's just, it just sits really,
really nice. It was a perfect time for it to
come out. Ryan Johnson, of all people,
delivers. He really does.
I like you might. I saw this at the cinema
release. Incredibly positive reviews.
They were a big motivator for me to go and see it, and I loved it
from the word go. Just great casts, great setting.
I love a good murder mystery, and I feel the genre kind of
being lost until this film brought a racing back into
public consciousness. Best of all, it's just a
writing. I mean, it's just a delightfully
laid piece of work that always keeps you guessing.
And no matter how many times I've seen this, I still need to
listen intently to understand how Ransom actually did it.
And I still don't absolutely know the truth.
We'll try and get there. I'm sure the three wouldn't
figure it out. But knowing the killer doesn't
spoil the film. This has re watchability slapped
all over it. Yeah, it's better when you do
know. Yeah, it is.
It is then. You can.
You can relax a bit with it. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. It's just a bloody good time,
and it always will be, yeah. Knives Out was written and
directed by Ryan Johnson Corporate used by Johnson and
Ram Bergman for MRC and T St. Productions.
Distributed in a movie theatres by Lionsgate on November 27th,
2018. Shut on location in
Massachusetts with some set work.
It stars Daniel Craig as the last of the gentleman sleuths
Spin while Blanc and at our Mrs. Marta Cabrera.
Chris Evans is Ransom Drysdale, and they're supported by one of
the best casts around, including ATRM favorite Jimmy Lee Curtis,
Christopher Plummer, Tony Collette, Michael Shannon, Don
Johnson, Lakeith Stanfield and M Emmett Walsh, to name only a
handful. Yes.
OK, so my house, my rules, my coffee.
We're headed to the Thrombie Mansion for the opening act of
Knives Out. The beginning.
We're welcome to the Impose and Thrombie world by two Alsatians
before the man in the house is found dead by his housekeeper,
his throat slit. We then Fast forward to one week
after Harlan Thrombie's demise. We're back at the house where
detectives are carrying out some family interviews.
And you're taking it away, Matt. I mean, people talk about great
character introductions in cinema, and they'll see, you
know, Orson Welles, The Third Man, Omar Shree, Florence
Arabia. I think this is up there because
it's so easy to miss the fact that Blanc is there all along.
You can just about see his legs at the side, the frame.
Yeah. But it's when those questions
start. Exactly.
And everyone gets into this stride.
I'm sorry. OK.
I think I've got this figured out.
Then Bing, it's that piano key. And that's the end of that.
Brilliant. And it's such a great torch that
when he announces his presence, he's out of focus in the
background. It isn't until he's hit that key
a few times that he comes into focus.
And that's when he realized, despite not saying a word, he's
one control in this whole process.
And what's great is that every time he hits the key, it's
because the conversations gone off track or he's heard
everything he needs to hear from that person.
So you're thinking, well, what's he picking up on there?
What have they given away that I haven't picked up on?
And we think that. And then it's when Richard,
played by Don Johnsley, just based attention was, I have a
question. Who the fuck is that?
And then you get your proper look at blanks sitting there
with such confidence in himself. The little smile on this is
playing with a coin. But as soon as you hear that
accent, I'm here on the behest of a client.
Well, this is amazing. I love this guy already.
I want to know where this is going.
And then the introduction of the family members has done so
neatly as well. You get such a quick handle on
who they all are, where the tensions in this family are.
Who doesn't like who for what reason?
And it's so funny when it's cutting between Walt, Meg and
Richard talking about Jacob, and Walt says my son Jacob be 16,
very politically active. That could be Richard.
The boy is literally an Etsy. That's amazing.
Yeah. And then back to Walt just
looking really good, like kids today with the Internet.
It's amazing. Like he knows exactly what Jacob
is. So, so much groundwork is laid
out here in terms of introducing Blanc, who he is, who everyone
in the family is, what they're set up with each other is like
how they all view Harlan, and it feels so effortless.
Just this incredible roster of actors one after another.
Amazing production design already, which I'm sure we'll
talk about. You get to the setup and you
just think, I'm just raring to go with the rest of this film.
Yeah, it's incredible. Jamie Lee Curtis identified with
the character of Linda being the daughter of famous parents.
She said that people have a funny way of taking away
anything you do creatively and reduce it to your privilege.
Yeah, Curtis assumed the role of the family matriarch.
She was coming off the back of Halloween on this, so she was
riding high, assuming the role of the family matriarch.
She cooked meals for the cast and befriended the woman who
owned the house. More on that later.
Oh nice. Oh nice.
She said I treated the house as if it were mine, which is nice.
You can see she feels well at home.
Oh. Definitely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just the most comfortable
character, most ground in the whole thing, Yeah.
And at the 17 minute mark, there's a photo of Richard,
Linda and Ransom in the foreground as Walt, as Colin
Ransom, the black sheep of the family.
And that picture was inserted digitally in post production
using green screen. And it was done so that the
audience could put a name to the face because at this point,
we've not yet been introduced to Ransom.
Yeah, you can't miss it. It's it's in the foreground,
it's in focus and everything else in the show.
Yeah, it's blurred. I don't know.
Well, I don't even know when to bring all these points up, but
there's so many little moments. I mean, that photograph of
Ransom, first time you've seen him is behind an elephant statue
because he knows to turn after the statue so he's not caught on
the camera. It's.
Brilliant, yeah. It's just all these little bits
all the way through, yeah. A lovely little detail as well
during the interview scenes is when there's a flashback to the
night of It's a different child sat next to Harlan as the cakes
being put down. Yeah, depending on who who's
telling the story. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's a. Couple, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love that none of the
family can decide on where Martyr is from.
No, she's from your Paraguay, Brazil.
Everybody wanted to their
funeral, but everyone was outvoted by the other one.
Yeah, that's such a great one and truck.
I wanted you there, but I was outvoted.
Yeah. So nobody wanted that there,
which is incredible. Yeah.
The moment where Joni says that she knows of Blank from a tweet
about an article in The New Yorker, a case about a tennis
player. This is a reference to sleuth
Joseph L Mankiewicz, 1972 mystery starring Laurence
Olivier and Michael Caine. At the start of the film,
Olivier's character is dictating the ending of his latest novel,
Death by Double Fault, about a body in the tennis court.
Brilliant death by a double fault.
I want to read that. Yeah, yeah, brilliant.
Yeah, it also ties into a scene later on where Ransom's reading
Martyrs blackmail note visible on the coffee table, copies of
The New Yorker, right when the plan is unravelled right at the
end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this hints that that's where Ransom got the idea of hype
blank in the first place. Yes, right.
And the other thing about Blanc hitting the note on the piano?
If you notice Detective Elliott Lee, Keith Sunfield's character,
he then follows with a question relating to the time that
certain person arrived at the house.
And it's also being suggested that he hits the key when
someone is lying, right? Johnson has a couple of ever
presents in the cast actors who have appeared in all of his
films. Noah Sagan, who plays Trooper
Wagner, the policeman and Holland Thrombies fanboy.
He's great. Yeah, so, so funny.
But there's also a blink in your missive voice cameo from Joseph
Gordon Levitt. Yeah, he plays the part of
Detective Hard Rock, a character in the TV show that Marta's
sister is watching The start that's.
Right, Yeah, yeah, it is blinking.
You'll miss it that very much. Literally 2 lines Yeah, because.
It's low in the mix, but he's dialogues ludicrous.
He says you slashed his face open, You're left and bleeding
in the street like a stuck pig. Then you crushed his skull with
a forklift and burned his hands off to raise the fingerprints.
Great, that was just an outtake from break, wasn't it?
Yeah, both of those actors are in both the Knives Out sequels
as well. Yeah, Gordon Lever plays the
hourly Dong in Glass Onion. Interestingly, yes.
Ludicrous. And there are a few deleted
scenes cut from the film. In one, Blanc goes to Walton
Donna's home and finds out from Donna that Walt's injured leg,
which allegedly happened during a bike accident, actually
happened at night when he got into a tangle with some unsavory
types that he owes money to. Great.
Yeah, in another scene, Blanc's got a skin rash, which leads
into a confrontation with Johnny about her Flam Beauty products
line, and it comes to the conclusion that she's actually
broke. Yeah, right.
That's why she left Twitter. I wasn't it?
Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm on Instagram. DM me on Instagram not on.
Twitter. That's great, I love that bit as
well. When you mentioned Westie about,
I read a tweet about an article about you.
Not the article, she just. Yeah, just the tweet line.
She's got time. So both of those scenes give
each character a motivation for Bump and Harlan off wishes.
I think we've got that already, but I don't think we need the
additional scenes. No.
So after these characters have
been established and we understand their angles, it's
it's great to see them squirm under Harlan's microscope for
all of their dirty dealings. The sequence where Harlan clears
house and cuts Walt, Ransom, Richard and Johnny out.
I love that each character revels in the other person's
misery, but to smile his wife clean off their faces when
they're accused of something heinous.
And Ryan Johnson does a great job of intertwining interviews
with flashbacks and different perspectives and then returning
back to the present with a different interviewee telling
the their perspective of that story that we saw in flashback
Great Richard played by Don Johnson.
Just such a blabbermouth. He's brilliant, isn't he?
He's fantastic. He can't wait to dish the dirt
on Walt. He says he'd get into it with
Harlan and the cuts to blank and he's beady, blue eyes wide and
he said, did they get into it at the party?
Fantastic, but. When the heat starts to rise on
Richard, he then tries to implicate Joni.
What a sniffle and little. Change.
Don Jones is great in this role. I think he could get lost in the
crowd, but he really stands out. Yeah.
Oh yeah. He's fantastic.
And from a plotting point of view, we get motivation for all
involved. Joni's been double dip and Waltz
cut out. Richard's been cheating on Linda
so they all have something to hide.
And Johnson? Ryan Johnson, that is not Don
Johnson. Ryan Johnson presents the
information so deliciously. Yes.
And a lot of the action takes place in Holland study and one
of art director Jeremy Woodward's task was to design
the jackets for the body of Holland's work over 4 decades.
So this meant that given them an identity specific to the period
that what they were written in taken into consideration
Holland's journey through life where he was personally at that
time as well. So they've all got an identity
and there's not a display of them as such.
The just dotted around the place such attention to detail.
Yeah, yeah. It's there if you're looking for
it, and it's just absolutely great.
Just so much texture of the film.
Yeah, so the character of Holland Thrombie was named after
a character in the 1981 adventure novel Who Killed
Hollow Thrombie, which I think was a guest your own like and.
Ryan Johnson loved it. Yeah.
And great Nana Winetta is played by Kay Callan and despite
playing Holland's mother, she's actually six years younger than
Christopher Plummer, who was 90 years old at the time.
Wow, that's a great fact. Yeah, I love her.
When Linda's asked how old she is and she doesn't know.
Nobody knows. Yeah, we have no idea.
That's amazing. You don't question either.
You just love the cast. And don't you say Last Crusade.
It doesn't matter. It's great.
Love of a wall shouting at her asking if she's eaten.
For dinner. Salmon to eat?
That's what default. Well, we're going to break and
take our first question from an ATRM patron.
That's one of the benefits we mentioned at the top.
If you support us on Patreon, you can ask us questions.
And our first one comes from Heather Armantrout.
Hi, Heather. Hi, Heather.
Heather says hello gents. Greetings from Las Vegas.
Oh. Crossing the globe.
I love it. OK, nice, lovely.
Heather says Christopher Plummer did some of his best work well
into the 80s, including such gems as Spike Lee's Inside Man,
his Oscar winner performance in Beginners, and hilarious voice
work on Disney's Up. Yes, yes, that's true.
What are some of your favorite performances from actors
flourishing into their golden years?
Golden years it's. Great.
Great in the new world as well. Wonderful.
Yes, he is. Yes, yes he is.
Heather ends up with thank you for all your great work on the
podcast. That is our pleasure.
Thank you for listening. Thank you, Very.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
Wester, you want to take that first.
Well, I mean, there's one of my very, very favourites and we
spoke about this on Double Feature and it's Richard
Farnsworth in the Street Story. Brilliant. 100% I'm always
going. That's always going to come
straight to mind. Which links beautifully into
Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky as his last performance, right?
Beautiful, beautiful stuff. And that links nicely into Bruce
Dern in the Nebraska, which I think is a wonderful
performance. And then Christopher Lee.
These are all kind of like last performances, I think.
And Christopher Lee, Lord of the Rings, which I think was the
role he was born to play. Yeah, I think it's absolutely
fantastic. He's having so much fun.
And that's with them. Then four guys for me.
Wonderful. What about you, Matt?
One crossover there I was also going to mention Bruce Dern from
Nebraska, but also he's amazing in the Hateful 8 he.
Is, yeah. He's also great in Django.
He's only got the one scene, but he is great in Django and
Chained as well. He seems to find a new lease
like as he's really hateful characters for Tarantino.
Other ones that stand out for me, though, June Squib, also in
Nebraska, but in Thelma, the film that was out a couple years
ago, yeah, still turn out great performances.
And I thought Joe Pesci in The Irishman thought that was the
best he'd been in absolutely years.
Love it. Because that character is not
Tommy from Goodfellas. Really just as scary in his own
way. Yeah, I think the thing about
Pesci and the thing about Harry Dean Stanton as well as the
always looked over 50 years old no matter what.
That's always been at least middle-aged.
So I've never really thought of Pesci is like being oh, is he
old now? Yeah.
Yeah, he's always been like that.
He's always. Been like that.
Yeah, great. There is one crossover I was
going to say Richard Farnsworth as well in the Straight Story.
Yeah, I mean. Just one of the most effective
screen performances ever. Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Yeah. Wonderful.
You didn't mention Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.
Oh yes, great. Trifle of that.
Reason there as well. Oh, yes, very much, yeah.
He's great and Argo as well. And then he pops up and Argo a
few years later. Go fuck yourself.
That's. Fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah, he's great.
He's into play with John Goodman.
Beautiful. Yeah, he's into play with
anybody in any. Day and finally I want to throw
in a curveball it's Ellen burst and that's not the curveball
because she's amazing everything she's in but her work in TV
season 4 of the Louis show I. Don't know if you.
Caught it. She's got about 3-4, five
episodes and it's just beautiful.
So much warmth and depth and decades of acting experience.
A real heartwarming performance. And the fact that she's in her
90s now and she's still out there finding interesting things
to do, it's. Incredible.
I mean, I mean, this is a whole episode done in itself, isn't
it? To be honest, we could go on for
ages. We could.
So let's get back to it. Thank you for the question,
Heather. Yeah, wonderful question.
Thank you, Heather. And over to you, Westie.
You're picking up the action here.
We're still in the middle of the interviews, but this is where
we're introduced to Marta and more importantly, we're blanks.
Introduced Marta now. This is just so clever through
performance, through blocking, through everything that we're
going to be introduced to. Like he's sussed it out now that
door, he looks down, he looks at her shoes and then looks at her
and says, I've been poking around.
As he says that, he looks down at shoes again and knows for a
fact that she's been there. There's blood on her shoe.
So that's it. And from there, he's
manipulating that all the way through the book.
And then obviously later on, he quotes Sherlock Holmes and he
says there's something afoot. And every time he says something
for, he references her involvement and all of it, which
is this is kind of where it all comes from.
I love the fact that she is not in the study yet.
He interviews her first outside. So it's more natural.
It's more honest. It's more of a creative space
where she can breathe and she can just be honest about things.
Because I think even now he knows that you might have
something wrong where she needs to be sick or something else is
going to happen. So he's given her that safe
space in which to do it, and that's where we find out the
regurgitate of reaction to Miss Truth.
Amazing dialogue that. And that it's it's brilliant
dialogue and how can I say it certainly out And I just, you
know, he's just forever the gentleman.
Wonderful. That cigar, which is just an
obvious, not the Colombo that he's figuring it out.
And that's amazing. There doesn't seem like a cigar
smoker really, but it totally fits the character.
And then we find out as an audience that could be played
just so stupidly for laughs. Then every time she'll I mean,
imagine that like the Naked gun or something, he just to tell a
lie and it'd just be stupid. But this is just so beautifully
laid out. It's just like this little
nugget of information and you genuinely feel sorry for her
because you know that she's suffering with this.
It's like an ailment that just had all my life and she can't
really explain it. You know what, you could tap
into eating problems, or it could tap into anxiety or it
could tap into depression or anything that she's been through
with a, you know, a mom and be supported at any time.
It all leads back to these like issues that she could have with
just worry and panic. But it's so more carefully done.
But then when she is pushed and she does lie and she throws up
in the pig statue, which obviously shows that she's
allergic to like greed and wealth and throws it uses them
to like catch the vomit. So it's which is a fantastic
touch. And that motif comes up again
later on. Then we'll find out because of
that ailment that she has. Blank doesn't necessarily push
it, but he knows when to stop it.
