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Review: Knives Out (2019)
I’ll be real, this movie was hyped up quite a bit for me and it didn’t end up delivering to the extent I’d hoped. It was still good, but it did not take the direction I thought it would. It didn’t give me the mystery thrills I was craving.
Spoilers.
Story
Harlan Thrombey, rich and famous author, was found dead. Benoit Blanc, a private investigator, was anonymously hired to investigate the death.
Marta Cabrera was revealed to be the sole beneficiary of Thrombey’s assets, enraging the Thrombey family. The truth was that Marta did have something to do with the death. After his birthday party, Marta had mistakenly given him morphine instead of his medication. However, Harlan stopped her from calling an ambulance. He asked her to falsify her alibi by sneaking back into the house, and he killed himself to cover up the fact that she had mixed up his medication.
After the reveal, the family was obviously hounding her, in both nice and not so nice ways. Ransom Drysdale, a grandson, offered to help out Marta. Marta received a blackmail note with part of a toxicology report. Marta went to the coroner’s office but found it burned down. Marta had received an email telling her to go to a place but on the way there, Ransom was taken in for questioning and Marta went alone. There, she found Fran who was dying and told her the location of the original toxicology report. Marta called an ambulance to help her. She bumped into Blanc again and she admitted everything to him.
Marta decided to come clean to the Thrombey family but Blanc read the toxicology report and stopped Marta at the last minute. Ransom brought in and Blanc deducted what had really happened. The toxicology report had showed that Harlan did not have any drugs in his system, indicating that Marta had given him the correct dose.
What had really happened was as follows. At Harlan’s birthday party, he had a fight with Ransom where he cut him off and told him that he was giving his entire inheritance to Marta. Ransom stormed out, but he snuck back in, having decided to invoke the slayer rule in which Marta’s inheritance would be invalidated if she was proven to be responsible for his death. He swapped Harlan’s medication by replacing the labels. Fran saw him and thought he was up to no good. Marta had injected Harlan with the correct medication as it felt slightly different; it was only after that she read the labels and thought she’d given him morphine instead. So Harlan was perfectly fine, he only thought he was dying and decided to kill himself. Seeing as how Harlan’s cause of death was his throat being slit, he had to change tactics. Instead, he’d have to get rid of any evidence showing that Marta was innocent; namely, the toxicology report showing Harlan did not have any drugs in his system. Fran was the one who’d gotten the toxicology report from her cousin, but she didn’t quite understand the data, only assuming that it showed that Harlan had drugs in his system. She’d sent the blackmail letter to Ransom, who passed it on to Marta to scare her. And Marta was so stressed that she had confessed to the murder, which would again invoke the slayer rule. That was all stopped because Blanc read the toxicology report showing that Harlan was not drugged. He also realized that Harlan’s mom had seen Ransom climbing up the house the same way Marta had been. Since everything was circumstantial, Ransom thought he’d be let off the hook, but Marta revealed that Fran died in hospital, so at least Ransom could be taken in for her murder. The movie ended with Marta in the Thrombey home, looking down at the Thrombey family.
I think I had a couple of issues with the story. One was that it was not the classic whodunnit that I was hoping for. This was more of a personal preference. I do appreciate that it brought a different kind of mystery in form of a twist at the end, but I would have liked to be kept guessing throughout the entire movie which I wasn’t. But I thought it was poorly executed that we had motives introduced for many of the family members at the beginning of the movie, only for none of them to be considered because we soon found out that Marta was the cause. It felt like all the setup was wasted.
The other issue I had with the movie was the portrayal of good vs. evil. Everyone in the Thrombey family was evil, and Marta was the personification of good. That was why she deserved all of Harlan’s wealth. While I agree that the inheritance brought out the ugly sides of all members of the Thrombey family, I thought the constant emphasis that Marta was a good person was overdone. She was good because she spent time with Thrombey and was a friend to him. She was good because she was supporting her family. She was a good nurse because she was able to tell the right medication without looking at the label (even though she didn’t check the label). And now she wins because she didn’t play the game of greed. I wasn’t aware there was a game at all, and I can’t be sure that Marta didn’t care about the money at all, even if just as a tool to withhold from the nasty Thrombey family.
