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IN recent years, murder mysteries featuring an ensemble cast are making a resurgence on the silver screen.
This is in part thanks to Rian Johnson’s wildly popular movie, Knives Out (he has since signed a deal with Netflix to produce a trilogy) and Kenneth Branagh’s remake of Murder on the Orient Express.
More recently, Confess, Fletch with Jon Hamm premiered three weeks ago on demand, and See How They Run is playing in theatres now.
Both movies I suspect will fly under the radar given the lacklustre marketing efforts, but they are equally superb and make for a thrilling double-bill if you have an appetite for whodunits.
See How They Run operates in the same vein as the aforementioned titles. It boasts a spectacular cast featuring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan in lead roles alongside Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, and David Oyelowo. In addition, there is a slew of other younger, popular actors.
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A period piece, the story is set in 1950s London. It centres on a murder that takes place after the 100th staging of Agatha Christie’s West End play, The Mousetrap. The movie fuses fiction and real-life events with dexterity and grace.
The Mousetrap, for instance, is an actual play that was first performed in 1950 and several characters are based on real-life figures. Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) plays actor Richard Attenborough and Pearl Chanda (I May Destroy You) plays Sheila Sim.
Both these actors were part of the original production of The Mousetrap, which is said to be the world’s longest-running play that still runs to this day.
While it would benefit to know a little bit of British cinema history and theatre, since its 90-minute runtime is filled with intertextual nods and references, most of its elements still work even if you went in blind (as I did), thanks largely to Saoirse Ronan’s giddy, enthusiastic portrayal of rookie police officer Constable Stalker.
Her comic ability needs no convincing, especially after Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. It is spotlighted to its highest degree here when placed beside Sam Rockwell’s dreary, droll, and washed-up detective, Inspector Stoppard.
They are assigned to investigate the death of a Hollywood director, but the case takes many turns before all is revealed.
In this respect, it has all the hallmarks of an Agatha Christie mystery: a riddle to solve (the murder), procedural detective work that keeps audiences guessing, and a climatic reveal in front of all its characters.
Where it deviates is in its final third act, when the murderer is finally exposed. Part of Agatha Christie’s long-standing success and appeal as a writer in the genre lies in her ability for highly logical endings.
It deviates from the norm of selecting the “least likely” suspect or randomly choosing from a list of names, which See How They Run traipses into. The result is a forced, laborious ending.
David Oyelowo shines too, as a snobbish, highbrow writer Mervyn Cocker-Norris, in constant, creative clash with Adrien Brody’s Leo Keopernick, a sleazy Hollywood action film director. Their tete-a-tetes on the creative direction of adapting the play are gleefully satisfying to watch.
Screenwriter Mark Chappell takes it a step further by adding a layer of self-reflexivity in their monologues.
They become a commentary on the state of cinema today that relies on action for effect but goes to these same techniques that he derides for the ending, making it all the more amusing. – The Vibes, October 4, 2022