And the other two guys are there kind of say, right, that's
enough, that's enough. But he finds out all three
motives in this scene. All three motives really well
played out. I mean, the writing of just this
scene as a short film in itself, of how you interview somebody
who's a suspect but not necessarily a suspect.
She kind of you're on her side at the minute.
It just flows from here. It's just fantastic stuff.
Right at the start of the scene, I absolutely love it when
Marta's inside and she can hear Blanc and the two policemen
talking and she's guilty as sin the way the world is on her
shoulders. Yeah.
He leans in. Listen to the conversation
outside before Blanks eye comes peering in through the window.
That's really funny. Yeah, and the Grand Painting of
Holland wasn't really there. It wasn't completed before
production started. So had be added in digitally
during post production, Johnson said.
Every single shot you see in the movie with the painting and it
was a green screen. We took a high quality photo of
the painting and they comped in every shot.
Nice. Seamless.
Yeah, it is seamless. This painting is fantastic, and
I'm not sure if it changes all the way through the film.
I feel like it does, but there's a definite smile at the end.
When you say that again, it goes from a frown, confused, to when
everything's figured out and she last looks at it again.
You get that close up and there's that, definitely.
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
It's subtle, but it's there. Yeah.
Such a great move. It is.
It's wonderful. Johnson knew that Marta had to
lie during the film and wanted to make it as difficult as
possible for the character to get out of it.
And he was inspired by a scene from David Mamet's House of
Games from 1987, where the characters talk about certain
tales that people have when they're lying.
And. He came up with this.
Yeah, he said. Given the tone of the movie,
what's something? A little splashy, so to speak,
that we can write. And so I thought, well, maybe
she pukes when she lies and she can't hide that, so that would
be fun. Right.
It is fun, it's really memorable and we can buy it because of the
things that you said, Wesley, it might be like kind of like an
extreme reaction to certain circumstances, traumas in the
past. So it is viable.
Oh absolutely. Yeah, totally.
Because it's not overhand or overplayed.
That's right, and it's beautifully paid off in that
scene as well at the end. Oh yeah, it's it's a wonderful
thing when it comes full circle. So many things come full circle.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's like the Olympic badge
circles in it. So a seemingly open and shut
case has now been blown wide open with tales of rejection and
tales of infidelity. Yes, with Martin back inside,
we're now going to dig into the reason for Benoit Blanc's
presence before going back to the night of and the
circumstances surrounding Harlan's death.
And I'm starting with an explanation of Blanc's presence
at the house this morning. Somebody dodged a very important
question. And that somebody was Benoit
Blanc. He's underway who hired him, but
he compels him. An envelope of class shows up at
his apartment and a news clip. And I love that.
Wagner says an envelope that worked and Blanc's reaction is
an envelope of cash. I never look wonderful of cash.
Big Ward. Yeah.
Now this is a mystery inside a mystery inside the murder.
Why would somebody anonymously hire a private detective to
solve a seemingly straightforward suicide case?
As he says, and makes no damn sense.
And before it all sparrows out of control, Johnson pulls the
strings together for the audience by having Detective
Elliot go back to the night of and give us everyone's
whereabouts, time stamps, circumstances.
It reinforces characters, reinforces motivations, gives us
the on the surface facts that we've got, and brings us up to
speed. It's not all the details, and
we'll find those out later with very different perspectives, but
Johnson packages everything together so very neatly here
just to make sure that we're on track.
Track because there are loads of things happening.
Yeah, it's real smart writing. Yeah, there it is.
And editing as well, and the structure of it.
Great stuff. Yeah.
And then from there, Mardi in viewed again and this is when we
get her flashback. And I mean, to follow on from
what our pair on Heather said, Christopher Plummer is just so
good in this. I mean, he's got 17 or 8 minutes
of screen time maybe, but he just dominates the film all the
same. His presence, he gets there.
And Harlan is so in control of everything.
He's in control of his family, but even in control of his own
death, when he realizes Mard has given him an overdose, he
doesn't freak out. He gave me 100 milligrams of the
good stuff. What is the good stuff dosage
supposed to be? And Marda, obviously, and she
panic. Let's not call it that right
now, OK? 3 milligrams.
And then here's the blame. Oh, that's much less.
Just like. That's fine and.
Then says I'm going to give you an emergency shot so you don't
die in 10 minutes. Oh well, no pressure, that's
fine. Like it's just the epitome of
calm And I love how he starts dropping this down for future
novel I got This is really interesting I could use.
This, yeah, yeah. So dying out on this.
This is. Great, so is he already putting
it together in his head that this isn't an act?
Mard would not make this accident, she's too good.
So is he putting it together? Don't know.
Maybe there's that ambiguity, which I really like.
I think to Amos is brilliant here because she just epitomizes
that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when you've
messed something up bad and she's messed up to the worst
possible degree. He is.
So she's. Actually, she's fantastic, yeah.
And it's that level of compassion that Holland shows in
his final moments. All he cares about is protecting
Martyr and the inheritance that she doesn't know about yet.
And also because he knows about her family and where they've
came from and what will happen to them if she gets into
trouble. I mean, that is so resonant
today, like his last action. See to protect Marta from soon.
Some of the news we're watching at the minute.
So it's a brilliant same because everything is now turned on its
head and what we thought was going to be the case isn't the
case at all. But no one knows how to part
from Marta. Yeah, I love to arm us.
The contrast in just her real warmth of character.
When she's playing goal with Harlan and she's making jokes,
they've obviously got an amazing relationship.
But then that turns when she gives him the overdose.
Like you said, Matt, you know, that sickness feeling, it's
palpable, isn't it? I also love it that when she's
being interviewed, she's positioned in the ring of knives
as opposed to everybody else who have been kind of like set aside
adjacent to it. All the knives are focused in on
her head here. And as we've been talking about,
the impressive circular knife prop plays a big part in
proceedings, Johnson said. I had that written in the script
as a religious icon made of knives.
A big Halo of knives. Yeah, they went through a lot of
different designs that didn't hit the spot for Johnson.
But just a few days before production started, production
designer David Crank found a huge industrial BBQ grit which
cut the mustard. Once the knives were mounted on
it, Johnson was blown away. I mean it's it's 1 great movie
prop. Oh, yeah, it's wonderful.
Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't want it in
your house. It's fairly threatening.
That's it in front of this. No, I'm all right.
Thanks. I'll see you later.
And Crank was also tasked with filling the grand old house with
art, facts and details that one would expect to see in Holland
from Peace House. And it's a visual representation
of Holland's mind. Yes, yeah, you can see that set
decorated. David Schlesinger found an old
dollhouse. I don't know why they find in
BBQ grits and old doll houses where they where they search in
the skins, Crank said. I looked at it and said, what's
the worst thing you could do with the child's toy?
Why don't we turn it into a bar? So that's the bar in the.
Yeah, great. Yeah, all of the SEC declaration
as well. There's loads of skulls and
skeletons and everything and all of the pains, which is what they
used to do in Victorian times. It was the memento Mori of like,
remember that you're mortal, Remember that you're going to
die. So no matter how much wealth you
have, death is always there. Yeah, that's that's littered all
the way through the whole house. I think the house itself as a
character is fantastic. It's amazing, brilliant.
It's one of the great movie houses.
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.
And this game of gore that they're playing is quite telling
because Martha says that she's able to win because she's not
trying to beat Harland. She's trying to build a
beautiful pattern. And that's what happens in the
film. Everyone's trying to get what
they can from Harlem, whereas Martha just wants to do the
right thing, even if that does mean her going to jail.
Yeah, amazing. But she does win by being, you
know, the dark aside, moving through the white aside, which
is the immigrant walking through the white privilege and just
playing it with kindness. And that's how it cuts through.
That's a great, great visual. Yeah.
There's a nice bit of foreshadowing here as well.
When Harlan's talking about Ransom, he says that he doesn't
know the difference between the stage prop and a real knife.
Yeah. And we see that playing out at
the end when he. Tries to circle down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant.
Great. So seeing how much he cares
about martyr. And then it just goes to this
wonderful moment where we've seen it like 100 times, but not
as fresh or as clear, as concise as this, where he gives us this
list of how to get out of it. And it's almost reading it from
a book. And the voiceover work is
fantastic. It's so well positioned and so
well played through. It's Ryan Johnson's work of time
manipulation here and his grasp on filmmaking technique.
And now you are just not lost at all.
Call attention to the time or it's midnight, walking straight
out. This has been parodied so many
times, but he brings it back to kind of where it belongs and you
take it seriously. You know, the confusion about
the before, the after with the elephant.
She's questioning the voice over as she's moving and drive and
it's like, that's brilliant. That's really well worked in.
And obviously she goes in front of it, which is supposed to go
behind, which we'll find out later on when the review and the
tapes. That's really important.
Then she climbs the trellis, but then she's at the bottom and she
says you've got to be kidding me.
And then the voiceover just replies, I'm not.
It's just so, so great, so well done and put the guy, he must
have been writing this going, yes, I'll do that.
And then when you say there's that child coming through the
painting that hides the windows is that false wall.
So that painting of the kid actually shows what's going to
happen through the window. So that's brilliant.
That's a little bit of foreshadowing.
She comes through you say she doesn't scrape a fun on the
window sill, totally avoids that.
So on 2nd view and that's really rewarding.
And then when she drops down, don't be seen and then drops
down at the bottom, you know, just when you take me robe and
take me cap and you figure out how did the same and he just
kind of that's a bit of a throwaway, but that works again
so well. And it's like don't be seen And
it's just like, Ransom, are you back again already?
But it's because of the age of the character, the confusion of
the character, the way the character has already been set
up. They don't know how old she is.
You don't know what's going on. And then it comes a full circle
with how she's going to get out with this.
How's this actually going to work when you can't lie?
And it's just tell the fragments and we've seen everything and
they are the perfect fragments of how to tell that story
without implicating yourself into anything.
Honestly, it's just like lying in a lazy river.
Just like I'm just having so much fun.
This is just great. That's when this is over.
I'll probably just do it again. This is nice.
And you just feel like you're just so well guided through it,
where you're not getting agitated, where you don't, you
don't necessarily want to know the answers because there's so
many questions. And it's like you said at the
top. Look, I think it's a perfect
word for I think this moment, this whole montage is just
delicious. It is.
It really is. It gives it loads of different
layers because in a previous flashback, Detective Elliot says
that he checked his time. It's 12:00.
And the viewer, you're thinking that's a little convenience,
that it's bang on 12:00. How could he remember the time?
But then we found out in this flashback that Marta brings
attention to the time. It's great.
Midnight already. And then he looks again.
It's reinforced for the audience as well.
Yes, exactly. Obviously this moment Harlan is
on the road out because Marta has mixed up his medicine and
gave him an overdose of morphine.
At least that's what she thinks. But allegedly, morphine acts
very quickly, and Holland would not have lasted as long as he
did with the amount he was given.
So there's a clue to the fact that he was given the right
medication by a master. It just had the wrong label on
it. Yeah.
And I guess in her panic, she hasn't realized that.
Yeah, no, of course not. I mean, it's too late anyway
when she goes in. His mind's made-up, so there's
nothing she could do to change that anyway.
Great, so Martin has got blood in her hands, and considering
her reaction to tell her lies, it's only a matter of time
before the game is up. Yeah.
The director. The first outing for Ryan
Johnson on All the Right Movies, he'd been sharpening his blades
behind the camera for almost 15 years before getting to Knives
Out. Our thoughts on his work here as
director will get room as a writer later on.
And I think that on top of everything else that Johnson is
spinning a compelling narrative. Great characters, classic
mystery, honour in the genre. He keeps us thoroughly
entertained with what is going on in the frame, specifically
his use of depth. He's given us texture details
and torn with just his backgrounds.
If you take that Thrombie house, it's not just a set, we've said
it, it's a character. Every room stuffed with clues,
red herons, portraits, Knick knacks, books, weapons on the
wall. And Johnson stages his actors at
different distances from the camera, so your eye is
constantly being drawn deeper and deeper into the frame.
There's always something happening behind the person
talking, a family member lurking in a doorway, or a reaction shot
that tells you more than dialogue does.
And it rewards multiple viewings because you're catching things
in the background that you just missed first time around.
And I think that's a real skill because it's doing 2 jobs at
once. On the surface, it's building
this rich, lived in world where every object feels like it has a
story behind it, but underneath that, it's planted information.
Johnson is hiding things in plain sight and trusting that
the audience is smart enough to find them.
That depth of frame isn't just there for pretty compositions,
it's storytelling as well. Visual storytelling at its best.
Yeah, yeah. So regarding having depth in the
frame and things going on in the background, Johnson referenced
the works of Michael Curtis and Old Hollywood and said it's much
more interesting if you can have her fame where there were
multiple things happening at once and orchestration in Maison
sent in the whole shebang. Yes, Curtis directed Casablanca,
The Adventures of Robin Hood. One of my favorite moments here
is when Marta comes back to the family near the end and she
wants to confess. She's got them all lined up and
they're positioned like a family portrait.
Some are sitting down, some are standing up, and it's like a
jewel. They're on one side, they've got
their positions, and on the other side is Martyr in the
foreground, with Blank behind her and the portrait of Holland
to his left. Johnson's telling us visually
who's on who's side here. Yes, exactly.
That's incredible work which I think just could easily get lost
under everything else going on because it's so multi layered.
Yeah, I think the reason this works is because he understands
cinema and he understands the language of cinema and he
understands the narrative of it. And if you think about how much
balance this up between how much the writing plays towards how
much the camera work plays and how much you see in the frame
and how much dialogue is exposition and how much is
explained and what's happening, or are we seeing what's
happening being explained. So I think most of it is visual
in the revelation of what's happening.
We're seeing more than we hear about, and I think that's really
important and he's really got a grasp on that.
And the use of all of these influences is just the tone and
the feel of this. And I think to create something
like this is incredibly, incredibly difficult because
just going off that montage. Then Holland tells Mark how to
get away with it. If those shots don't match later
on in the film, you are fucked. You are done for if you if you
don't cut from her walking down the stairs to turn around at the
same point of when he speaks and then you go to his point of view
earlier on. If you don't match in your head,
you're done for. And that's why films like this
on 10A Penny, that's why they don't come around as often as
they do. Because to pull this off is
incredibly difficult because everything needs to be In Sync.
Everyone needs to be fired and on all cylinders and everyone
needs to be so into what's going on.
Every single person on this film needs to be firing on all
cylinders. And Ryan Johnson brings that
energy. You can see he's got that
energy. And this needs to be done from a
director that's incredibly rare and incredibly refreshing.
And not only has he done it this time, he's done it twice after
this to the same degree level of attention to detail.
It's just a big shout to Hollywood and the state of it
right now. Like, find somebody who really,
really appreciates where all this came from.
Make it a little bit more modern and a little bit more for an
audience that just going to dive into it with a little bit more
modern themes. But if you move away from
Classic Cinema, you're going to pay the price.
If you stay the course like he has, you're going to make
millions, which is what he did, and that's his influence as a
director. Absolutely, yeah.
Talking about his influence and talking about Classic Cinema so
that he didn't shoehorn himself down a particular path with one
piece of workers inspiration, he said that he put himself in a
general mindset of murder mystery which gave him a blurred
vision. Right.
However, there are a number of influences at play for Johnson
in Knives Out. Specifically and unsurprisingly,
the work of the Grand Master of murder mystery, Agatha Christie,
a writer whom he grew up reading, and his love for the
genre grew from there. Yeah, well, of course.
Why wouldn't? Of course.
Yeah, exactly. And he later adored the Christie
movie adaptations in the 70s and 80s with these huge ensemble
casts in incredible locations. And he said, I said to my
producer, we want an All Star cast to be one that old skill
entertainment. We're putting on a big show type
feel. Yeah, it's murder and the Orange
Express and Evil under the Sun, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, talking about those,
Johnson tweeted photos of Porsche he had hanging up when
he was editing Knives Out in January 2019.
These were posters that served as inspiration for the film in
one way or another. And they were evil under the
sun. Gosford Park, murdered by death.
Death trap clues, death on the Nile, the last of Sheila, Murder
on the Orient Express, the Mirror Cracked, the private
eyes, and finally Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
Obviously the most influential. I was going to say that.
Yeah. And one film missing from that
rogues gallery is Sleuth, the Lawrence Olivier and Michael
Caine. As mentioned earlier, outside of
Agatha Christie, it was Johnson's biggest inspiration
for Knives Out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
He loves it. And there were nods to it all
over this film, specifically all the little figurines and
characters strewn about the house.
There were shots of them in the opening scene, including a
sailor that looks just like Jolly Jack Tar from Sleuth.
It is Jolly Jack Tarf. It looks like it's the same
thing. The founder when he found the
dog was out, surely? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Must have anybody?
On the same. Skip I think he just brings so
much attention to detail throughout all of this.
The plot, the various character motives and alibis.
Everything makes sense in his water type.
But Johnson, He's also playing fairly with the audience.
