Razor-Sharp with a Twist: A Knives Out Script Analysis
I don’t know about y’all, but one of my most anticipated movies this year is Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment of writer/director Rian Johnson’s mystery series starring Daniel Craig as southern-fried detective Benoit Blanc. In 2019, the original Knives Out was a breath of fresh air: an original IP, a throwback to classic mysteries in the vein of Agatha Christie, and an incredibly tight script from top to bottom. Johnson pays homage to the greats like Holmes, Poirot, and Marple, but he’s also interested in transporting those tropes to the modern day and putting his own spin on things. With a star-studded cast bringing Johnson’s script to life, it was no surprise that Knives Out spawned its own beloved mystery franchise.
Like with a lot of scripts by writer/directors, Knives Out’s screenplay is almost exactly 1:1 to the resulting film. Johnson stayed strictly truthful to his script as written on set, and famously, Daniel Craig memorized his entire lengthy final monologue to film it in one take. With a murder mystery, especially one containing as many twists and recontextualizations as this one, a tight script is key. Setup and payoff, planting images that will be referred back to later, and specific pieces of information that need to be delivered at exactly the right point. Trying to explain all of the reveals within Knives Out aloud is a lofty task, but when you’re watching the film, you’re able to follow each development easily. It’s no easy feat on Johnson’s part, but with a slick wit to the script and a sharp, focused directorial style, he makes it look easy.
Johnson also firmly entrenches Knives Out in the present day, a feature that would only become more pronounced in the sequel Glass Onion. The characters discuss President Trump and immigration issues that were hot at the time and still very relevant now. ‘The butler did it’ is the classic murder mystery saying. If not the butler, then the maid; always some member of the help and not a member of the upper class. In Knives Out, Johnson lets us know early on that our main character, Marta, a member of the so-called ‘help,’ did indeed commit the central crime. We aren’t asked to empathize with the wealthy Thrombey family, but with the working-class, immigrant nurse that has, to her knowledge, literally killed someone (albeit accidentally). From there, we balance Marta trying to get herself out of suspicion with Blanc’s investigation; the murder mystery solves itself at the end of the first act but then keeps going, asking more and more questions. Just like Blanc says, the hole of the donut has a second, smaller donut in the middle. Twists upon twists, questions upon questions, and fun upon fun. Let’s get into this script!
OPENING IMAGE
The film starts in bombastic fashion, with composer Nathan Johnson’s score evoking classic murder mysteries over the image of possibly the most stereotypical setting for such a story: a gloomy manor. Dogs run across the screen, and, in fact, the actions of Harlan’s dogs will soon become plot-important, so setting them up as the first movement we see is brilliant.
Everything about this introduction proceeds with melodrama, relishing in the shared knowledge with the audience that this is, in fact, a murder mystery… so we know we’re going to see someone dead soon. We follow Fran, the housekeeper, preparing Harlan’s breakfast, slowly walking upstairs. Interspersed with this are unnerving shots of the home, which is positively filled with knickknacks and antiques. The set design is exquisite, the creepy vibes perfectly setting up the man that owns this home: Harlan Thrombey, melodramatic and macabre.
Then it happens, what we all know is coming: death. In classic fashion, the maid discovers the body, but the melodrama of the moment is immediately subverted. Instead of a scream or a wail, Fran is more annoyed by the tray slipping from her hands in shock. It’s the first genre subversion of the film, but it certainly won’t be the last.
SETUP
After the intro, we’re introduced to our protagonist Marta, although it’s not immediately clear that she’ll be our protagonist. Her sister is watching crime TV, establishing that this is a story intensely interested in genre and media: this is a world where characters are aware of the tropes of true crime and murder mystery, and they’re going to utilize that awareness. Harlan Thrombey himself is a murder mystery writer, and this allows the film to explore both reverence and irreverence for its predecessors in the mystery genre.
We’re introduced to our cast of suspects, the Thrombey family, via police interviews. On a first watch, we’re searching for every detail that could point to them as the murderer - we know what kind of story this is. We don’t know that by the end of the first act, the murder will already be ‘solved’ for us. These interviews with the Thrombeys also introduce one of the film’s primary narrative devices: unreliable flashbacks. Many of the Thrombeys tell the story of Harlan’s birthday differently, and the best illustration of their inconsistent tellings… each of them places themself right by Harlan’s side.
The contrast between Harlan’s two living children, Linda and Walt, is clear as day. Linda, despite being defensive of her position as Harlan’s favorite, tries to distance herself from nepotism and her father’s legacy. She’s very insistent that she built her business from the ground up… whereas Walt takes pride in managing his father’s book business and estate. The immediate family vs the in-laws also have clear differences: Linda and Walt are both very guarded about their father and the family, but Linda’s husband Richard and Harlan’s daughter-in-law Joni are a lot easier to crack. The interview process is basically the officers baiting the family into trash-talking each other… and it’s not difficult.
Then, of course, we have to meet our detective, Benoit Blanc. He sits quietly in the background for the interviews, so it’s quite the surprise when Daniel Craig starts spouting metaphors in the deepest-fried Southern accent ever. He’s a classic detective archetype thrust into the modern day, with antiquated vocabulary and a sense that he’s just sort of always existed. Joni provides a brief explanation of him, but we don’t get or need any sort of backstory. Blanc is fully formed from moment one, and he won’t really have any sort of conflict or growth throughout the film. He is an unchanging presence, forcing the Thrombey family to react to him.
Blanc immediately presses the family about Marta, and it’s here that the family’s performativity is really showcased. Before, they’re very casually affectionate with Marta, but it’s all surface-level. Two running gags throughout the film showcase this; firstly, each family member believes Marta’s family to be from a different country: Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, etc. Secondly, they each tell Marta that they totally wanted her to be at the funeral, but they were ‘out-voted’. If everyone was out-voted, then some of them are lying… or more likely, all of them.
DEBATE
Once Blanc starts to speak more in the interviews, he’s able to coax information out of the Thrombeys by playing on their pride. He gets Linda to trash Walt, but she falls short of giving him useful information… useful information that her husband Richard happily provides instead.
The real events of the night begin to take shape as Blanc presses onwards; it wasn’t the happy-go-lucky birthday affair that the Thrombeys want to paint it as. Everyone has something that they’re trying to hide, some sort of motive for murder. The main suspects on my first watch, at least, were Walt, Richard, and the mystery man with no interview yet: Linda and Richard’s son Ransom. Johnson directs the audience to try to solve the mystery like any other detective story, which allows him to hide key information that will be used in the real mystery later.
The story is also not solely told from Blanc’s perspective. As the detective pressures the Thrombeys, we get flashbacks from Walt, Richard, and Joni showing the true events of the night. Harlan cut Walt out of the publishing business, threatened to reveal Richard’s affair, and took away Joni’s allowance. This type of candid flashback is usually something you save for the end-of-movie reveal, letting the detective piece things together over time… something’s immediately off. Once it’s revealed later in the film that none of these characters even committed the murder, their lying makes them only look more vain and selfish. They know they didn’t commit any crime, but they care about their image more.
Even these ‘candid’ flashbacks are filtered through the characters’ perspectives, though. They can’t be trusted to be one hundred percent accurate. Over the course of the movie, this same night will be seen many more times, each one giving us a more complete idea of the full picture. Throughout this first act, there’s no real ‘main character’. Like with any mystery, the primary subject of the action is the deceased. