3/6/2023 0 Comments Knives out marta![]() Marta moves from pawn used to make the Thrombeys feel better (she’s one of the family, they say, until it looks like she really might overtake them), before changing circumstances give her the only power they understand and she’s able to stand up to their threats to tell the authorities about her mother, an undocumented immigrant. It takes Marta the young, kind-hearted caregiver from Ecuador, to be the disruptor in their seething mire of self-aggrandisement – holding up a mirror to their behaviour that they don’t even notice. But even Joni is out for what she can get from her late husband’s father Harlan, screwing him over on the school fees he’s agreed to pay for her teenage daughter Meg. Granted, Joni (Toni Collette) at least veers to the liberal side politically, unlike some of the others who use youngest family member Jacob Thrombey (Jaeden Martell), an alt-right Nazi troll, as a comparator to make their own unpleasant views on class and immigration more palatable. Later, as they see their money being snatched away from them, birthright is very much their main argument as to why they should retain it. In a film stuffed with did he / didn’t she, there are at least two areas of certainty: Marta will vomit whenever she hears or speaks a lie, and every member of the Thrombey family under the age of 85 is awful.Įven the *nice* ones turn out to be grasping and greedy, ignoring their good fortune at being born or married into good fortune while claiming they made it “from the ground up”. And once it does get going, it steadily plays out to provide maximum laughs, clues, and wtf moments at the family’s awful antics.Īnd in this ensemble piece of excellent performances, biting social commentary and vicious humour, de Armas is exceptional, always the blazing light at the centre of the game board. Knives Out may take a little while to get going but it’s still tightly wound and exceptionally well-structured. The next day he’s found with his throat cut, an apparent suicide, but the supposedly easy-to-close case is soon blown open when esteemed private detective Benoit Blanc (a deliciously drawling Daniel Craig) arrives at the house. Harlan, writer of hugely successful mystery novels, retires to his study to play Go and receive his pre-bedtime medication from Marta. ![]() It ends with family black sheep Ransom (Chris Evans) storming out after a money-related meeting with grandpa. He hates his 85th birthday party, filled with his children, in-laws, grandkids and ageing mother Greatnanna Wanetta (a scene-stealing and silent K Callan). He hires Marta (Ana de Armas) to be his nurse but she’s as much a friend and companion, playing board games with him in his attic study. Never able to stop playing games, his relationships with his offspring have been defined by how well they can play by his rules. In Rian Johnson’s traditional murder-mystery, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is rich and lonely, with a huge grasping family so used to him paying for them that they’ve forgotten that he doesn’t have to (though he hasn’t). The greatest mysteries tend to have simple, even prosaic explanations: motives can mostly be distilled down to love or/of money.
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