235SCOPE

Will the Knives Out movies ever bring on a truly surprising ending? Like other reviewers here, I was expecting something akin to an Agatha Christie mystery. After all, the beginning of the movie has strong shades of Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express and Ten Little Indians. No such luck, no major twists or surprises. The movie quickly becomes entangled in its own overly complicated machinations which completely kills any sense of danger or suspense because you're so busy trying to follow the intricacies of the plot that you get lost in them, ultimately losing interest in the characters' fate. Daniel Craig's ridiculously overwrought Southern accent is sometimes so hard to break through that you spend precious seconds trying to decipher what he just said instead of being able to follow the narrative. What is it with British actors going for molasses-in-January Southern accents? Is it a cover-your-bad-American-accents strategy? Anyway, after enduring two hours of this back-and-forth elephant which obviously cost a fortune to produce despite the super tacky CGI-pumped production design (Ken Adam, we miss you), the "great" reveal in the end is so predictable that you end up scratching your head in disbelief. That's it? You end up saying to yourseld. To compensate for the weak denoument, the director unleashes a big fireworks finale the likes of which you haven't seen since Moonraker. I won't be waiting for the third installment of Knives Out with my fists clenched.

The great Frances McDormand repeats every acting trick in this going-everywhere-without-going-anywhere story. If you ever wondered how a film could go on for two hours without any of the characters or the story undergoing any changes whatsoever, you have found your answer. As it progressed, flat tire episode after flat tire episode and laundromat scene after laundromat scene, the film becomes an almost parody of self-conscious pretentiousness, its director clearly hypnotized by her star and the rambling story going absolutely nowhere despite the multiple locations across the US. Why would this have made a better documentary? Because some of the lives it tangentially explores would have provided some interesting narratives had they been more fully developed and had the film moved away from its central character. As it is, the film stays on McDormand's, who doesn't evolve at all. Tedious, overhyped "art film". Do not watch after a full meal.

I hadn't seen this movie when it opened because I was at a different point in my life and was watching too many women's films in film school. Finally, 37 years later, I decided to give it a chance. I was enraptured by the style of the film, the acting, the flesh and blood characters, the beautiful protagonists. It is somewhat slow but its pace is not the kind of pointless slowness that one would sometimes expect. In other words, the film a story that takes place over 10 years through episodes that rely mostly on dialogue between the characters. Kurys, the director, always makes sure that there's a lot going on in every frame and, if you are a good observer, you will be able to contemplate the meticulous production design and the subtlety of the acting, which is constantly transmitting information about the time, the characters' development and the story. As far as women's films go, this one is not to be missed. Isabelle Huppert was never more enchanting. Super elegant cinematography by Bernard Lutic in Panavision.