So overall it was okay. It was still a good mystery, I was just coming into it with the wrong expectations.
Production
I was under the impression that this was an ensemble movie but it mostly revolved around Ana de Armas as Marta. She was fine. Again I think a lot of her writing did the work for her. The rest of the acting was okay I guess. Daniel Craig’s accent wasn’t doing it for me. And I felt that most of the other characters only had very limited, stereotypical roles to play.
Characters
Marta Cabrera
Marta was the main character of the movie. She was Harlan’s nurse. They had a good relationship, in which they joked around and played go. But Marta also served as Harlan’s confidant in his old age, when his biological family was rarely around. She was a registered nurse, and she lived with her sister and her mom, who was an undocumented immigrant.
Marta was shaken up by the death, even more so when Blanc asked her to stick to him during his investigation. He said that she had nothing to gain, but it was because he saw the splatter of blood on her shoes. Through their investigation, we saw what had actually happened. Marta had given him morphine instead of medication but when she called the police, Harlan stopped her and made her falsify her alibi so that she would get away with it and her family would be safe.
Things really escalated when Marta was named the sole beneficiary of Harlan’s will. Of course the Thrombey family was angry. Ransom helped her out and she spilled everything to him because she couldn’t hold it in. Ransom offered to help her in exchange for part of the money, but what he was really doing was trying to frame her. Still, Marta went through the motions and in the end it was revealed that she hadn’t given Harlan the morphine and her judgment was good. The movie ended with her standing atop the home. It’s ambiguous what she’ll do, but the cup saying “My House, My Rules,” implies that she’ll keep the money and keep living her life by her morals.
My issue with Marta was that did she really act with kindness? Sure, she cared for Harlan and she was a decent nurse I guess. My issue was that I can’t really think of how she acted with kindness in a way that led to Ransom being outed as the culprit. She did eventually reveal her truth, but she had still originally intended to collect and hide the evidence. And as I mentioned, while I didn’t think Marta cared that much for the money, what does it mean that she wanted to withhold it from the Thrombeys for their nasty behaviour? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, maybe it’s morally neutral. But I can’t for sure say that Marta was anything other than a decent nurse. I won’t say she’s a saint, she was just doing her job.
Benoit Blanc
Blanc was the private investigator who was anonymously hired to investigate Harlan’s death. I genuinely think he was supposed to be the star, the charismatic character that drew everyone in. Unfortunately, his accent threw me off. And as Marta mentioned at the end, maybe he wasn’t the best PI if Marta had to hand her evidence over to him. Blanc wasn’t as charismatic as I expected him to be.
It was revealed that Blanc was actually hired by Ransom, who wanted him to prove that Marta had switched the medicine and killed Harlan, but that worked against him because Blanc uncovered the fact that Marta did not kill Harlan.
Harlan Thrombey
Harlan was a rich and famous author who had a troubling relationship with his kids. They were all vultures in a way, after his enormous wealth. He felt that cutting them off would force them to go off and fulfill their true potential. He knew it would be unpopular, but it was decision. He also decided to give it to Marta. But given how Harlan decided to cut off his family for their own good, what does it mean that he’s giving all of his wealth to Marta? I still can’t wrap my head around the narrative. It sounds like the writers believe that good people like Marta deserve money and bad people deserve to be cut off. But it’s also weird to measure goodness with wealth.
Anyway, Harlan grew close with Marta and that was why he wanted to give everything to her. He cared for her family and worried that her mom would be deported if Marta went to jail so he even covered for her. He fabricated her alibi, and he killed himself so that the cause of death would be suicide and not the morphine.
I feel like there’s a desire for the story to put Harlan on a pedestal as the great justice who can tell who’s good and who’s not, and that’s why Marta ends up with all the money. But I don’t think that’s true. I just think he was an old man who got fed up with his family being vultures, and whose best friend in his old age was his nurse.
Linda Drysdale née Thrombey
Linda was Harlan’s oldest daughter. She was proud of her self-made real estate business. I think she was most excited about inheriting the old home and was obviously upset about it not going to her. Ransom revealed that she was only able to start the business because of a million-dollar loan she received from Harlan. Ransom also noted that Linda and Richard had a prenup so that was why Richard would never divorce Linda.
Linda seemed somewhat apathetic to her son being arrested. That’s one of the issues I had with the portrayals of the family, they didn’t seem to have a much fleshed out relationship with each other as family. At the end of the movie, Linda found out about Richard’s infidelity, and she was a bit upset, but we were left hanging as to how she would lay it out with Richard.
Richard Drysdsale
Richard and Harlan had gotten into a fight as Harlan found out about Richard’s infidelity. Harlan had written a letter to Linda telling her about it, threatening to tell her if Richard wouldn’t. After Harlan’s death, Richard tried to find the letter and he did, but it was blank. We only found out at the end of the movie, but it was because the note was written in invisible ink that Linda could read after heating up the letter. As mentioned, Ransom said that Richard and Linda had a prenup, and that was why Richard would never divorce his wife.
Hugh Ransom Drysdale
Ransom was the son of Linda and Richard. His thing was that he’d never held a job. At Harlan’s birthday party, he was upset that his grandfather would cut him off, and give his wealth all to Marta. He stormed off, but decided to sneak back in and frame Marta. The only person who’d noticed was Wanette, but everybody ignored her words, thinking her senile.
After the reveal of Marta being the beneficiary, Ransom acted a friend and a listening ear. Marta admitted all to Ransom, and Ransom offered to help in exchange for the money. He was also tampering evidence to make Marta look guilty so that the slayer rule would be invoked.
When Blanc interrogated him, Ransom said that they had no evidence. He might be convicted of attempted murder on Fran, but not much else would stick, and Marta had confessed. However, Fran was later revealed to be dead, so now Ransom was guilty of murder.
Ransom’s motives were pretty standard. He was bitter about Marta receiving the wealth because she wasn’t part of the family.
Joni Thrombey
Joni was the daughter-in-law of Harlan, the widow of his deceased son. She was something of an influencer/guru/failed entrepreneur. She was double-dipping into Harlan’s wealth, using her daughter Meg’s tuition as an excuse. Harlan’s people would wire money to Meg’s school, but he was also writing cheques to Joni for the tuition. Her business was actually not doing well at all, so she needed the money.
Meg Thrombey
Meg was Joni’s daughter. I think she was in university, probably studying some kind of liberal arts degree based on how some of the other family members were making fun of her. Meg was probably one of the few characters that had a more interesting nuance to her. Right from the beginning we saw that Meg and Marta were friend.
However, things changed when Meg’s tuition and her family’s money situation was threatened. She revealed to the Thrombeys that Marta’s mother was undocumented. She was also pressured by the family to call Marta to ask for the money back, to which Marta disagreed gently.
To me, Meg feels like the kind of privileged person who wants to pretend that they’re friends with the common people, but will also drop them when they are inconvenienced at all.
But at the end, Marta just forgave Meg and all of that was water under the bridge.
Walt Thrombey
Walt was Harlan’s younger son and responsible for publishing his books. Near the beginning, Linda said that she wouldn’t snitch on her brother and cause infighting, but it was implied that Walt barely did any work. We found out that at the birthday party, Walt had tried once again to convince Harlan to have his books adapted into movies or TV shows, but Harlan disagreed once again. In fact, Harlan took the publishing rights out of Walt’s hands, telling him that he was now free to do his own business and wouldn’t have to be saddled with managing Harlan’s. Walt would often call Harlan’s books “our books,” implying that he thought he was just as instrumental to writing them as Harlan was, which was obviously not the case.
Walt had come to Marta’s home threatening her mom’s situation, and saying that the Thrombey family could help her mom with hiring the best lawyers. But Marta fought back, saying that all that money was with Marta right now so she could hire her own top notch lawyers if needed.
Donna Thrombey
Donna was Walt’s wife, but she didn’t have much of a role.
Jacob Thrombey
Jacob was Walt and Donna’s son. Walt described him as politically active, but the rest of the family called him a Nazi. It seemed he’d fallen down some alt-right rabbit holes on the internet. Of course he was upset when he thought Marta was taking advantage of Harlan. But seeing as how he was just a kid, all he had were words.
Wanetta
Wanetta was Harlan’s old senile mother who didn’t respond to much. She recognized everyone as Ransom.
When Marta was climbing up and down the house, Wanetta spotted her and was her sole witness. However, she asked of Ransom was back again already, implying that someone else had climbed that way earlier that night.
Fran
Fran was the housekeeper and the person who had discovered Harlan’s body. Prior to Harlan’s death, she’d seen Ransom sneaking around and she made note of it, especially because she didn’t like Ransom. After Harlan’s death, she blackmailed him with parts of the toxicology report which she got from her cousin who was a receptionist at the coroner’s office, only she didn’t understand the data and didn’t realize it showed that Harlan didn’t have drugs in his system.
Ransom passed on Fran’s blackmail report to Marta, and later set up the meeting between the two to pin Fran’s death on Marta. However, Marta called the ambulance to save Fran. Fran told Marta that the toxicology report was in the weed stash. Initially, she’d said to Marta that “you did it.” However, she was actually saying “Hugh did it.”
Fran eventually died, and Ransom would be arrested for her death/
Themes
This movie seemed to emphasize the importance of good vs. evil. It surprised me because I expected this to be a noir movie, in which good and evil don’t really play a role. In fact, good vs. evil doesn’t tend to play that big of a role in murder mysteries because all suspects have dirt on them. Everyone has done bad things, but not all of us have committed murder. And that was supposed to have been how we saw the family members, but the story did not get around to exploring all of them.
Overall
It was okay, but it didn’t fulfill what I would have wanted from a good murder mystery. It was a bit too streamlined, and the message was heavy-handed yet didn’t really say what I think it wanted to say.
Spoilers.
Story
Harlan Thrombey, rich and famous author, was found dead. Benoit Blanc, a private investigator, was anonymously hired to investigate the death.
Marta Cabrera was revealed to be the sole beneficiary of Thrombey’s assets, enraging the Thrombey family. The truth was that Marta did have something to do with the death. After his birthday party, Marta had mistakenly given him morphine instead of his medication. However, Harlan stopped her from calling an ambulance. He asked her to falsify her alibi by sneaking back into the house, and he killed himself to cover up the fact that she had mixed up his medication.
After the reveal, the family was obviously hounding her, in both nice and not so nice ways. Ransom Drysdale, a grandson, offered to help out Marta. Marta received a blackmail note with part of a toxicology report. Marta went to the coroner’s office but found it burned down. Marta had received an email telling her to go to a place but on the way there, Ransom was taken in for questioning and Marta went alone. There, she found Fran who was dying and told her the location of the original toxicology report. Marta called an ambulance to help her. She bumped into Blanc again and she admitted everything to him.
Marta decided to come clean to the Thrombey family but Blanc read the toxicology report and stopped Marta at the last minute. Ransom brought in and Blanc deducted what had really happened. The toxicology report had showed that Harlan did not have any drugs in his system, indicating that Marta had given him the correct dose.