There's no great revelation that he springs out of nowhere.
Everything is set up, everything is in plain sight.
And fair enough, you'd have to be very clever to pick some of
them up. Being the fact that the dogs
don't bark at Martyr, but they do bark at Ransom is a huge game
because obviously somebody is the dogs barking in the middle
of the night. But all the same, it is there if
you're paying attention. If you think about it, you know
he points out the blood spot on Marcus shoe well before it
becomes important and he threads it together with such a neatness
that you don't feel foolish for not working it out yourself.
You just feel like you've been treated like an adult watching
this. And he's got he's such a real
patience. He doesn't rush anything.
He doesn't spell anything out over the any trust the audience
and as much as he's open and expectations.
So there's actually not a murder to solve.
At first it's a suicide, but then actually, no, it's a tragic
accident. So when we go from there, but
it's done with such a confident, it's like every 10 minutes he
lays out a fresh piece of evidence or a new twist or a new
revelation that takes you somewhere else.
And it's like he's dangling the resolution in front of the
audience, but just keeps pulling it away until he lets he catch
up at the end. And as much as he interlaces the
film with humor, he never lets it become a spoof either.
Which it easily could be. This could just be silly.
It could be, yes. It could be Clue, yeah.
It could be clue, it could be one step away from the naked gun
and it's you know, he knows when the let scenes play out with the
comic twist, but he knows when to pull back on that as well.
So the top's like the ultimate compliment.
I compare director. It's this is so incredibly
complicated put together, but he just makes look so easy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's effortless, isn't it?
Yeah, it's just them influences, isn't it?
I mean, he's just pulling them left, right and centre and just
making complete sense of them, just like you say.
Even that little bit about the dogs, Yeah, it comes from
Sherlock Holmes, a Silver Blaze, where he finds out like the the
bad guy through the silence of the dog because it knows him.
So it's like that little and just sprinkling that all the way
through, which is fantastic. Yeah, that's amazing.
And the initial concept for Knives Out came to Ryan Johnson
after he finished his directorial debut Brick in 2005.
He had planned to revisit the idea after the release of sci-fi
film Lupa in 2012, and he even mentioned it in a 2010 interview
with an independent that he would like to write and direct
an Agatha Christie style murder mystery next.
Yeah. What took you so long?
Yeah. Exactly.
But yeah, but Lupa brought Johnson more critical success,
and with that came and offered to direct the second part of the
Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi.
And how can he pass it on? Security like bars?
Well, that's true enough. Yeah, it was only after that
wrapped you could focus on his murder mystery idea.
Yeah, and once Daniel Craig was signed on to the project by the
director, whose last film made over a billion dollars, it
wasn't difficult to get finance. And we'll get to create later
on. Yeah.
And the script was sent around
to generate a buzz going into the Toronto Film Festival
market. But even before Johnson and his
team set off for Canada, MRC stumped up the 40 million
needed, with Lionsgate coming on board to distribute as well.
I mean it's incredible right now and not surprised to got snapped
up. And while there are comedic
elements in the film, Johnson rendered great lengths to
highlight that Knives Out is not a parody of murder mystery films
in the way that others are, like Clue or Murder by Death.
It honors the tradition, doesn't it?
But clearly he's got a love for the genre and I think it's fair
to say now it's in the great lineage of murder mystery films.
Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So bringing up Sleuth again. And that was a major reference
point for the set decorators and production designers when
building the world of Holland Thrombie inside the mansion as
we've been discussing. I mean, it has to be, doesn't?
It Yes, of course it is. Yeah, The Thrombie House was
shot in three different locations.
The main one was the Ames Mansion in Borderland State
Park, Massachusetts. Nice.
Production designer David Crank said when you walked in, it had
character because nobody had wiped it clean and modernized
it. It had been with the same family
for a few generations. Imagine that just went in,
started cleaning it and like cranked and said what the fuck
are? You.
Doing I used the first floor of the house only the upper floors
were constructed on set because the hallways didn't accommodate
the shoot, but they were all based on the style of the Ames
mansion. And the library, along with
exteriors. They were shot in another
mansion in Massachusetts. Because there were three
different locations, the placement of the room subsets
did make actual physical sense. Consider in the space
downstairs. Yeah, it's the overlook, isn't
it? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly that. Yeah.
One of Crank's favorite rooms to
construct was Harlan's study, which was also shot on a stage
set decorator. As we mentioned, David
Schlesinger's crew created these weird dioramas of murder scenes.
I think you mentioned earlier, Westie, they served to reinforce
the notion that the film is a visual representation of
Harlan's mind. It's just full of detail.
Yeah. And the house acted as a hub for
the actors, with everyone bonding.
They're making for a happy working environment that
actually spent so much time in the house that producer Ram
Bergman said that they actually wasted a lot of money on
trailers for the actors, which were barely used.
So a director completely at home with the material making it sing
on screen. He's got many years ahead of
him, but Ryan Johnson probably will struggle to top Knives Out.
So yeah. The cast.
An incredible cast of Knives Out.
We'll be talking about the support as we go, but here we're
talking about CSIKFC, the black sheep of the Thrombie family.
But first, Harlan's nurse from Uruguay and the Dharmas as Marta
Cabrera on the Umat. Yeah.
I mean, I think one of the really interesting things about
all three of these films is Blanc is kind of the protagonist
of the main character, but he also isn't in a lot of ways.
We don't really find out anything about him.
And I love the fact that we don't get the cliche a bit where
we find out like his mother was murdered, but they never found
the killer and that's what inspired him.
You don't need that. So instead what you do is you
shift that focus on to someone else in all three of these
films. And it works so well with Marta
because the Amos is just so incredibly likeable.
She's just got this real innocence and generosity of
spirit, which contrasts so effectively to all the conniving
that's going on from the thrombies, all the greed that
feels everything they do. And all she wants to do is be a
good person and do a good job. That's why it's such a great
twist that she thinks she's responsible for Holland's death.
And it does look like she is, albeit accidentally, because how
does she get out of that? And her performance is so good
because he can see the guilt just weighs so heavily on it.
And it puts us as an audience in a quandary because we think she
is responsible, but at the same time, we wanted to get away with
it. So how, how is that going to
resolve itself? And because she's so likable,
you're just completely on her side.
And even the vomiting thing is really clever because it's not
just a cheap guy that actually puts her in a real bind because
she can't lie about what's really been going on.
She's. Backed into a corner.
It's just backed into a corner, which gives it this tension and
it makes it such a such a fascinating character to have in
this situation. And the last thing I want to
mention, that kind of last cliche it avoids.
Obviously, by the time you get a Glass Onion, we find out a bit
more about Blanc's personal life and the sexuality.
But just going on this on this loan, if you didn't know that,
I'm just really glad they avoided the glacier of Marta and
blank, like having a romance or having a play.
Because honestly, going into it, I thought it's it's going to go
there, isn't it? Because, you know, Daniel Craig
and Anna de Armas, they're going to get together.
And I'm so glad they didn't go there.
Yeah, I'm so glad they didn't. That would have been rubbish.
It wasn't just the lack of romance in this whole film.
So refreshing this house. Exactly.
Yeah, I just think Anna Dalmis, it's just a breath of fresh air.
She's a beautiful counterpoint to the Thrombie family.
And they're kind of like, as you've mentioned, Westie, their
white privilege, their harshness, their spikiness,
their out of contempt for everybody else.
And Anna Dalmis has just got so much vulnerability, but also
like resolve and strength of character.
Yeah, she's great. You know, there's no element of
her performance where you think she doesn't deserve what she
gets. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, Johnson was looking for a little known actor in the part
of Monitor display of vulnerability and obviously the
underdog quality. It was casting director Mary
Veranu who brought the Armas to Johnsons attention.
And Ryan Johnson had seen that in Blade Runner 2049, but that's
about it. Initially, he thought she was
too pretty to play a martyr convincingly, but changed his
mind when she came in to read. How did you change your mind
when she came? So in the flesh, she was just
not too. I would have.
I would have made it even worse for me.
Oh, there she is. That's that's ludicrous.
Johnson said. She's got that Audrey Hepburn
type thing. Some actors have that magical
quality where you feel like their eyes are just windows
right into their souls. And that's what Anna's got.
Yeah, She's got that all right. Yeah.
Definitely, she's fantastic. But the armistice's initial
impulse was to actually turn the role down.
She wasn't interested in playing Latin specific roles, but after
reading the full script she was just drawn to modest strength of
character instead. Yeah.
She was only given like kind of like a brief outline of the
script at 1st and it said like 3 words like young, pretty.
And she said I'm not interested in doing any kind of Latin
specific roles. And then when she got the full
script, she realized, yeah. There's a lot more to it than
just three. Words.
So that's a lot more subtle than she probably thought it was
going to be. Yeah.
She also liked the idea of martyrs regurgitate reaction to
untruths, she said. I'm a master at gulping and
making the sounds now. So she may not have been well
known in 2019, but that all changed with Knives Out and it
almost bringing warmth, vulnerability and resolve to the
screen as Marta Cabrera. Next up, an outrageous turn from
James Bond at the time of release, Daniel Craig with his
foghorn Leghorn Sullivan drawl as Benoit Blanc.
Wesley, over to you. He's great, isn't he?
I mean, he's having so much fun and I just love.
I mean, Matt touched on it before the introduction to this
character is so brilliant because it's he's in reduction
in nearly every film before this.
It's a head reduction is Bond. He's in reduction and wrote the
perdition. It's just this low angle.
He sat on the chair just like who is this guy cloaked in
darkness? And it's just a real parody of
all of these parts that he's played before.
But he brings such a lightness of touch here, such this lack of
matches more. Like I said before, there's no
masculinity to the part without it being overly effeminate.
But he's just very understanding and very emotional.
Yes, but you don't expect this guy to have a fist fight.
No, you don't expect them to like be caught in the middle of
something like there's a bar room brawl and it's all right
because blanks there and you take care of everything.
You'd see him just leaving. He would just leave.
I've had enough. And even in a car chase, he's
just trying to phone her to calm everything down.
Hanging out the window. He's just like, will you answer
the phone? It's just brilliant.
I love the way it just it takes all of your expectations and
just slams them on the heads like he's being James Bond for
Christ's sake. He's almost finished being James
Bond at this point, and I think he's just taken all of that
bravado, all of that build up, and he's just went, how can I
subvert this completely into a Peter Sellers kind of role where
people are going to take it seriously And it's not
slapstick, but his confusion is so palpable because he's leading
the films. When he's confused.
We're really confused, but he's confused on purpose because he's
just manipulating everybody of all people.
I would never have thought Daniel Craig.
No, I wouldn't. No, I would have.
And I think this is Daniel Craig's way of going, right?
I've got a new character, I've got a new way of looking at it.
It's completely subverting the James Bond trope, and I'm going
to go for it. And he absolutely dives in head
first. But the beautiful thing about
his performance is that everybody else is diving in head
first with him. You can say that they're all
going at the same pace, and it's just a wonderful thing to say.
What an invention of a character and what a reinvention of a
career. Yeah, nice.
In the middle of being James Bond, Yeah.
The fact that he's able to bring something more memorable to the
screen. Yeah, Benoit Blanc.
In my opinion anyway. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree.
Feels really free, doesn't he? Yeah.
Yeah, shackles are off. Yeah, it's a real freeness and a
playfulness to the character. Yeah, I really love that one
sided interaction between Blanc and Great Nana.
Yeah, he's able to make that absolutely compelling.
She's not saying a word. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The warmth of his character. He knows that she knows
something and he's trying to draw it out of her.
Love that. It's just talking about being
tired all the time. They're all getting more tired.
I'm like, yeah, it's fantastic. The way that it's lit as well.
It's so nicely done. Oh, it is really elegant.
Yeah, it's beautiful. And Johnson conceived of Blanc
as an American prowl, and it seems fitting now we've got an
Englishman playing an American because it was generally an
Englishman playing the Belgian prowl in movies without, just
like Albert Finney, Peter Usnoff and David Sushi on TV taking the
role. That's right.
Yeah. Grace Johnson had Craig in mind
for the role from the start. He liked the fact that it's
averted to his one persona, which it absolutely does, and he
knew that he had the range to play comedic after seeing him on
stage and in Soderbergh's Logan Lucky.
Obviously, yes. He's very funny in.
That he is, yeah. Great.
Johnson said that Craig relished the idea of Blanc.
I could tell how much fun he was going to have.
He looked like he was a little kid I in a Christmas present.
Wonderful. But he almost didn't get his
man. Craig couldn't commit to nights
out because of his obligation to No Time to Die.
But when production was delayed on that, Craig jumped at the
chance to fill Benoit's shoes as long as it started filming in
six weeks time. Right.
Yeah. So because the tight turn
around, Johnson cut short a holiday with his wife to get the
ball rolling straight away. Right.
I'm sure she was over the moon with her.
You see the final bit though, It's a Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, yeah. And with Craig's star power, the
rest of the cast fell into place quite quickly.
Johnson targeted actors who were available at short notice for a
short period of time. Johnson explained if you shoot
in sometime next year, everybody in the back of their head is
thinking about keeping their options open in case a big
Marvel movie comes up. But in this case in Can you show
up in 4 weeks in Massachusetts and just have fun with us doing
this murder mystery? Yeah, he thought that that was
just a lot more appealing than seeing Put This in your diary
for like 12 months time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Johnson said that he was able to ground the film in reality
because of the cast who were given big performances without
disconnecting from reality and making the film a parody.
Yeah. And with the large ensemble
cast, Johnson said film it was so much fun that it became like
summer camp with the size of the cast.
Managing people was just as important as actually making the
film, he said. If you cast generous actors and
actresses that seem like good people, it'll make the set life
better. Yeah.
But because of the large cast,
Johnson named a lot of them after musicians he loved just to
keep track of them. So Linda and Richard were named
after Linda and Richard Thompson.
Walt and Donna were named after Walter Becker and Donald Fagan
from Steely Dan. Johnny was Joni Mitchell and her
late departed husband Neil was Neil Young.
And Benoit Blanc is obviously
distinctive because of his accents.
In the original script for the film, the character is described
as having a subtle southern accents.
Not sure it ended up that way. No, cross that word out.
Yeah, that's because when doing research, Daniel Craig came
across right in the story and Shelby Foot and based his accent
largely on his. Yeah, and if you've heard Foot
Talking, you know that Craig has certainly taken the animated
Southern drawl up quite a few notches.
There were a few other sources of inspiration, which may
account for the slightly exaggerated accent.
Craig has said that there's a little Tennessee Williams thrown
in there alongside Monsieur Hulo from the Jacques Tati films from
the 50s and 60s, Yes. Nice.
There's also influence of Christopher Guest's Harlem
pepper investment show Goodbye with Carrie Grant.
Flair for the spoken word into Catch a Thief.
Yes, yeah. Craig worked with a dialect
coach for authenticity. Yeah, it's larger than life, but
I'm certain that it's authentic. Oh yeah, yeah.
Oh yeah, 100% don't. Doubt it for a second.
And as we're on Benoit Blanc, we've got our second Patreon
question. This one comes from Jasmine
Christensen. Hi, Jasmine.
She says I'm so excited you guys
are doing this movie. I love all the Knives Out
movies. My question is what mystery or
thriller would you insert Benoit Blanc in and how fast would he
solve the crime? Sending well wishes all the way
from Alaska. Oh, lovely.
Wow, lovely, Fantastic. I like this kind of placement of
people. Yeah, tell us where you're from.
Yeah. Tell us where you're from.
That'd be great. Yeah.
Great stuff. Yeah, excellent.
Well, thank you very much for the question, Jasmine.
And firstly, I'm going to go with Clue.
We've mentioned it already, Blanc, in that mansion with
Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White and Wadsworth working together.
He'd love it. I think he'd solve all three
different endings at once. Yeah.
Yeah, of course he would. And 2nd, I'm going to go with
Scream Blank in Woodborough picking apart the slasher movie
references. I think he'd be on Stu and
Billy's ass halfway through the second act.
He did it. And finally, forget Freddie and
Jason. This would be the crossover
event around them all. Murder on the Orient Express.
Poirot versus Blanc on the same train, the same case. 2
legendary detectives going at it.
Yeah, I think Blanc would know immediately, but he would let it
play out to the end because he's just having too much fun.
Yeah. Fair enough.
What about you, Matt? I've got two.
First one is murder by death, which I think great, that guy
getting all those authors around the dinner table.
You can't solve this murder, and it looks like an impossible
murder to solve. Blanc would get that done in 5
minutes, then he'd be ready for dinner.
That'd be absolutely fine. And then the second one in the
heat of the night, obviously being a Southern gentleman
himself. He wouldn't get.
Anywhere near the issues that Sidney Potty has in that trying
to solve that murder. So again, heat of the night,
he'd solve that one very, very quickly.
Nice. Fantastic film as well.
It's great film, love it. Yeah.
All right. USD.
Some that actually needed solvent a little bit quicker for
me without the pain at the end. Right.
First one, put them in seven. You replace both of them.
Just going through each of the murder scenes, you can have some
of the dialogue imagines going. Ladies and general, we have
ourselves a harmless side. That would be amazing Gluttony.
My goodness doesn't. Make him Yoda.
Just because a boy has a library card does not make him Yoda.
That would be absolutely wonderful.
He's fucking with us, That's what he's doing.
Do this all day you're. Right.
It's amazing. It would be put him in seven.
Fucking Dante. Oh, fucking Dante.
I don't know how we do the ending, but if you amazed him,
no has the upper hand. It's blurred.
It's but that's great. We would just be on his shoe.
So yeah, that's my first one. The second one is just because
it's such a brilliant film. And please guys, if you haven't
seen this, please check it out. But Sean Penn directed Jack
Nicholson, starring the pledge. Lovely.
That film is incredible, but put Blanc in there and it's solved.
It's done. Don't have that ending.
Amazing. And then one for Jasmine,
especially being from Alaska, I would say Insomnia the Chris
Nolan. Yeah, lovely.
Yeah. I would like that to be solved a
little bit easier. I don't want to shoot a dead
dog, no. Yeah, this might work with your
Mama. Oh, God, let's just scrap the
rest of this and let's just do different films.
Different films. Yeah, that would be great.
Lovely. Thank you very much for the
question, Jasmine. PL.
AM C fuck off. He was found here with garbage
bags. Wrapped in garbage bag.
It's great little thing to remember.
Wonderful. And that brings us to the end of
our conversation on Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc.
Unfortunately. Sure, wonderful range and a
great sense of humor in a now iconic role.
Yes, Finally, the antagonist in the story, the entitled,
delightfully chunky knit sweat, a clad Hugh Ransom Drysdale,
played by Chris Evans. Asshole.
I want to talk about this performance because I think I
said a while back on one of our shows, I can't remember which
one it was, that the current crop of actors being run through
the Hollywood meat grinder. And for the most part, they're
all called Chris. Yeah.
A role indistinguishable from each other.
From my point of view. They just seem a little bit
bland. They seem to lack a little bit
of personality, but I think Evan stands above the pack.
And that's certainly true here because in the eight years Pride
and Ives out, he'd appeared in 11 Marvel films.
Yeah, 11. That's a lot of stars and
stripes. It is.
Yeah, I'm doing the right thing. So to see him turn up here as
this absolute nightmare of a human being is a real breath of
fresh air. Yeah, it is.
Yeah. And he doesn't come in in the
second act either, so he's got a lot of catching up to do.
But boy, oh boy, he does just that.
He creates A shitstorm before the will.
Reading, eating biscuits and lounging around like he owns the
joint. It's a grand entrance and a law.
He is an entitled prick. There's something undeniably
satisfying about watching him stick it to every single member
of his family. Yeah, yeah, because they're all
terrible people. Evans pulls that superior,
entitled attitude off really well.
I think Ransom has the safety net of wealth, so he can just be
an asshole to anyone and everyone because you know what
they're going to do about it. He doesn't care.
Yeah, exactly. And Evans plays that with such
ease that you'd think you'd be doing this kind of role his
entire career. I don't think he's ever done
anything like this up until this point.
No. I think there's a swag under it,
You know, he's got the sweater, which set tongues wagging.
The way he carries himself. He looks like he's having the
time of his life, and that energy that he's got is
infectious. He looks great as well.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the great thing
about Craig is Blanc is it subverts the James Bond troll,
but this submits the Captain America troll. 100% it doesn't.
So I can get away with anything, some Captain America.
Exactly. Yeah, eat shit.
Eat shit. You know, it's brilliant.
It's brilliant, Casson. And I think that's what I find
so impressive about this performance after over a decade
of playing the most virtuous, morally upstanding character in
cinema. Yeah, Evans flips it entirely
and makes you love him for being the worst person in the room.
Yeah. And I think it takes a lot of
charisma to pull that off. And it proves that there's more
to Chris Evans than just that shield and that good guy nature.
Yeah. Definitely.
And Ransom is named after the main character Elwyn Ransom in
CS Lewis's The Space Trilogy, also known as the Ransom
Trilogy. Johnson was a big fan of the
series as a kid and said. I've always just thought that
was a weird cool name and I was happy I was able to steal that.
Nice, I thought it was after the Belle Gibson film.
Give me back my son. Johnson was well aware of Evans
clean cut superhero persona but knew that he could play against
type. Haven't seen him on stage in
2018 in Kenneth Lauren's lobby Hero play the character of Bill
in that. Yes, Johnson said.
You've got to see it not as baggage but as ammunition.
If there was somebody in that part who the audience inherently
wanted to like, that would help the ARC overall.
Yeah, it works a treat. It does.
Yeah, and he was persuaded to come on board because of
convenience and proximity. Having wrapped on Avengers End
Game, he was planning some recuperation time at Holborn,
Massachusetts. But then they said, well, it
films in Boston. And I said I just can't see an
order this. Yeah, it's like what we said
before, Johnson saying can you come and do this fun, quirky
movie for six weeks in Massachusetts and in the
proximity and people's availability is what he played
upon. I'm giving away some of the
trade secrets in Hollywood, Johnson.
Let's slip a key detail for you to keep an eye open for in any
film that will allow characters to have iPhones in movies, but
not the bad guys. Yeah, Really.
Wow. You'll notice that Ransom is an
Android guy in this film. Right.
Samsung, Google, they obviously root for the bad.
Guy. Fair enough.
Yeah, they don't mind. After revealing this detail,
Johnson said every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in
their movie that's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me
right now. Great, great.
I love that little detail. So an incredible cast where at
least eight of them deserve a mention in this segment.
But with the Armours, Craig and Evans, the film has three
outstanding actors, all given very different performances.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right, movies. We'll be right back.
Thank you for supporting us by listening to the sponsors for
this episode. Thank you for listening to our
sponsors. And now it's back to the show.
The middle. In the second act of the film,
something is afoot and Blank recruits Marta to be his
confidante. Poor Marta here.
I mean, she's been through the ringer today.
She's been the subject of some casual racism.
She's just had a panic attack, and now things are ramped up
because she cannot shake Benoit Blanc, who's beautifully
revealed in the shadows of the garden when he lights up the
cigar. Yeah, it's amazing.
He observes the facts without biases of heart or head.
Lovely dialogue. Yeah.
Great. And he's making his plans to
start his investigation tomorrow.
And once martyred by his side because he trusts her kind heart
and the fact that she had nothing to gain from Holland's
murder. He's smarter than the average
bear. Because by the end, with his
revealed Armada, we've already discussed it.
He's known all along. Yeah.
And he's been manipulating everybody.
As harsh as it sounds, he has been manipulated in everybody,
including. He's like Derren Brown.
So the truth will out eventually, because Marta is a
good person and she's bound to crack, and she does get there.
So she goes back to her home, her head spinning with all this
guilt and confusion. As far as she knows, she did
kill Harlan, and Armus plays that wonderfully.
How on earth did she get herself into this situation when she sat
down? She's looking at the TV.
The TV, incidentally, is an episode of Murder She Wrote.
Yeah, it's dubbed in Spanish. It's called Who Threw the Barber
Tolls in Mrs. Fletcher's Chowder.
It's about a dinner party where somebody is murdered.
Are they all? And then we flash back to the
grizzly details of Holland's final moments.
Martha's tears and fears are real.
Holland's affection for her is genuine.
But when she went back in that room, did you really have to
slightly throw it in front of her?
That image will stay with her for the rest of her life.
Very cruel. Yeah, but I guess the reason
that he had to do this is because Marta would have stopped
him otherwise. Yeah, because she was just about
to go in and it gives us that delicious plot point, the close
up of the blood splatter Armada sneakers.
Yeah. Yeah.
She's being caught red footed, but she's being strong for her
mother. That's a detail that's captured
without any dialogue when it comes back from the flashback
and she holds her mother's hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because she knows what's at stake here without any dialogue.
That's really good. Yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't take a coat off and get comfortable either.
No, they should be removed from the scene at any point.
Yeah, yeah. So straight after that, she's
going to have to try and cover our tracks in more ways than
one. Yeah, I mean, it's it's great
when we go in there and, you know, we have this really great
setup and we've got all the modern technology, as he stated,
which is just so funny because it's just VHS tape.
It's absolutely shit. Top loader as well.
Yeah, Top. Loader the earliest.
Earliest just eats tapes like popcorn, but I kept this one,
you know, and I've kept this one great performances all around,
but it's just the way that this is all building now towards
we're thinking how she's going to get away with this because
Blanc's now trying to entrap her saying that he wants her
involved. Otherwise she can takes control
and Fast forward in the tape and then ejects it and you see that
the tape's smoking and blocks like turns his back.
He's back on us. If he knows that she's trying to
manipulate somehow and he's distracting Elliot and the other
guy and just trying to talk to them, can we get this digitized
properly somehow? He's like helping her get away
with it in The Walking through and she's got the magnet just
rubbing it against the table, which is obviously going to
erase it. I was going to cause trouble
with the VHS tape, which is lovely.
Puts that magnet in her pocket, but I just even before that when
they see it on the screen is that look that dialogue where
he's like, it looks like a Japanese horror movie.
Absolutely love. That are we all going to die in
seven days there's. A little knot of the ring there.
I really love that. That was really, really good.
And there's just that real great back and forth between Blunt,
like looking stupid, but also being very intelligent with and
taking note of everything around him, everything that's going on.
Because from this point we know that there's tracks there.
He's probably already seen them. He's distracting the other two
guys while she walks ahead. He lets her do it yes and then
goes as a render. It's weird stop This is really
important and waits at that point when Marta's gone too far
Marla and then he's actually not like necessarily shouting, but
she plays that so well. So as an audience, we don't we
don't know that back. So the supporting each other as
she's going back over the tracks and he's letting her do it.
If he'd suspected that she would just be in jail by an hour.
She was like the murderer that would be done.
He's just trying to. So many levels here in this
thing. And he's trying to solve it with
that, and he's letting her do it because by her doing this, he's
going to find out what really happened.
And he knows that there's something else going on with it
from the final moment of covering the tracks.
And the dogs run in, destroy the tracks yet again.
But it's their relationship to Martyr that then he blank, looks
down and goes, the best judge of character is a dog.
Yeah, he's trying to piece it together.
We think we know what's happened, but we don't know.
It's just another great couple of layers in the middle of the
film that shouldn't be this brilliant, but it really is.
Yeah, it really is. It's absolutely fantastic.
So many layers. So the role of Mr. Proof Rock,
the security guard Johnson wanted act that and magician
Ricky Jay. Unfortunately, Jade died just
before film was about to start. So he got the great Emmett
Walsh, who's fantastic in that. He's had a great performance.
So he took his place. And if you actually look in this
scene, when Walsh puts that picture of the house up with the
magnet, there's a little picture of Ricky Jay just on the right
hand side. Yes, there is.
Wow. Just a little homage.
Yeah. Really nice touch, yeah?
Yeah, that's amazing. And Walsh said Ricky J was going
to do it and he went and died. Then they had to come and get
somebody that wasn't as good, so they got me.
I'm brought in because they can't get who they want.
That's normally the way I get hired.
A work cheap must be. Bless me, lovely, brilliant.
Afterwards died in 2024, Ryan Johnson tweeted and it came to
set with two things. A copy of his credits, which was
a small type, single space, double column list of modern
classics that filled the whole page, would be yeah yeah yeah,
and $2.00 bills, which he passed out to the entire crew saying
don't spend it and you'll never be broke.
What an absolute legend. What a guy.
That's amazing. Yeah.
And then after this, we've been
talking about him. We've seen him briefly already,
but this is our first proper introduction around some, I
mean, Chris Evans having the time of his life here.
As we've been saying, he's not Captain America and he's
overjoyed about that for once. And he just devours the scene
and it's incredible how much chaos Ransom causes when he
doesn't actually see it or do that much to 'cause it.
He just has to show up, I mean. Just sits in the middle.
And it explodes. I mean, he turns up, the dogs
don't like him. There's clue number 1, He tells
the cops only the help column, Hugh.
There's clue #2 which you're going to have to remember.
But you brush that off and then he's into the house and he
listens to all of 2 words from Blanc and he just comes out with
CSIKFC. And then he's on and he just
Saunders into that room. All just ran around, insults Meg
just in that chair with his cookie psyche.
He's Lord of the Manor Michael Shannon in this scene.
He is. He's amazing.
He's. Walt clearly fumed at Ransom for
not being at the funeral. Yeah.
But then Ransom rings of Jacob that makes a kick off between
Megan, Jacob, Altright troll, Liberal Snowflake, and that
could back to Walt. I don't know what any of that
means. Like he doesn't understand the
son at all. And then Richard dives in, just
has to pop out of nowhere joylessly masturbating the
pictures of dead deer about Jacob so that that ends up with
he and Walt actually getting into a proper scrap with each
other. And this is just the funniest
thing Ransom's ever seen in his life.
He's just kicking back and join his cookies.
He's barely said a word. And he's caused all this and
he's having a will of the time. You know, we got to do this more
often. And then even when it's revealed
he's been cut out, the will. So, you know, Walter's like,
yes, yes. Yeah, yeah.
I love that. And then he's in his face
rejoicing and Ransom is just like, wow, like he just doesn't
care. And then it all kicks off again
and it's clear like by this point he's had enough for the
rest of the family. Taking them off 1 by 1, the
better. I mentioned right at the top,
eat it, Eat it, Definitely eat it.
Just amazing the scene, so funny.
Yeah, it's great. Johnson was able to get the
reaction from the dogs when Ransom shows up by giving Chris
Evans 2 toy balls. The dogs were leashed by their
trainers off screen and Evans showed the dogs that he had the
balls before the camera started rolling to get the reaction.
Yeah, they went wild. They loved it.
Brilliant. Similar thing.
The opening shot of the dogs render was the camera was
achieved by them getting them to run from one dog trainer to the
other. The camera and behind.
Yeah. Yeah, brilliant.
And Johnson wanted Ransom to eat milk and cookies in this
introduction scene to make him seem juvenile.
And Evans, he had so many biscuits for that scene.
He said his mouth felt like it was coated in butter.
We've mentioned Ryan Johnson last film was The Last Jedi had
polarized its fervent Star Wars fan base, and there was a lot of
backlash, which was widely documented on social media.
And he used this as inspiration for the character of Jacob
Thrombie, right? In this scene, the boy is
literally a Nazi. Yeah.
He's always on his phone, described as politically active
by his dad. Basically, he's a troll on
Twitter. And that's exactly what Ryan
Johnson's poking fun at here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the original script for Knives Out was actually littered
with F bombs. But Ryan Johnson had an 11th
hour change of heart and softened the language to make it
PG13. And he'd reminded himself of the
reason he was drawn to the genre in the 1st place, which is those
family friendly Agatha Christie who done it.
They just don't have any blue language in them.
Yeah, I mean, he literally went through the screenplay and just
struck all the F bombs out. Yeah, in this scene where Ransom
tells everybody to eat shit, he was supposed to tell them all.
Fuck you. Right.
Yeah, right. Yeah, right.
So it's Richard's the only one that survived, the one right at
the start. That's right, yeah.
Yeah, that's why it's so funny. It is, yeah.
Yeah. And the actor stuck to the
script, pretty much to the word. But there were a few off script
moments that happened when the big cusk got together during the
eat shit moment when Blanc leaves through Michael Shannon
improvise the line. I'm not eating one.
I odor of shit which is so funny.
That is brilliant. Yeah, he improvised that
celebration. When he finds out, he's out of
the way as well. That's brilliant, just in the
background. Shannon's amazing in this man.
He really? Yeah.
So with Ransom on the scene, everything is in chaos.
The Will Reedon should settle things down though, surely?
Yeah. Almost certainly.
In the upcoming sequence of events, Blanc finds some key
evidence and Linda asks Marta a very pertinent question.
Was she Boink and her father? Yep.
Who knows that? Over to you.
Yeah, so it's all kicking off for the family.
So Blanc and Marta leave them to it.
Everything's spinning around. We've already seen the dog with
that piece of trousers already. Key piece of evidence in its
mouth. Blanc throws the ball, the dog
comes back with that classic draw.
Works really well, but it's the tension for her character again,
it's it's this element of everything starting to fall into
place for Blanc, but it's going to expose martyr, or so she
thinks in the process. You know, this is part of the
trellis, but it's in you break. So where does that come from?
Is that a secret window? Let's go and have a look.
It's classic who done it stuff I have to mention when they walk
back into the house and that argument is still raging.
I mean to talk about Michael Shannon when he is right in
Ransom's face with that packet of cookies.
How about small cookies? You, you want some more cookies?
I swear. I'm sure you can see Chris Evans
is trying not to laugh because he's probably in his face and I
think Chris Evans is really struggling not to break
character there. Maybe Holland left you a cold
glass of milk and as well, asshole.
Brilliant stuff from Shannon. Improvised line as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then we're back upstairs.
Blanc finds the muddy footprints, and you can see the
cogs whirring in his head. And that's what, say, it's only
a Rep spec. You realize he kind of knows
about Martyr already, so this is just more manipulation of her.
And there's that wonderful tension to it because on one
hand, you want to see Blanc get things right.
It's really exciting, the same demonstrate the smarts.
But at the same time, you don't want Martyr exports.
So when he says the game is a foot, a Watson, that expression
on the face mean we'll talk about the nitware.
But like, she's wearing that scarf like it's a noose.
Like it's getting tighter around her neck.
Yeah, it's a great sequence, and it forms part of a really great
little detail, a thread that runs through this entire film.
It can often go overlooked. It's the invisible ink letter
that Harlan writes to Linda and threatens Richard.
You tell her or I will. Yeah.
Once Harlan pops off, Richard breaks into the drawer in his
desk and retrieves the letter, relieved that it is blank.
But he then sets off chain of events that incriminates him in
Linda's eyes. Something would get beautifully
paid off in the NC, yeah. Yes, the way that this all
starts. Firstly Richard throws the
baseball out of the window, then an unsuspecting blank walks past
it, picks it up, puts it in his pocket as he's talking.
Later he throws the ball for the dog, who then brings it to
Linda. She goes to Holland Study to
return the ball and finds the letter.
Wonderful. And the rest we don't see, but
it winds up with Richard getting a black eye.
So presumably Linda reads it and clocks Richard for cheating on
her. And we can come to that
conclusion because there's a scene earlier in the film where
Linda is crying over Holland's all letters to her, all of which
have a burn mark on them, where she's obviously used the lighter
to reveal the writing. Yeah, and spoke about the games
that the player and how that's how they used to communicate.
It was a game, Yeah, Yeah. Also, there are a few frames
when Richard first retrieves the letter shown some lettering on
the paper when the sunlight catches it.
Right. Lovely.
Yeah. So now we're getting down to the
nitty gritty of it. It's the actual will reading,
and we're going to find out what all of this is about, or we're
really going to find out what all this is about because it
just gets more complicated for me, really.
So it's wonderful to see Frank Oz in there.
Yeah. Always wonderful.
He's recognizable. He is, and right now as well.
That's brilliant. Just sitting there and
everyone's got their own compositions.
The way that they just stood as families, as units, as a couple.
And that's what, you know, love that.
That's who wants each of the part of this world.
There's three separate parts to it, and then you've got that
wonderful shot of Ransom in the background and he's stuck in the
king on top of the chess pieces to show that obviously he's now
going to be the king. He's now going to rule what's
going on because he's got the other hand on everybody, that
lovely slow pushing on him. Everyone else just stays on like
a meter away just to see everybody in that frame.
Jamie Lake Curtis is so good in this.
Just every little bit when it's just like this isn't going to
take very long. She's like, yes, great, I've got
this is no problem. Yes, wonderful dress.
Please, please continue. Yes, that's fine.
Everyone is just so confident, just so cocky.
The assistant that Alan who's Frank Osborne is reading the
world. She just points down.
She's like the house. Oh, yes, there's the house that
that's going to go and there's 60 million and yes.
And then there's the 60 million years.
Yeah. And then there's the ownership
of Blood Like Wine, which is a publishing company.
Thank you. So it's just basically that's
the three things that we want to go on.
That's all left to martyr, just one after the other.
Just knocks all the pins down just one at a time.
And the frustration. Isn't it?
And the pain that's a strike for everybody when they're getting
let down one after the other after the other.
It's so well done. Then beautiful compositions and
it just slowly pushes in on ransom and he knows what's going
on. And then there's that shot of
martyr because pushes past belong and he doesn't know
what's going on and it goes on her and she definitely doesn't
have a clue what's happening here.
But just look at the way the camera tells the story.
And then it finally gets to the house.
Everybody's arguing the toss and say it's still our house.
You get out whatever. And then to find out that the
house is being left to martyr that wide shot which everybody's
in and then leakers turns around because you bitch, you just
point straight at the like that's the last straw.
That's it and just pointing at her and you get out and police
get out and everyone get out and then she knows she's got no
right here and she and as the character and as the performer,
as the actress herself, as JBL Curtis was part of that house
and made herself so integral. You can see that she's really
connected to that yes and when she flips because she's
self-made she's made the business.
She's the only one who stood on her own 2 feet really.
She had a bit of help of her dad, which is kind of She's got
something to fall back on she's. The only one who doesn't face
the wrath of her dad either. Exactly.
Yeah, it could stay outside and that camera couldn't be any more
loose. Yeah, it is just so handheld and
just. So time as well.
Isn't it? It's the only time.
Lovely transitions between seeing Richard knock on the
window and then the camera comes down and then see a wider view
of Martin the car trying to start.
Yeah. And now we got Ransom coming in
to save the day and he just pulls in at the back and does
the same gesture that Richard did to her earlier at the beck
and her in and then have her as like manipulate her and say,
well, you're from Paraguay, so did it.
Well, so so it's the same that he's done taking that to
manipulate that, but she doesn't know that.
And then she's taking out of this whole mess and you just
think Ransom is a good guy, He's taking her out of it.
He needs to understand what's going on.
And then we're going to that next scene and we'll see, oh, on
his side. Is he on her side?
Are these the guys we've got to read for now?
And then we're straight and Act 3.
You mentioned there when she comes out of the house, it goes
from a steady counter, a handheld.
Obviously it puts us in Marta's headspace, but it was born out
of necessity. Ryan Johnson broke the
Steadicam, so they had. Oh, amazing.
Yeah. That's it.
Better. Yeah.
And when all the family are crowding Marta's car, Toni
Collette improvised the line. I'm not on Twitter anymore.
DM me on Instagram. Great.
And then when the cop as well, when the when the tournament
says, have you seen her Insta? She's an influencer.
Yeah, that's absolutely brilliant.
So it really hits home, which is like, she's got a presence, but
not one that's been paid for by her, which is great.
That line also links into a deleted scene where Joni, it's
mentioned that she had to shut down a Twitter account due to
negative comments about a skin care company, which, again, is
even funnier because she's useless.
She's just an absolute Lech. Yeah.
Tony Colette. Just magnificent.
Oh, she's wonderful, Yeah. Her back story of the party when
she's just dancing and everyone's ignoring her, just
absolutely love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's great, great. Kind of echoes of Gwyneth
Paltrow's skin care company. I would imagine that was her
influence. Yeah, Yeah.
I imagine that's why she started the company.
Yeah, yeah, very possibly, yeah. And when everyone has gone crazy
and shouting at Marta, Jaden Martel's character Jacob calls
her an anchor baby. This wasn't in the script and
was an adlet by Martel. It wasn't picked up on the first
Take Law, but Michael Shannon heard it and told Ryan Johnson
that Jayden had a really funny line.
Johnson loved it, so they didn't have to take to get it.
Shannon died in a crowbar. Every bit of improv that we hear
from everybody, including themselves, as they tried to get
Ryan Johnson off script. Come on, man, the script's not
good enough. Anger, baby, Come on.
Yeah, if you're unfamiliar, the term anchor baby means a child
born in or a country to illegal immigrant parents, allegedly for
the reason of getting citizenship to that country.
It's really funny. It's just in the background, he
says. It's like it's without
understanding. It's just, he's heard on
Twitter. Anchor Baby.
So with all of our principles all together in this will
reading, we've got our third and final question from Petron of
all the right movies. And this is Ryan Chipple.
Hello, Ryan. Hello.
Ryan. Ryan asked.
If you were assembling a cast for a whodunit, who would you
choose and what would be the setting?
Matt, why didn't you go first? Yeah, I mean I've got 2 IDs for
this. The first one, OK, I can't claim
this is totally original because it's based on, I don't know if
you've seen this clip of Sesame Street did a version of Benoit
Blanc called Beignet Blanc and there's the God Daniel Craig to
watch it and he thoughts the funniest thing ever.
So I think based off that, you know, like Muppets Christmas
Carol where you've just got Michael Caine as the one human
actor. The rest of The Muppets you
could do that with Ben Raw Blanc just in The Muppets.
That's great. And he just doesn't react to
them at all. He just treats totally straight
face like Michael Caine does. So I would do that in some kind
of like rundown hotel in the middle of nowhere, that kind of
history. The other idea is I think he
could go quite meta in terms of Daniel Craig and make it about
like connections with him in his past.
So you could have one where you've got Timothy Dalton, PS
Brosnan, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw, Naomi
Harris. Then I'd have Ken Branner in
there as well for the pro connection.
And then the last one would be Rachel Vice, because obviously
she's Daniel Craig's wife in real.
Life brilliant. And I think you could do
something like on a Hollywood film set, like kind of screen
three, that kind of meta thing. Yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What about you Westie? What's your cast and setting for
the whodunnit? Plot wise, I'm just going to
have to stick to the original. You know, there's like the
family and there's been a murder in that house, and I'm just
going to stick to that premise. I'm not going to go too deep
into the plot or anything, but the cast would be, we've seen it
all a million times, but the cast would be classic mother,
father. So the mother would be Goldie
Hawn. Oh lovely.
The dad of the family? Kurt Russell, obviously.
Of course. The Butler Anthony Hopkins.
Oh. Yeah, spoiled son and his trophy
wife would be Colin Farrell and Mia Goth.
Lovely. Them two together, lovely,
hilarious. That'd be really, really good.
The daughter of the family, Emily Blunt, and the detective
who has to solve it all, Mark Ruffalo.
Now you're talking. There we are.
Rolled in cameras. That would be my idea for me.
That's great. Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, I love recasting questions.
Very nice. And it taps into something I
mentioned earlier, because unlike the current crop of
leading men, who I think are quite interchangeable, the
amount of excitement actresses working right now is an absolute
embarrassment of riches. It is.
You're right.
So my whodunit is going to be all female and they're all
playing themselves meta. Oh nice.
OK, so the setting's an old Hollywood mansion during award
season. A legendary producer, reclusive
producer, maybe he's hosting an after party for the ceremony.
So 8 actresses, all nominated that year, all rivals, all with
history and by mourn. And the horse is dead in the
library. Nice, nice.
So the cast, I'm going to throw Anodamus in because she's amazed
and I wanted to play against, so I'll play against Martyr.
So she's true in confidence. I didn't put in me Goth, but I
should have because she's amazing as well.
But I've got Anya Taylor Joy in there, who'd be the one that
everybody suspects because she's got those striking eyes.
Yeah. Mikey Madison.
I think she's going to be the wild card that nobody sees
coming. Curry Condon, who we obviously
love. Yes, yes.
She'd be the quiet one in the corner who knows more than she's
letting on. Got Keke Palmer in there
bringing energy in the one liners.
And I think she'd keep everybody on their tours.
Margaret Quali, who is just incredible.
Yeah, yeah. She's amazing, Thomas and
Mackenzie brilliantly understated.
She'd be the one that you rule out maybe a bit too early and 10
day as well. Biggest star in the room.
She's got a target on her back and her makes of the most
interesting subject of the lot. So 8 actresses, one mansion, one
dead producer. Throw Daniel Craig in there as
the detective and you've got your 4th Knives Out movie.
Sounds wow. Nice.
Get on the phone, Ryan. Yeah, yeah.
And a great question, Ryan. Thank you very much.
Yes, thank you mate. So back to the film.
And once Martyr has made it out of the will reading, she's there
with Ransom the high tailor to a bar where he fills her full of
beans and sausage. So while the Thrombie households
Scrabble around to salvage, they are lost inheritance.
Talking of the Slayer rule, Ransom makes Marta spill her
guts one way or another, the sneaky bastard.
Spill the beans. Almost.
Spill the beans. Very good now.
That is great because he knows it's not suicide because he
killed him and he knows about Marta's condition and he's
backed her into a corner. That's really good writing.
Yeah, it is brilliant. Yeah, and after Martyr has told
her story, we don't hear the details because we cut back to
the family talking about the Slayer room.
Ransom continues his sniveling little ways by trying to cheat
his way into his grandfather's inheritance, and he's a very
dangerous individual because he'll happily kill his own
grandfather for it. We'll later find out.
And he's not to be trifled with because this is an elaborate
plot that he's concocted. He is a smart kid.
And this is where Mona has to face up to her own reality.
She did kill Harlan, and she's going to have to face the music
in her eyes and in our eyes at this point, and the ripple
effect of which could have severe consequences for a
family. And you can see that etched all
over to Armistice's face in this scene.
There's pain. There's a width that she's
carrying around. And finally, when she has a
conversation with Meg, Meg comes off the phone and you think
she's speaking in hushed tones because she's hiding from the
family. But then there's the beautiful
reveal of all of the family standing behind her as the
camera comes round. It reminded me of imagery from
Get Out a little bit. Great scene.
And there is a fine, fine display of knitwear throughout
Knives Out, none more so than Ransoms impeccable chunky knit
white number in this scene. Ah yes, the Internet went crazy
forward and sales of replica sweaters went through the roof.
Yeah. Oh, it's a wonderful piece it.
Is like, yeah. That's a lovely piece.
The costume designer was Jenny Egan, and her brief from Ryan
Johnson was that Ransom's clothes would be these
incredibly expensive pieces that he didn't take care of.
So she made holes in the sleeves of his sweater and wore down the
heels on his shoes as well. If you look, you can see on the
on the sleeves and on the collar, there are holes in that
sweater. It's a lovely detail, Yeah.
Incredible. Yeah.
So Marta has the keys to the Thrombie Kingdom, and everybody
wants a piece of her. It's a nice piece.
The crew. A tight knit crew on Knives Out
with Ryan Johnson using crew he used throughout his career.
We're starting with his work as writer on Knives Out, the title
of which came from a Radiohead song on their Amnesiac album.
The work and title for the film was Morn and Belle, also a song
from the same album, right? Yes, Matt, your thoughts on Ryan
Johnson screenplay? Clearly the work of someone who
knows the genre inside out, but more importantly, he knows what
the appeal is, and the appeal is there might be called whodunit,
but that's not the important thing.
The important thing is the how, not The Who, because we can all
guess The Who and any who done it and have a good chance of
getting it right. And there's no real attempt to
master the fact Ransom's the bad guy here.
The joy of it is how. And this is such an intricately
created how. We think it's suicide, but then
it's manslaughter. But how did it get to that point
and what are the ramifications of that?
It can't just be be a tragic accident.
There has to be something else going on.
And that's where you can't guess.
And that's what Johnson knows is the key to it.
Also, to work out from there the whole plan, how thorough it is.
It's the kind of right And you go, I don't know where you'd
even start without, let alone finish it in a way that is so
detailed but so logical at the same time.
And then as well as creating this incredibly compelling case,
he's creating a new character from scratch.
He just leaves off the page. It's filled with really good
jokes, memorable dialogue, and at the same time it has subtext.
It does talk about stuff. It talks about privilege and
racism and deep grain prejudices in American Society in class.
To make all of those elements and make them balance against
each other, that is some achievement.
I mean, we often say, don't we? On these episodes, the script
was fluid. It wasn't finished.
It wasn't complete. By the time they got, everyone
had a little bit to say. I imagine this was pretty much
to the letter once the camera started rolling.
Say, for Michael Shannon, everything else was trying to
get away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What about you, Westie? Ryan Johnsons writing.
I can't really praise it highly enough.
I can just. It creates pictures in my mind
of just a completely and beautifully plotted piece of
hair. But you're just watching the
plats come together and there's about 6 different threads, but
you're watching small plat. They're here, and you're
thinking this is going to be a mess at the end.
But then you look at it and you just think, well, that's just
beautifully done. Yeah, it's beautifully weaved
together, and that's what it reminds us of.
And it's watching them do it. It's watching that plat come
together and seeing how joyous that is and not worrying about
the technique because whoever you're watching do that has done
it very well and knows exactly where this is going.
It's the ability to flow through this film without getting
agitated or frustrated. Yes.
Like, what did that that mean? Where did he go there?
It seems that Ryan Johnson's got just the right amount of ideas.
And I think it's taken him a long time to write this because
it's just been in his head more than it's been on the page.
And I think he's probably been driving somewhere.
He's been filming Looper, He's been doing Brick just thinking
just like Holland does and just writing these ideas down.
Or that that would be a bit too much.
All the mood on the scoring ball, but not his, right?
That would just be the twist on any of the narrative.
You would see others mud there. There's a fingerprint there and
that's the end of it. I mean, if you think about how
loose something like The Fugitive is, none of that is
about anything to do with like this.
It's just right. He's guilty.
That's it. What What about with the what's
and the where's and the who's? Well, that doesn't fucking
matter. That's all this film's about,
and Johnson knows that. And that's where the
entertainment is. That's where the genius is.
But it's also the dialogue. It's also the characterization.
It's also the fact that he isn't hitting cliche after cliche
after cliche, but he's still trying to embody a work that is
naturally built on cliche. That's what this is.
It's always over who done it. There's always a knife involved,
there's always blood involved. There's always footprints and
tracks and hidden entrances and mansions and rich people and
poor people. He knows all of that, he takes
all the cliches and he makes something brand new.
That's how good the rightness. Yeah, it is.
It's incredible. Even just on a surface level,
you could watch it and just have fun with the mystery without
having to really chime in with all of the details.
Doesn't matter. Second view, Third view, 4th
view. Different layers reveal
themselves. Yeah, absolutely.
And for me, it's the structure and the economy of the right.
And Johnson does something really incredible.
He gives us the answer halfway through the film.
Very similar what you're saying, Matt.
We see what happened to Harlan in any other mystery that would
kill the tension. But Johnson flips it.
So instead of asking who did it, well now, like, will Martin get
away with it? And how will she get away with
this? And I think that's a really
brave structural choice because you're suddenly rooting for the
suspect, which is the complete opposite of how these things
usually work. And I think you need an
incredible actress to pull that off as well.
And then he pulls the rug again at the end by revealing there's
another layer on underneath that we didn't see coming.
So it's a triple bluff. And the right is so tight that
it feels organic. And I think what makes that
possible is the economy because there's not a wasted line.
Every joke, every seemingly throw away a comments, every
insignificant detail comes back around the mug, the blood on the
shoe, the toxicology report, the baseball that we've discussed.
Johnson plants seeds so carefully that you don't notice
them until they bloom, and it does it while keeping the tone
light and entertaining. It's two hours, 10 minutes and
it feels like 90 minutes. All killer nor filler.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it takes real confidence
to leave your cards on the table at the midpoint of a mystery and
back yourself to keep the audience engaged.
I think it's a risk that most wouldn't take.
But Johnson trusts his structure, he trusts his
characters, and he trusts that the audience is smart enough to
go along for the ride. Yeah, exactly.
And we do, because I think every scene is doing at least two
things at once. It's entertaining us and quietly
setting up the next revelation. That's pretty spectacular
writing. Yeah, yeah.
And the whole process came together in the space of a year
from start to finish. Johnson started writing in
January 2018. The script was done by June.
Production wrapped by Christmas the same year.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's economy for you. Yeah.
Yeah, like I say, I think this just been living in his head.
And when he started writing, Ryan Johnson was reminded of
Alfred Hitchcock's comments and who done it, where he said they
rely entirely on the surprise and that outside of this they
are generally narratively weak. Johnson said the idea was to
figure out how to give the movie an engine that was something
beyond just a collection of clues and the mulling over of
suspects. Once I had that, I began to dig
a little deeper, and that's when I came up with the actual story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got the surface level in
there. That's the start point.
Just the mystery is the start point, yeah.
And we mentioned earlier that Johnsons main inspiration was
Agatha Christie, which extended to his characters.
He said that she wasn't a political or socially active
writer, but that she did write characters from British society
that readers would have been familiar with.
So you said it was very important that we didn't just
skin it with the modern day world, but that we did what
Agatha Christie didn't actually try to use it to engage with
some of the character types that were experienced at the day.
So the family would argue, like all families do, and elements of
that, a political points of view that views could relate to in
2019 still relevant now. Very relevant.
Yeah, Johnson said that unlike noir movies, where pretty much
every scene features the detective and Christie
mysteries, Pyo was often accompanied by the character of
Captain Hastings, who was his psychic.
Yeah, that's why he leaned into the character of martyr quite
heavily. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he also conflated the mechanics of a Hitchcock
thriller like The 39 Steps, where there's the central
mystery but also a character we care about who was emotionally
involved. That's what he had in mind when
writing the character of Martyr. It comes across, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah. We've mentioned it throughout,
but there are a number of clues that point to Ransom's guilt
running throughout the film, a few of them that we may not have
mentioned. Ransom's interaction with
Holland on the night of is the only one that we don't get to
see. Yeah, yeah.
When Harlan is talking about the family tomato, there's a knife
in the foreground cover and his throat.
When he mentions Ransom just before, he says the difference
between the stage prop and a real knife.
Yeah, yeah, He lifts it up, doesn't he?
And kind of that's right, yeah. And during the will reading,
Ransom is the only person not to react angrily to the news that
Martyr gets everything. The reason being he already
knows that he's been cut out the well and that it's all going to
her. That's right.
Blank remarks that dogs are good judge of character as he
mentioned earlier when the Greek Martha with warmth.
The opposite to be said when Ransom shows up.
This fact is doubled down upon when Mega's walking up by the
dogs. This isn't referred to again,
but we can assume that this was Ransom coming back to the scene
of the crime. Yeah, that's a great little
detail. It's not hammered home.
No, not really, but it's just there.
Yeah. So an outstanding piece of
writing from Ryan Johnson. Honour in the genre with great
affection, layers of intrigue, wonderful characters.
Wonderful writing. Next is the music on Knives Out.
We're talking about popular music in the film and the score
by Nathan Johnson. Now, I think the score's a real
treat. I think it's sharp, it's
playful, it's got a sense of mischief running through it that
mirrors the film very nicely. That opening string quartet sets
the tone immediately, those precise strings that feel like
they're creeping up on you. And from there, it opens out
under a full orchestral score that's got some real personality
to it. It's got this quality where it
feels both classic and modern at the same time.
Yeah. You can hear the influences of
those grand symphonic scores from the golden age of cinema,
and I actually think there's something in the strings that
reminded me of Pinot Dinagio's work on Don't Look Now And going
back to We'll cover that Untoable feature years ago.
Some of Pinot Dinagio's music in that when we talked about it
doesn't necessarily fit the bill, but I can certainly hear
it in the strings. I know what you mean.
It sounds very European, Yeah. Yeah, very much yeah.
For a film, this stuff with plot and conversation, the score
doesn't overwhelm it, but it dances around the dialogue
rather than trampoline all over it.
I think it's understated. I think it's sharp.
I think it's elegant, much like the film itself.
And just a credit to the song choices as well.
I think they give you a peek into the characters journey vibe
into more than this at the party.
And trying to drag Linda up to dance is a joy.
Yeah, because we've all know that person who tries to drag
you up the dance. It's horrible.
Yeah, leave us alone. Yeah.
And blank singing, losing my mind outside the laundromat.
We'll talk about that later. But it is wonderful.
He's just alone with his headphones and he's just letting
it all hang out. Yeah, it's great.
And any film that ends with
Sweet Virginia by The Rolling Stones.
I mean, well, yeah. That's going to send me home
happy, yeah. That's a shoo in.
Yeah, I think it's one of those where I think you would have to
stream it on Spotify or something to really get into it
and appreciate it. It's not one where it's really
bombastic. The themes aren't any face.
But when you do listen to it, and I know it's difficult to
judge this and say this, but I think if you listen to this not
knowing the thing about the film, how do you think you'll
go? This sounds like a mystery
genre. This sounds like the music from
a Who? It instantly nails the genre
with the strings, the piano, as you say, Luke, it's kind of
sinister bit foreboarding this tension in there, but it is
playful at the same time and I think that just sums up the
genre. So it's one of those where
because it is quite subtle, I see you have to specifically
listen to it. But if this wasn't in the film,
you would notice so much just dead air in the film you would
really miss. It there, wouldn't there?
Yeah. You know, that's what this music
is doing. And then the song choices, I
mean they are sparing, but each one does hits home as well
because it does as you say it tells you about the character.
Yeah, I love it. I think it's fantastic.
I think the range that you would go through, but it feels to me
like each track on this is like a room in the house.
It has it's like own identity where you're going and where
it's moving you through the house.
But you just, you can never judge what each room's going to
hold because it all seems to look the same but look so
different. Yeah.
And all seems to sound the same but sounds so different.
But if you listen to that, the opening credits are the opening
boom where that hits. And that's massive in the mix.
And them dogs are running and you're like, oh, yeah, this is a
Sherlock Holmes film, right? Yeah, yeah.
It's a murder mystery. There's some.
There's the Moors and there's the haze on it and there's fog
in the background and there's a mansion.
Perfect. But listen to the last track
when they're all coming out, when Ranson is being taken away.
That's as close to jazz as you're going to get on that
soundtrack. It is totally like 16-4 or
whatever the rhythm is. It's all over the place, totally
disjointed. There's instruments coming in
left, right and center because the family are just so
dispersed. Everyone's confused.
Nobody knows what's going on. So it's not necessarily a
soundtrack for the audience. It's just a soundtrack to kind
of relate to the family what's going on.
Like Matt said, you can miss this music totally at the start.
Yes, you can see it because you're locked in, but there's so
much dialogue, there's so much going on.
There's so much with the camera movement, there's so much with
the technique. You forget this music on this.
And like a lot of times we've done where you have not
necessarily a lazy director, but one that doesn't have the
confidence that Ryan Johnson has here, where the music speaks for
the scene. This is how you should feel.
You should feel like this. You should feel upset, you
should feel misery. You should feel angry, you
should feel horrified. None of the music does that
here. It basically sets the tone of
the room. You're in the room and you've
got to figure it out. That's.
Yeah, I like that. It doesn't drag you by the hand,
does it? No, not at all.
A lot of the music in the film aligns to the mystery at the
center of the narrative. When Martyr and Ransom are in
the restaurant, Gordon Lightfoot Sundown is playing with the
lyrics. If I find you creeping around my
backstairs. Very good.
Similarly, the song that's playing at the end is The
Rolling Stones. Sweet Virginia with the lyric.
Got to scrape that shit right off your shoe.
Wonderful. Great.
Not very Ryan Johnson for me, though, because that's not deep
enough. So I've looked into Gordon
Lightfoot Sundown. That song was written about a
groupie who he's on and off with.
Lightfoot at the time called Kathy Smith.
Kathy Smith, the same one got 15 months in prison for fatally
injecting a speedball that caused the death of John
Belushi. The overdose.
Wow. Wow.
Which is exactly what Marta did. Or what she thought you did.
Amazing. Amazing, isn't it?
That's great. Classic Ryan Johnson.
Yeah, More than three layers to every decision he's made.
Ludicrous. Yeah.
That's amazing. Yeah, we mentioned the score, of
course, and that's by Nathan Johnson.
That's Ryan's cousin, right? He scored all of his films apart
from The Last Jedi for obvious reasons.
Yeah. And from the early days of
Ryan's concept, he and Nathan conceived with the music that
scores the film to have a grandiose classical feel, which
was unlike any of the Ryan Johnson movie up to that point.
So that took influence from Maurice Jar's work on Lawrence
of Arabia, Nino wrote his music on Death on the Nile and the
work of Bernard Herrman in general.
Yeah, nice. The Johnson saw these works has
given each instrument in the orchestra a voice.
They weren't blurred into one sound.
Each element had its own identity, something which was
mirrored by the cast, who all have their place on the chess
board. Yeah, they've all got their kind
of like, audible identity. Yeah, yeah.
Nathan started his work by visiting the set ture in
Principal Photography and Visitor regularly to get a feel
for the production which informed his work.
The score was recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios as
well, and I mentioned that there are multiple themes for each
character. The individual Thrombie themes
are all variations on the main family theme, which comes from
the Master of the house, Harlan Thrombie.
Yeah, Nathan said. He's the stream that everyone
flows out of. He created this house for them
all to live in. All the stuff in the house is
Sophie's written into his books. That's great, yeah.
The main theme, Knives Out String Quartet in J Minor drew a
line in the sand for Nathan. It plays at the opening of the
film and sets the standard and it's great.
It is always forget because it is really quiet.
So I was turning it up yesterday.
It's the volume up on this and that one.
You turn this down, but. Nathan's favorite piece of music
is called The Will, and it plays obviously at the Will reading
scene, he said. In that queue, the orchestra
plays around with a gigantic string slide.
The slide takes us into this unsettling craziness that begins
to happen. The whale is the shift in the
movie. We break open the doors and we
go for the throat. Nice.
So a great combination of scoring soundtrack on Knives
Out, a rarity in modern cinema I think.
Yes, definitely. Finally, Steve Yedlin Adlin a
touch of class to proceedings with his beautiful
cinematography over the USD. I'm sure you've both visited the
Steve Edlin website, as I have and see that it's it's splitting
the two parts 1 is cinematography and the other is
colour science, which is very, very important, which is wow,
basically comparing film stocks to digital.
And I'm Steve Edlin's really, really underrated as being one
of them DPS who can shoot a film.
And you don't know if this is shot on 35 Miller, whether this
is shot on digital. I'm sure this is the first Ryan
Johnson film that was actually shot on digital using the mini.
What he brings to this is it's timeless.
This isn't going to age. You can watch any other film
from that period and they're all got the orange and teal or the
ball got this kind of backlight, but this just sits and it won't
age. And I think that's just down to
its distinctive look. Like 7 has a look, but this
necessarily doesn't. And that's what I mean by that
timeless nature. I think everything has a warmth
and a softness, but he's using soft light, using hard light,
but it's nothing that's really definitive.
It just works in each sequence and it just balances each
sequence and the skin tones are just perfect.
It's just so in the middle where it doesn't push up all the
audience anywhere. And that's where it reminds me
of the music because that's it. And it's not distracting in any
way. It just tells the story, but he
tells it so beautifully and just has this real kind of look to
the green, this real authentic feel that the camera movements.
It just feels like everything is just so well thought through and
you can see it's all so well planned.
And the technique and the camera work in this film is just as
important as the dialogue because it helps the dialogue
and it helps the music and it helps the plot by just sweeping
1 camera to the next. There's not one move in this
film where you think that's necessary.
Yeah, You know, just that slow push on Ransom when they're
talking about the will. Just so necessary.
It's not like, Oh well, you're just going to sit on them and
just stay there. It's just, and he's smiling.
It's just when you watch it again, you go, that makes
perfect sense. There's so many complicated
moves, complicated light and setups.
You know, there's reflections in the glasses.
They're taking that away so they can actually have the crew where
they need them to be in certain points.
There's just so many things that are just so important.
And it's just, it's so reflective in his work in that
it looks so simple. It looks so straightforward.
But even that opening shot at like 200 frames a second, but
two dogs running past and you don't really know it's two dogs
until just at the right moment. And then they come past the
frame and the framing of the house, and they get that right.
That takes a lot of time. And they didn't really have a
lot of time to do that. And this looks like it took
about four years to shoot. That's how good it is.
Yeah, six weeks. And it looks like it took four
years. Yeah.
Really excellent, really accomplished film making and I
think you hadn't had a lot to do with the look, the style, and
it's a film that definitely won't age.
No I agree 20 years time it'll still look brand.
New still look really fresh, yeah.
Yeah, I think it's really impressive.
I think it ties in to what I was saying about Johnson's use of
depth. That Thrombie mansion is the
star of the show visually, and I think yet that makes it feel
both inviting and depressive at the same time because he uses
those wide lenses so you can feel the space around the
characters. And I think that's crucial in a
film like this because the house itself is telling you so much
about these people. Yeah.
And the way he lights the interiors is great, using the
natural light coming through those big windows. 2 great uses
of light. First one is when Meg is on the
phone to Martyr. In that scene that we've just
been talking about, there's a strip of light over her eyes.
Yeah. Yeah, everything around her face
is dark. Apart from that, don't listen to
the words coming out of her mouth.
She's lying in the eyes tell you everything.
And the second is when Walt comes to see Martyr at home in a
scene we're going to be talking about in a bit.
There's a slither of light that comes through the window behind
him when he's offering Martyrs family help, but he quickly
covers over that. When things turn sinister, the
light goes. Great use of light, and there's
an exuberance to the visuals. When the family are together,
everything is bright and cluttered and alive.
But as the mystery deepens and the mood shifts, the light and
pulls back and the shadows creep in a little bit.
It mirrors the narrative without ever being heavy-handed With
this, the cameras always finding something new to look at, always
repositioning to reveal a detail or reaction, and I think it
keeps you engaged in a film that's essentially set in one
location for most of its runtime.
I think that's really impressive.
Yeah, great. Set in one location, but shot in
three? I forget that.
Yeah, but they look like one location as well.
Yeah. Matt, your thoughts on Stevie
Edelen's work? I mean, he's Ryan Johnson's
right hand man, isn't he? Has to say, worked with him on
all of his films. And I think this is just such a
great partnership because I would never describe Ryan
Johnson as a purely visual film maker.
You never go. That's a typical Ryan Johnson
shot. Yeah.
He's not that type of director. He's more of a storyteller, I'd
say. So that's why I need someone
like Yedlin, Who? Whatever Johnson gives him, he
knows how to make it work. I mean, to go from a high school
noir like Brick to Star Wars and then these films, I mean, that's
some range like Yedlin has. Yeah.
