Movie Convention Research: Knives Out

 Continuing our research on the mystery genre, we watched the movie "Knives Out".  The movie focuses on famous detective Benoit Blanc as he investigates further into the death of a patriarch of a rich but dysfunctional household. Everyone in the houshold becomes a suspect after the death. Now Blanc has to sift through the web of lies to uncover the truth of who commited the murder. 

    The movie conveyed many conventions throughout the film. One, for example, is in the first couple of scenes when a housekeeper is preparing breakfast and goes upstairs to find her boss. After shes checks for him in his bedroom, he suspiciously isnt there. She goes up to the attic to find it very quiet. Then she finds his body laying down with his back against the wall. Finding someone dead is a classic mystery conventions. Suprisingly the housekeeper doesn't seem disturbed by this which gives the viewers the suspision that the housekeeper might have something to do with this. This is the mystery trope of the movie. 

    One of the main elements of the movie we liked was great screenplay of the film. Knives Out challenged conventions, making it a breakthrough film. The themes were presented through each character which made the screenplay that much better. It is a more complex film than normal mysteries. Which draws appeal and goes far beyond a normal mystery film. There was also perfectly times comedic appeals in the film aswell. The costumes were also a great add. Each characters costume was unique to their role. It kind of reminded us of the game clue and how everyone in the game had specitif outfits to go with their names. This appeal made the film much more interesting. 

    Although this is a highly ranked film, there were some aspects we didn't like as much. One of them was the amount of themes in the movie. The movie lacked a focus on one theme and made us confused in some scenes. There was also a lot of names to keep track of and a lack of repeating them. So it wasoften we would forget a characters name until it was brought up again later in the movie. The movie is also a bit transparent. In many mystery movies the audience is forced to ponder on the idea of who the suspect might be. While in Knives out, there was a mixed up focus so it may make the viewers bored in the meantime waiting for the main theme. In the movie, there was a lot of complicated scenes and costumes that would be hard to impersonate as high schoolers. There is also the use of knives which wouldn't be safe for us to recreate.