What had really happened was as follows. At Harlan’s birthday party, he had a fight with Ransom where he cut him off and told him that he was giving his entire inheritance to Marta. Ransom stormed out, but he snuck back in, having decided to invoke the slayer rule in which Marta’s inheritance would be invalidated if she was proven to be responsible for his death. He swapped Harlan’s medication by replacing the labels. Fran saw him and thought he was up to no good. Marta had injected Harlan with the correct medication as it felt slightly different; it was only after that she read the labels and thought she’d given him morphine instead. So Harlan was perfectly fine, he only thought he was dying and decided to kill himself. Seeing as how Harlan’s cause of death was his throat being slit, he had to change tactics. Instead, he’d have to get rid of any evidence showing that Marta was innocent; namely, the toxicology report showing Harlan did not have any drugs in his system. Fran was the one who’d gotten the toxicology report from her cousin, but she didn’t quite understand the data, only assuming that it showed that Harlan had drugs in his system. She’d sent the blackmail letter to Ransom, who passed it on to Marta to scare her. And Marta was so stressed that she had confessed to the murder, which would again invoke the slayer rule. That was all stopped because Blanc read the toxicology report showing that Harlan was not drugged. He also realized that Harlan’s mom had seen Ransom climbing up the house the same way Marta had been. Since everything was circumstantial, Ransom thought he’d be let off the hook, but Marta revealed that Fran died in hospital, so at least Ransom could be taken in for her murder. The movie ended with Marta in the Thrombey home, looking down at the Thrombey family.
I think I had a couple of issues with the story. One was that it was not the classic whodunnit that I was hoping for. This was more of a personal preference. I do appreciate that it brought a different kind of mystery in form of a twist at the end, but I would have liked to be kept guessing throughout the entire movie which I wasn’t. But I thought it was poorly executed that we had motives introduced for many of the family members at the beginning of the movie, only for none of them to be considered because we soon found out that Marta was the cause. It felt like all the setup was wasted.
The other issue I had with the movie was the portrayal of good vs. evil. Everyone in the Thrombey family was evil, and Marta was the personification of good. That was why she deserved all of Harlan’s wealth. While I agree that the inheritance brought out the ugly sides of all members of the Thrombey family, I thought the constant emphasis that Marta was a good person was overdone. She was good because she spent time with Thrombey and was a friend to him. She was good because she was supporting her family. She was a good nurse because she was able to tell the right medication without looking at the label (even though she didn’t check the label). And now she wins because she didn’t play the game of greed. I wasn’t aware there was a game at all, and I can’t be sure that Marta didn’t care about the money at all, even if just as a tool to withhold from the nasty Thrombey family.
So overall it was okay. It was still a good mystery, I was just coming into it with the wrong expectations.
Production
I was under the impression that this was an ensemble movie but it mostly revolved around Ana de Armas as Marta. She was fine. Again I think a lot of her writing did the work for her. The rest of the acting was okay I guess. Daniel Craig’s accent wasn’t doing it for me. And I felt that most of the other characters only had very limited, stereotypical roles to play.
Characters
Marta Cabrera
Marta was the main character of the movie. She was Harlan’s nurse. They had a good relationship, in which they joked around and played go. But Marta also served as Harlan’s confidant in his old age, when his biological family was rarely around. She was a registered nurse, and she lived with her sister and her mom, who was an undocumented immigrant.
Marta was shaken up by the death, even more so when Blanc asked her to stick to him during his investigation. He said that she had nothing to gain, but it was because he saw the splatter of blood on her shoes. Through their investigation, we saw what had actually happened. Marta had given him morphine instead of medication but when she called the police, Harlan stopped her and made her falsify her alibi so that she would get away with it and her family would be safe.
Things really escalated when Marta was named the sole beneficiary of Harlan’s will. Of course the Thrombey family was angry. Ransom helped her out and she spilled everything to him because she couldn’t hold it in. Ransom offered to help her in exchange for part of the money, but what he was really doing was trying to frame her. Still, Marta went through the motions and in the end it was revealed that she hadn’t given Harlan the morphine and her judgment was good. The movie ended with her standing atop the home. It’s ambiguous what she’ll do, but the cup saying “My House, My Rules,” implies that she’ll keep the money and keep living her life by her morals.
My issue with Marta was that did she really act with kindness? Sure, she cared for Harlan and she was a decent nurse I guess. My issue was that I can’t really think of how she acted with kindness in a way that led to Ransom being outed as the culprit. She did eventually reveal her truth, but she had still originally intended to collect and hide the evidence. And as I mentioned, while I didn’t think Marta cared that much for the money, what does it mean that she wanted to withhold it from the Thrombeys for their nasty behaviour? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, maybe it’s morally neutral. But I can’t for sure say that Marta was anything other than a decent nurse. I won’t say she’s a saint, she was just doing her job.