Understands the genre. And this film is so dialogue
heavy that his challenge is to suffer being stagey, which it
easily could be. So, I mean, you've mentioned the
deep focus, Luke, the brilliant production design, but to me,
it's about the framing. It's about moving that camera
very deliberately, very fluidly to accentuate the drama.
So like when the family overheard the argument between
Harlan and Ransom and he sums up the way the camera just pans
around to catch Ransom storming out.
Yeah, Yeah. That's great.
The way the camera pushes in or zooms out during those opening
interviews. In times it cuts to emit,
sometimes it cuts to close up. Just keeping it snappy visually.
When Harlem confronts Journey, it starts off with him holding
the baseball in the foreground, then just pulls around the desk
to reveal him. I mean, this is all very simple
stuff, but sometimes the simple stuff is still the best.
Yeah, because this is what stops it.
As I say, it being stagey, it brings it to life.
And there's a very strong visual identity to this film.
Yedlin is behind that and I honestly think he's the unsung
hero of the film. Yeah, absolutely.
A. Number of characters in the film
wear glasses, which started to create a problem.
You mentioned at Westie in the interview scenes where the
reflection of the crew could easily be seen in the likes of
Linda's glasses. Yeah, well to combine this, if
you've seen the behind the scenes shots, the key grip Matt
Mania, which is our Matt's new nickname by the.
Yeah, it's the great. With the idea to create, yeah,
to create Matt's, which is great because a Matt is basically
something that you shine a light through.
It can like call the call the global, go over the front of the
lighting rigs. So they're just like squares cut
out and look like a window. So these were opaque shapes that
went over the lights, as we've said, create the illusion of the
reflection in the glasses. So there's windows are the
shapes in the room to having all these mats on the stands and
it's moving them around to hide the crew just so they can get
the shots that they need is amazing.
That is great, it means that Yeatling could keep in real
reflections in the glasses, maintaining the realism and
obviously didn't need to do VFX post production.
Yeah, it looks great because it would just be the crew in Yeah.
Glasses, yeah. And this is the first film that
Rian Johnson shot entirely digitally and this allowed him
to use minimal lighting as digital needs less lighting rigs
than the Chewton on film and this was essential considering
the majority of the film was shot inside.
Yeah, tight spaces. Yeah.
Despite being shot digitally, Johnson wanted a film look, and
Steve Yedlin was able to achieve this with some jiggery.
Pokery imposed, Johnson said. Steve did all this crazy colour
science, obviously. That's why there's a dedication
to it on his website. Westie yeah, yeah.
And he said he added grain and gate weave and all the stuff you
need to make this look like film.
And it comes across like that. It really.
Does. There's a texture to it.
Yeah, and like we said, you hadn't shot on the Alexa Mini
using Zeiss Master Primes. And he also used Panavision
Primos, the PCZ and the PCW, which are compact zooms, which
obviously gives you a little bit more space when the wide angles
are being used. So you can closer shots of the
actual characters individually, which really just ramps up the
tension as well. So you cut the characters, the
action in the background, the depth that we've already talked
about, but also using these compact zooms to really punch in
and accentuate the details. Fantastic stuff.
So stunning work from those behind the camera, Adnan, Knives
Out, Prestige and identity. Special mention should also go
to Bob Dux's editing and the incredible production design by
David Crank. Yes, definitely.
The end. The walls are closing in on
Marta as the Thrombie family attempt to tighten their grip,
but a shot and revelation at the laundromat sets blanks.
Mind racing about doughnuts? Yeah.
First up, Marta, under pressure from the thrombies, from the
media, from lawyers, slips out of her house the back way and is
startled by Walt, who comes lumbering to water, backlit with
that incredible lightning that I mentioned earlier.
Who knows what he was up to, considering Marta shocks him and
he makes a feeble attempt at covering his tracks.
Hey, how are you doing it? But he was going to say
something else, so who knows what he was up to.
I really like the performance from Michael Shannon here.
We've talked about him because Shannon is an actor.
He's got his reputation playing strange, unhinged, weird
characters. Yeah, but up to now Walt has
been this trampled upon whipping boy in the Thrombie family.
He's Fredo Corleone, isn't he? Yes, but he really leans into
the Michael Shannon that we know and love in this scene.
Creepy, unpredictable, probably a bit of a sleaze as well.
Yeah, yeah. When he's putting the squeeze on
Martyr about the inheritance and reveals that he knows about her
mother's illegal residential status.
So the stakes are raised. But Marta gets out of it
beautifully, she says. So you're saying that with the
family's resources, you could help me fix this so my mother
wouldn't need to go away? And Walt thinks he's cracked it.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. But then Marta ties him up a
knot. All right.
OK. So, Harland, give me all of your
resources. So with my resources, I'll be
able to fix it. So I guess I'll be able to find
the right lawyers. Amazing, Amazing writing.
And great to see Marta sticking up for herself and not being
allowed to be bullied. Yeah, yeah.
Which is always the case when it comes to our mother.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it is. We've got the chance to get the
evidence that we need, but it's all gone up in flames, it seems.
So what kind of person would burn down a whole building?
Well, you sitting right next to you, I think, and that's the
point. And we're so invested in this,
this moment where ransoms like asking her all the questions.
Did you get an e-mail? Well, there it is.
And it's just clear as day on later viewings what he's doing.
He's such a snake and he's so much there and then you say
blank, it's on this telephoto so it's miles ways.
It was spying on him and he then clock smarter and you think what
blogs coming for it. He's sussed it out now they've
gone too far. There's no CCTV footage that's
great. That didn't really need to be in
there. Great.
And then what ensues is just incredible.
The dumbest car chase of all time is, Ellie says later on.
But it is a car chase at the same pace as the whole
narrative. It goes at 60 miles an hour
because the whole film's going between 30 and 60.
It doesn't break the speed limit is the narrative doesn't break
your intelligence limit. It doesn't take you too far.
It doesn't speed out of control and I love that little moment as
well where you see her phone and it's the screen smashed and
everyone else's phone is pristine and it's all fine, but
she's kind of working through it.
But it just says maybe baby Blanc on it.
Brilliant. So he's in there somewhere and
then it's the way that she takes people on here.
It's Marta out, Fox in them, not out running them.
So it's like she's playing the same game again and getting
through the small like apps using her ability and using a
car, which is an import, by the way, Hyundai, it's obviously not
made there. So again, reflects who she is
and her personality and she's slipping away from the
authorities. And then we'll get to the point
where the do you think the vote ran them and the pull up and
you've got just talking ransom and he then reiterates the
address as if he knows it off by heart and just because obviously
he's involved in all that and then she's apologized.
Sorry, got you into this. It's just that knock on the
window just there. You haven't got time to talk
about this. It's so good because it's
grounded in that realism. It's just there and she's got
her hands up and we think, right, well, she's getting
pulled in now because they found this and just of the know that
somebody climbed at the trust and then they bring Ransom in
and she brings her arms down and just reveals blanks behind us.
If like I've got your back door, worry about it.
It's a great control of the narrative, great control of
motivations for each character, and more importantly, it's a
great control of person. He doesn't lose track of it
here, which he could have very, very easily.
Yeah, it's a. It's a great sequence.
Amazing when Blank pulls up beside Martyr in the car and
gestures towards his four legs picking up.
It's me ringing you. Maybe be blank.
Definitely is. And this scene starts off with
the medical examiners building up in flames.
A scene before this when Marta goes to see Ransom at his house,
there's an array of jugs behind him and there's a space where it
appears one is missing. Right.
That is the jug that Ransom used for the Molotov cocktail to burn
down the medical examiner. Brilliant.
Oh God, I. Know it's great.
I'm getting a headache just thinking about how much genius
this is where I'm nearly finished.
And during this car chase, he can see, you know, to Ryan
Johnson's first film, Brick. The midnight tunnel symbol can
be seen spray painted on the wall when they go down the back
alley, which looks like the letter.
A Oh, that rounded A. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah. Nice little touch.
And then finally, about 90 minutes in the film, we get what
is the closest thing to a murder, which, you know, we've
just not had so far. And it's the one expecting
because this is more to find and fun in the basement.
And it's another great example of the film taking you on one
track and then just spinning another way, because up until
now, Fran has been just a peripheral figure, really.
And now we'll find it's just tied up, injected with morphine
in the basement. What's she got to do with this
now? What's happening now?
Like, is she really blackmailing Martyr?
Because that seems to have come out of nowhere.
That doesn't mean to. And of course, you get another
clue he as to who's actually behind all this.
Hugh did it, which is, you know, so easy to miss first time
around. And it's just classic stuff,
really. Creepy basement, dripping water,
dark shadows, sudden spider across the face.
It's all brilliantly done. But it says evident about Marta
as a character that even in this moment, her first reaction is to
try to save Fran with CPR and then get at a hospital.
Even though if Fran is saved, it's going to expose Marta
because God admit, she still thinks she's responsible for
Harlan's death. And someone's going to expose
her even if it's Fran and she's so intent and confessing.
Like even all that means she'll forfeit the inheritance.
Like even in the the hospital waiting room that tells mom
that's what she has to do. So it's very funny when it just
got the Blanc singing along in the car, the ambulance pulling
up. Oh Lord, until he realizes.
It. But it's another brilliant
moment because you just don't know where this is going now.
And increasingly it's getting more and more tense because we
know we're getting to the end. And there's just no sign that
Martyr can get out of this in any way, shape or form.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we mentioned the film
earlier, The Last of Sheila, when discussing Ryan Johnson's
influences for the film. Massive influence on Glass
Onion. Yeah, the start of it, right?
That film was Co written by Stephen Sondheim, the Broadway
composer. Sondheim also wrote the song
Losing My Mind for the Play of Follies, which Blank sings in
the car when he's waiting for Martyr outside the laundromat.
Yeah, right, right. And Daniel Craig, being a big
Liza Minnelli fan, surprisingly requested that Johnson used the
Minnelli version of Losing My Mind for this scene.
Nice. And to tie it all together,
Laurence Olivier based his character in the film Sleuth on
Stephen Sodeheim himself. Brilliant.
Another layer. Another detail.
It's incredible. They're the biggest lasagna I've
ever seen. 10 foot lasagna. So Ransom is arrested, Fran has
been poisoned, and Martyr is going to spill her guts to the
family. Thankfully, Blank knows more
than he's letting on. Thank God.
Thank God, Yeah. We're bringing it all back home
with Blank Confront and Ransom, Ransom, Confront and Martyr and
the aftermath with the Thrombie family unit in tatters.
And we're starting with the hole at the centre of this doughnut.
A doughnut hole in a doughnut's hole.
But now the doughnut hole has a hole in its centre.
It is a small doughnut with its own hole.
And our doughnut is not Hall at all.
What on earth are you talking about, Benoit?
Great. Metaphor.
Lynch But taking it a step further, as you mentioned that
what is going on? But Johnson was on the verge of
removing Blanc's whole dawn analogy from the film.
Craig convinced him to give him a shot at the speech, and his
delivery encouraged Johnson to keep it in.
I mean, I'm not surprised. It does make sense of it.
I'm thrilled he kept it in because it's just such delicious
dialogue and delivery. Yeah, Benoit unravels an
intriguing combination of factors.
Is it Fran? No, the answer is not so simple.
A great visual of Ben Wild Blanc with a knife mural behind him.
Like you mentioned earlier. USD Hugh Ransom Drysdale is then
brought in and he's completely underestimated Benoit here or
thought he was smarter than him. And then we go right back to the
night of with a fresh perspective.
Your quote at the top, mat. It's my favorite line in the
film because Benoit blog is now revealing his actual
personality. He's not this Mr. Nicey Nicey.
He is quite cynical and he is quite sarcastic.
He's playing his hand now. He's playing his hands.
What were the overheard words by the Nazi child masturbating in
the bathroom? Holy shit that's great.
Yeah, he's not messing about. It turns out Ransom was furious
that he was cut off from Harlan, that Marta was getting it.
And then he forms a plan. He sneaks in, switches the
medications, then steals the antidote.
Turns out that Marta gave a Holland the right medication and
Harlan would have been fine. Yeah, but he goes back the next
day, suicide on his hands. The plot thickens.
I love that shot that pushes past the knife configuration,
zooms into Blanc as he turns around and says enter Benoit
Blanc. Blanc.
Yes, yeah. Yeah, fantastic.
Yeah. And I mentioned to the
conversation that Fran had earlier with Marta about a film
she saw called Deadly by Surprise starring Danica
McCullough. She's basically telling the
details of Harlan's death. She got poisoned unknowingly,
then committed suicide. And that's what mother
references he is. She was telling me what was
happening. Yeah.
Also, Danica McKellar is a real actress.
When she realized she got name dropped in the film, she sent
Johnson a knife in green with Deadly by Surprised as a gift.
Oh wow, nice. Very nice.
So this is just a wonderfully constructed plan and counter
plan. It's airtight, but it's very
difficult to wrap your head around it.
Like I said at the top, just committing to the right like
this, a commitment to the mystery that Ryan Johnson has
and a great example of seeing it through to the third act all the
way through sticking the landing.
But we're not done yet, are we not?
We're not, Because then Marta takes the call from the
hospital. Fran's OK.
Ransom's under arrest. But not before he reveals even
more of his true colors with this ranted martyr.
We took you into our home, we welcomed you and our family, and
now you think you can steal it from us?
It's the voice of unearned privileged speaking.
She's done nothing wrong, apart from being a far better person
to his grandfather than Ransom ever was.
And he just can't see that at all.
And when he called it our birthright, our ancestral
family, it's, it's clear what he means.
She's not American, so therefore she's worthless.
She's inferior because he's white and that's all that
matters. But it doesn't kind of hammer it
home too much. It just moves on.
Because then when Blanc laughs in his face, that.
Is who he? Paula bought it from a Pakistani
real estate billionaire. In the 80s in.
The 80s. Yeah, exactly.
So the whole thing is bullshit. It's all built.
This whole family is built on bullshit and Ransom's reaction
is so funny because he just can't take it anymore.
Oh shut up Blanc, shut up, shut up with that Kentucky fight
Foghorn Leghorn drawl. It's the last Draw fame.
And then it's the small revelations come thick and fast
ransom. He just confesses everything
because he's so smug in his privileged belief that he still
won't get serious jail time because he's got a great lawyer.
He's really in martyrs face. She then spews in his face.
So France actually dead. She's been lying.
So he's screwed. So as he says, in for a penny
and that's slow. More lunge with a knife.
The way the camera follows the pair of them down.
That's an amazing shot. And then we get the pay off.
We mentioned earlier Holland talking about Ransom, saying he
wouldn't even know the difference between a real knife
and a prop knife. Yeah.
And the brilliance is we've all forgotten that line.
So there's about 10 seconds where you think, oh, shit, he's
killed it because it looks like he has until he pulls it out.
And the expression on his face when he just tries it again
twice just to double check it's and it won't go in.
He goes, well, shit. It's.
Such a brilliant way to wrap it up for these two characters
because it sums them up. Ransom can't tell the difference
between a real life and a prop knife, but Marta can tell the
difference between the two vials of medicine.
Oh yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The fake vomit in this scene was made-up of baby food.
The cast were fascinated by the concoction.
Dharma said that they all went outside with the fake vomit to
test the texture and to see how far they could project the
eyelet. Evans said simply about the
whole scene. I didn't love getting the puke
in my face. He wouldn't.
Yeah. And then there's that really
brilliant sit down between Martyr and Blanc and they're
across from each other. There's no bullshit straight
down the line. Everything's on the table now.
And he says you got away with it not by playing their game or
Harlan's game, but by playing your own, just by being a
genuine good person. And I think that's a wonderful
message to anybody watching. It is like, you know, you can't
focus on anything that's meant for you.
So just be genuine and just be nice.
And everything that lands should land for a reason.
And that's the whole point. This feels wide open for me
because I feel like she's going to make them earn their way
back. I don't think she takes
everything and shuts the door. I think because Blank says, I
have a feeling you will feeling you'll follow your heart.
Basically, you're good because you're a good person.
Because you're a kind of person, You're not really going to let
them suffer. But at the same time, she's not
letting them off the hook. I don't think she's slamming the
door in the face. She's now above them tower and
above them. She's now in charge of them.
So she is now at the place where they are.
Her help, really. And they switch places and
they'll be known and they have to now work to get recognition.
They now have to work to be part of that house.
So I think she will welcome them back in between the legs.
Yeah, I think it's her. Her coffee, her rules, her
house. And that's the whole point.
I don't think she slams the door on anybody.
OK. But it's good that it ends in
that shut off and it doesn't go and a yearly in Holland's now
doing this and they're doing this.
That would be absolutely crap. So a wonderful ending to a
wonderful film. That is, it really, really is,
yeah. I mean, one of the very first
shots we see, apart from the establishing shot of the dogs
running out, is the real close up of that mug, which says my
house, my rules, my coffee on it.
And it bookends the film beautifully.
And I think Johnson wanted to put something in.
It's got the first shot of the big imposing house.