Benoit Blanc
Blanc was the private investigator who was anonymously hired to investigate Harlan’s death. I genuinely think he was supposed to be the star, the charismatic character that drew everyone in. Unfortunately, his accent threw me off. And as Marta mentioned at the end, maybe he wasn’t the best PI if Marta had to hand her evidence over to him. Blanc wasn’t as charismatic as I expected him to be.
It was revealed that Blanc was actually hired by Ransom, who wanted him to prove that Marta had switched the medicine and killed Harlan, but that worked against him because Blanc uncovered the fact that Marta did not kill Harlan.
Harlan Thrombey
Harlan was a rich and famous author who had a troubling relationship with his kids. They were all vultures in a way, after his enormous wealth. He felt that cutting them off would force them to go off and fulfill their true potential. He knew it would be unpopular, but it was decision. He also decided to give it to Marta. But given how Harlan decided to cut off his family for their own good, what does it mean that he’s giving all of his wealth to Marta? I still can’t wrap my head around the narrative. It sounds like the writers believe that good people like Marta deserve money and bad people deserve to be cut off. But it’s also weird to measure goodness with wealth.
Anyway, Harlan grew close with Marta and that was why he wanted to give everything to her. He cared for her family and worried that her mom would be deported if Marta went to jail so he even covered for her. He fabricated her alibi, and he killed himself so that the cause of death would be suicide and not the morphine.
I feel like there’s a desire for the story to put Harlan on a pedestal as the great justice who can tell who’s good and who’s not, and that’s why Marta ends up with all the money. But I don’t think that’s true. I just think he was an old man who got fed up with his family being vultures, and whose best friend in his old age was his nurse.
Linda Drysdale née Thrombey
Linda was Harlan’s oldest daughter. She was proud of her self-made real estate business. I think she was most excited about inheriting the old home and was obviously upset about it not going to her. Ransom revealed that she was only able to start the business because of a million-dollar loan she received from Harlan. Ransom also noted that Linda and Richard had a prenup so that was why Richard would never divorce Linda.
Linda seemed somewhat apathetic to her son being arrested. That’s one of the issues I had with the portrayals of the family, they didn’t seem to have a much fleshed out relationship with each other as family. At the end of the movie, Linda found out about Richard’s infidelity, and she was a bit upset, but we were left hanging as to how she would lay it out with Richard.
Richard Drysdsale
Richard and Harlan had gotten into a fight as Harlan found out about Richard’s infidelity. Harlan had written a letter to Linda telling her about it, threatening to tell her if Richard wouldn’t. After Harlan’s death, Richard tried to find the letter and he did, but it was blank. We only found out at the end of the movie, but it was because the note was written in invisible ink that Linda could read after heating up the letter. As mentioned, Ransom said that Richard and Linda had a prenup, and that was why Richard would never divorce his wife.
Hugh Ransom Drysdale
Ransom was the son of Linda and Richard. His thing was that he’d never held a job. At Harlan’s birthday party, he was upset that his grandfather would cut him off, and give his wealth all to Marta. He stormed off, but decided to sneak back in and frame Marta. The only person who’d noticed was Wanette, but everybody ignored her words, thinking her senile.
After the reveal of Marta being the beneficiary, Ransom acted a friend and a listening ear. Marta admitted all to Ransom, and Ransom offered to help in exchange for the money. He was also tampering evidence to make Marta look guilty so that the slayer rule would be invoked.
When Blanc interrogated him, Ransom said that they had no evidence. He might be convicted of attempted murder on Fran, but not much else would stick, and Marta had confessed. However, Fran was later revealed to be dead, so now Ransom was guilty of murder.
Ransom’s motives were pretty standard. He was bitter about Marta receiving the wealth because she wasn’t part of the family.