He wanted to break the tension with kind of a goofy modern joke
mug. But it's got more to it than
that. There's more subtext than that.
And it really hits all my nature brings it up.
You don't really see all of the words either.
It's on her and she owns that mug now if you think it's even
better. Yeah, during production, Johnson
thought it'd be a good idea to include it in the final shot.
Where might it takes a sip? Johnson said.
Then we were doing that close up.
She was in the balcony. And I yelled up, sip the tea.
And she brought it in the frame. And those words came up
obscured, like you said, Westie, But we know what it means.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he said it was a perfect ending to the film.
And it is. It's great.
It's a great bookend. It is brilliant the way that
just cut. So you must have just known
right there. Just cut that.
Yeah, done. So a glorious ending with
everyone getting exactly what they deserve.
Yes. Yeah.
Or maybe not. Reception and awards.
Names Out premiered at the Toronto International Film
Festival on September 7th, 2019 and was met with a rapturous
reception to safeguard the film until the late November general
released. Johnson said at the festival.
Like Hitchcock said, please don't spoil our ended.
It's the only one we've got. Yes, yeah.
Yeah, the buzz continued to grow as the film played a fantastic
fest in Austin, the Chicago International Film Festival and
the BFI London Film Festival. Yeah, it did a little bit of a
tour, and when it was finally released 27th of November, it
was a massive critical hit. Yeah, yeah, Mark Kermode,
writing in the Observer, gave her four out of five and said as
with the very best who done it's everything is set up and
sneakily signalled in the opening moments of the drama.
But it's only on 2nd viewing that those early clues become
evident. Ryan Johnson's homage to Agatha
Christie delivers laughs, twists and thrills with aplomb.
Kermode knows what time it is. Yep.
Yeah, in Empire, the film also got four out of five, saying
Rian Johnson put his own spin on Dashiell Hammett with 2005's
Brick. Now he's Johnsonized the work of
Agatha Christie with equal enjoyable results.
Knives Out is snappy, meta and yes, shop.
It is that unfortunately, Roger Ebert was no longer with us when
Knives Out was released, but it was reviewed by Brian Talarico
on rogerebert.com. What do you think the Brian man
gave it out of four fellas? 3 1/2.
Yeah, they go. Halves.
Yeah, they go. They went halves. 3 1/2.
And they also went 3 1/2, Wesley.
Well done. 3 1/2 out of four. He said Ryan Johnson's Knives
Out is one of the most purely entertaining films in years.
It is the work of a cinematic magician, one who keeps you so
focused on what the left hand is doing that you miss the right.
Yes, yeah, yeah. And now it has 7.9 out of 10 on
IMDb. And I'm Rotten Tomorrow is 97%
from critics, 92% from audiences.
Big reviews led the way for big box office numbers.
On a $40 million budget, Knives Out returned 312.9 million
worldwide. It was never going to be a big
fish during awards season, but it performed admirably.
It got 1 Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, but
lost out to Can you? Yes, 20/20/2020 He was our
parasite. Boom.
Just like that Matt. Love it.
Matty Mania. The same nomination and winner
at the Baftas as well it. Did get more awarded the Golden
Globes or three in total? Best Actor for Daniel Craig,
Best Actress for Ana de Amas and Best Film in Musical or comedy.
It did get three wins at the Saturn Awards, Best thriller,
best support and Actress for Diamas and best Editing.
So critical and box office success for a film that cinema
goers took to their hearts. A few smatterings of award
nominations didn't go amiss either.
All in all, an incredibly successful venture for a genre
that some thought it had its day.
Yeah. Definitely.
Sequels and influence. In an interview with Variety of
the time of release, Ryan Johnson said that he was
interested in expanding an Ives out world, but besides Benoit
Blanc, he had no interest in bringing any of the characters
back. No, that's very Agatha Christie
that I think. And he also said each Knives Out
film is something I want to make.
If that stops being the case, we won't do another one.
But he was true he's word. Rian Johnson signed A2 picture
deal with Netflix and in 2022 released the sequel glass onion.
Starring Daniel Craig, Janelle Monáe, Ed Norton, Catherine
Hahn, Leslie Odom junior, Kate Hudson, Dave Batista and
Madeline Klein. It has 91% on rods models and
7.1 out of 10 on IMDb. Yes, indeed.
Then Johnson followed that up with Wake Up Dead Man in 2025,
starring Daniel Craig of course, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Jeremy
Renner, Kaley spinney, Mila Kunis, and Josh O'Connor. 92%
around tomorrow 7.3 out of 10 and IMDb similar.
Both glass onion and wake up dead man followed knives outs
path in being named after songs. Glass onion, The Beatles, Wake
Up Dead Man, YouTube Yes. So 2 sequels Westie, what are
your thoughts on them? I mean the brilliant this is a
brilliant trilogy. I do prefer Wake Up Dead Man if
I have to pick one out of the two sequels.
I love Knives Out, but I think Wake Up Dead Man was just
slightly more refined. I think Glassonian felt a bit
rushed, but I think shifting the pace totally for Wake Up Dead
Man works the locations different.
Everything just feels different and it feels like it's had a lot
more thought put into it. But one of the best trilogies of
recent years. Yes, big claim.
I love it. Yeah.
What about you, Matt? Thoughts on the sequels?
Yeah, I think I'm very, very similar here.
I mean, yeah, in general it's an incredibly strong trilogy that
do have pretty much the same level of quality throughout.
But I think if I did have to pick one is the weakest, it
would be Glass Onion. I think it's just a little bit
overstuffed, a little bit too many celeb cameos and they're a
little over long and. Glossy in it.
Bit too glossy in the Murder it. The Harvard just isn't that
interesting compared to Knives Out, and the one thing they've
nailed every time out is casting who the film is really about.
Because Janelle Monáe is brilliant in glass.
She's amazing. That that twist, and you know,
if you've not got under, but that twist where you realize
she's playing twins and she's playing a dead sister, that's
incredible. Yeah.
Yeah, I did think Wake Up Dead Man was much closer to Knives
Out. I love the gothic setting.
Again, impeccable casting. Joshua Connor is so good.
Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, and it might just have the
best murder of the three so far, OK.
And like Knives Out, it's got a bit more subtext to it.
You know, it is about faith in belief.
So I think just adds a lot to it.
So yeah, that's how I feel about them.
Yeah, I'm not dissimilar in any way to you 2 fellas.
I think they are inferior than Knives Out, but they are great.
I watched them pretty much as often as the original.
They've become a nice Christmas film because of their release
dates as well, which I think. Is quite nice.
Yeah, I think Wake Up Dead Man is probably better than Glass
Onion, but there's not much in it.
No, no. And it would be possibly compete
with Knives. I were enough for some elements
of the third act that didn't sing for me.
OK. Yeah.
I'll say that my favorite performance across the sequels
is like you much, you know, money and Glass Onion, an
impeccable jewel role. She's amazing.
But niggles aside, I love that the settings are different.
I love the ensemble cast, the mysteries and Johnson and Craig
return and is always a joy. Yeah.
Yes, it is a modern film, but there's been a lot that's
coming. It's work.
So in the years since its release, where we've seen Knives
Out influence and legacy. In terms of legacy, I think
Knives Out basically reinvented the murder mystery for the 20
twenties. Before this film came along, the
genre was in a bit of a rut. Kenneth Branner had done Murder
on the Orient Express, which was fine.
It looked nice, but it felt like I've seen it all before.
Stuffy. Stuffy.
No risks with it was there. No risks, no, But Naizag came
along and showed everybody that you could honour the traditions
of Christie in the golden age of The Who don't know while making
something that felt contemporary and vital and funny and had
something to say about the world we live in.
That's a much harder trick to pull off.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the ripple effect has been enormous since.
Now he's out, you've had. See how they run the Thursday
Murder Club murder mystery and its sequel?
Countless Agatha Christie adaptations popping up on
Netflix and other streamers. Yeah, and I wouldn't be
surprised if Death on the Nile and A Haunt in Venice were green
lit because of Knives Out. Sure, yeah.
But my favorite thing to come out of the whole Renaissance is
Ryan Johnson's Poker Face Star in the magnificence.
Natasha Lyonne. It's a different format.
It's episodic. It's TV.
It's a how catch him rather than a who done it.
But it's got that same energy, great writing, great characters.
And Natasha Lyonne is, I mean, you know how I feel about her.
She's a man. Yeah.
Matt, what do you think? In terms of legacy and
influence, I think just heartening, not a completely
original idea in an old established genre.
Can work and hopefully it's legacy will be more directors,
writers, whoever start doing that with their own I DS.
I think legacy wise is obviously made under Armours.
The star that she is today, it's absolutely huge for her career.
But maybe it's biggest legacy is on Daniel Craig himself, because
pretty much every other actors took on the Bond role, probably
The only exception being Connery.
That's the role. I will always define them in the
public eye and the struggle to escape that.
I honestly think you look at Daniel Craig and just as many
people will go Benoit Blanc, that's his best role, not Bond.
Yeah, Yeah. And he's completely escaped the
shackles of Bond now. And he was great as Bond,
certainly not saying. Anything different?
The thing is, there's always going to be another Bond.
I can't imagine anyone else doing the Benoit Blanc role.
No way. Yeah.
I think one of its biggest legacy is where to put Daniel
Craig as an actor. Fantastic.
What about USD influence and legacy?
Yeah, I'll just reiterate what both you guys are saying.
I think it's bringing intelligence cinema back to the
masses. Gracious, huge thank God for
that. That's just shown that cinema is
alive and it is well, but you need an altar and you need
somebody who understands where it came from.
You know, it's sure the casts of big names can get along.
It showed that it's not about that anymore.
The egos are out the window. Everybody knows everything about
everybody's lives. So the, you know, the status of
an actor isn't necessarily on top of everything else.
Anna Diamus came from nothing when she did this.
Really. Yeah.
We're going to really have to test actors and we're going to
have to give them space and freedom to perform and direct.
There's space and freedom to create.
Because if you do that and you put it on the page and you make
sure you do it right and you give them the money, you
perform. You're going to get actors who
are happy. You're going to get crews that
are really inventive. You're going to get directors
who are really excited, and you're going to get 3 films that
are really excellent and are going to make money.
So sit back, pay attention, and look at what can be done when
you give nerds for 30 million. Because we're all good at making
money and we don't need explosions to do it.
And that's its legacy. Great, what a legacy it is.
Yes, absolutely. So a modern film that we can
safely see has made a huge impact on the industry already,
and with two sequels under its belt, are we able to consider
the Knives Out trilogy one of the best there is?
I think so. I think that's been the
conversation now, yeah. All the right movies ranking.
Knives Out Big Bloody for our final segment, where we ranked
the film and scored out of 10. Westie Yeah, when you start.
I've been singing its praises throughout the whole podcast and
understandably why, because the more you watch this film, the
more you appreciate it, the more you understand it.
But it is one that I think when we're talking about every
review, the one star off, the half a star off the reserve and
judgment for something. And I feel exactly the same way.
I feel like I'm not 100% satisfied by it and I don't
quite know why because there's nothing else you can fit into
this fucking film to be honest. It's got everything you need
from a car chase to a murder to commentary.
It's got on social situations, racial situations and it's all
in here. Fantastic performances
throughout, but I do feel like there's just something missing
and it will click with us eventually and I think it will
come in time. I think it's one of them films
that you need to leave to marinate a little bit and come
back to it and realize how special it is.
So I'm not going to give a top marks right now, might do in a
few years time, but it's a definite 9 on 10 for me.
And like I say, I can't quite put your finger on why it's not
top, but it just isn't for some reason.
It's bad. Just means I might have a little
bit more to find. OK, Yeah, I understand that,
Westie. Yeah, we've been unequivocal
here. Knives Out is a joy.
The cast atop of the line, including a larger than life
Daniel Craig, who's been one. Blanc has transcended the film,
I think. Yeah.
Ryan Johnson's direction doesn't
get the credit it deserves. For me.
It has a great narrative and really outstanding writing.
Yeah. That screenplay that should be
taught in film school. It should.
I'd say that it's a pitch perfect film for what it sets
out to achieve. Pretty much flawless and cements
it's placed in the lineage of the old time great murder
mystery films. Like you Westie, My natural
reflex would be to go for a nine without even thinking about it.
Knives Out Easy 9 out of 10. But then going through this and
analyzing that score, I need something to bring it down to 9
and I couldn't find anything. I know I'm I'm the same.
That could be time for me. I kind of do it.
I don't need any time, it's a perfect 10.
Oh wow. Amazing.
What about you, Matt? I think films like Knives Out
should just be celebrated from the rafters because the next
time anyone comes home from the cinema and you've been
disappointed by the latest remake, the latest reboot, the
latest 8th sequel to Scream or whatever and you go, Oh no,
originally in Hollywood anymore. Put Knives Out on, you'll feel
1000 times better and you'll realize actually people are
making original films. I mean, granted, yes, Ryan
Johnson had a substantial career before this to fall back on and
get the backing, but all the same, that wasn't a guarantee
for him, for what he wanted to make with no concessions to
anyone. And it was such a massive fit.
And that should give anyone who's got an original idea
motivation, key batter, because you can find your audience.
It's an incredibly entertaining film.
I'm always in the mood for the idea of a Benoit Blanc marathon
across 3 consecutive nights or even A1 night is a wonderful
one. I'm sure we'll do that soon.
Daniel Clear can't get enough for that performance.
The Armas Evans, they're up there with them.
But really it took for me to really analyze it in the way
that we have done in the run up to this, to realize just how
much detail is in this film, how much thinking behind everything,
not just the plot, but the visuals, the soundtrack.
This for me is something that absolutely fulfills the beef of
being a modern classic. So it's a 10 for me as well.
Wow. Boom.
Yeah, very nice. Our 4th and final Scoff and
Knives outcomes from our Patreon community.
Those great guys and gals before the twist ending.
Here are some of their musings on the film.
Derek Horrigan said. Really enjoyed this.
Fun, exciting and a genuine whodunit Daniel create, breaking
free of the Bond shackles and creating a genuinely great new
character and one of the many Hollywood Chris's actually given
a good performance. 9 out of 10. Yep, Yep.
Catherine Price said. I still remember how fun it was
seeing Knives Out in the theatre with my extended family and how
we kept laughing and talking about it for days.
It's just an all around great movie and whoever took Daniel
Craig into becoming a live action Folkhorn Leghorn
detective deserves a Nobel Prize.
It's a ten. Wow, Yep, just like that.
Very nice. Yeah, lovely.
And finally Matt T Overall I've landed on a nine.
I was edging towards 8.5, but I reflected the original idea to
hang together this big cast to introduce James Bond as
something completely new and interesting.
I love how it's shot, I love how it doesn't cheat the audience,
and when compared to the second one, which still a good movie,
it shows it's quality from a filmmaker that clearly loves
this era of detective fiction. Yeah, yeah.
Very much. We're all singing from the same
hymn sheet here. We are, yeah.
A lot of positivity, yeah. What does that mean overall for
the Patreon score out of 10 chaps I'm.
Going to say in it. I'll go 9.
It was a nine brilliant, very solid show and meaning that out
of 40 knives, House scores an incredibly high 38.
Wow. Excellent.
Fully deserved, yeah. Yes, definitely.
All the right movies will be back in two weeks when John West
and Matt will be staying in the 21st century in more ways than
one when they tell the make enough story of Alfonso Quran's
outstanding children of men. Oh boy, that's a total whiplash.
Yeah. That's a change of pace.
Yeah, nice little slice of misery.
This isn't miserable enough so it loses a pint.
Children of Men 11 out of 10. For our studio head and
directors chair patrons, last week we tackled Trey Parker and
Matt Stone on double feature when we talked about South Park,
Bigger, Longer and Uncut, and Team American World Police.
Yep, Yep, we did. We tread carefully and of course
it's all in context. It is all in context, yeah.
Hilarious episodes, so sign up to be an ATR and patron for
that. With a new episode of the Watch
this coming at the start of March.
Yes, yes. If you haven't done it already,
please give us a positive rating on your podcast platform of
choice. It helps us get noticed, so
anything you could do will be much appreciated.
Yes, it will be guys. Thank you.
And as ever, we're on social media around the clock.
We're on X, Blue Sky threads, Instagram, TikTok.
I'll make enough movie threads go up on X and Blue sky.
And just like our podcasts, we go into my new detail on behind
the scenes facts and anecdotes, with all information coming from
at least three sources or from the mouths of the cast and crew.
You can join our Facebook group for another the wonderful movie
community full of great people. Yep, our YouTube channel is
youtube.com/all the Right Movies where you can also listen to our
podcasts and our website is All the Right movies.com.
It is. And that is a wrap, everyone.
We're off to examine a donut hall within a donut hall.
Yes, we are. We are peckish.
We got peckish. Thanks very much for.
Listening. Thanks guys.
Come back in two weeks for
Children of Men.