Joni Thrombey
Joni was the daughter-in-law of Harlan, the widow of his deceased son. She was something of an influencer/guru/failed entrepreneur. She was double-dipping into Harlan’s wealth, using her daughter Meg’s tuition as an excuse. Harlan’s people would wire money to Meg’s school, but he was also writing cheques to Joni for the tuition. Her business was actually not doing well at all, so she needed the money.
Meg Thrombey
Meg was Joni’s daughter. I think she was in university, probably studying some kind of liberal arts degree based on how some of the other family members were making fun of her. Meg was probably one of the few characters that had a more interesting nuance to her. Right from the beginning we saw that Meg and Marta were friend.
However, things changed when Meg’s tuition and her family’s money situation was threatened. She revealed to the Thrombeys that Marta’s mother was undocumented. She was also pressured by the family to call Marta to ask for the money back, to which Marta disagreed gently.
To me, Meg feels like the kind of privileged person who wants to pretend that they’re friends with the common people, but will also drop them when they are inconvenienced at all.
But at the end, Marta just forgave Meg and all of that was water under the bridge.
Walt Thrombey
Walt was Harlan’s younger son and responsible for publishing his books. Near the beginning, Linda said that she wouldn’t snitch on her brother and cause infighting, but it was implied that Walt barely did any work. We found out that at the birthday party, Walt had tried once again to convince Harlan to have his books adapted into movies or TV shows, but Harlan disagreed once again. In fact, Harlan took the publishing rights out of Walt’s hands, telling him that he was now free to do his own business and wouldn’t have to be saddled with managing Harlan’s. Walt would often call Harlan’s books “our books,” implying that he thought he was just as instrumental to writing them as Harlan was, which was obviously not the case.
Walt had come to Marta’s home threatening her mom’s situation, and saying that the Thrombey family could help her mom with hiring the best lawyers. But Marta fought back, saying that all that money was with Marta right now so she could hire her own top notch lawyers if needed.
Donna Thrombey
Donna was Walt’s wife, but she didn’t have much of a role.
Jacob Thrombey
Jacob was Walt and Donna’s son. Walt described him as politically active, but the rest of the family called him a Nazi. It seemed he’d fallen down some alt-right rabbit holes on the internet. Of course he was upset when he thought Marta was taking advantage of Harlan. But seeing as how he was just a kid, all he had were words.
Wanetta
Wanetta was Harlan’s old senile mother who didn’t respond to much. She recognized everyone as Ransom.
When Marta was climbing up and down the house, Wanetta spotted her and was her sole witness. However, she asked of Ransom was back again already, implying that someone else had climbed that way earlier that night.
Fran
Fran was the housekeeper and the person who had discovered Harlan’s body. Prior to Harlan’s death, she’d seen Ransom sneaking around and she made note of it, especially because she didn’t like Ransom. After Harlan’s death, she blackmailed him with parts of the toxicology report which she got from her cousin who was a receptionist at the coroner’s office, only she didn’t understand the data and didn’t realize it showed that Harlan didn’t have drugs in his system.
Ransom passed on Fran’s blackmail report to Marta, and later set up the meeting between the two to pin Fran’s death on Marta. However, Marta called the ambulance to save Fran. Fran told Marta that the toxicology report was in the weed stash. Initially, she’d said to Marta that “you did it.” However, she was actually saying “Hugh did it.”
Fran eventually died, and Ransom would be arrested for her death/
Themes
This movie seemed to emphasize the importance of good vs. evil. It surprised me because I expected this to be a noir movie, in which good and evil don’t really play a role. In fact, good vs. evil doesn’t tend to play that big of a role in murder mysteries because all suspects have dirt on them. Everyone has done bad things, but not all of us have committed murder. And that was supposed to have been how we saw the family members, but the story did not get around to exploring all of them.
Overall
It was okay, but it didn’t fulfill what I would have wanted from a good murder mystery. It was a bit too streamlined, and the message was heavy-handed yet didn’t really say what I think it wanted to say.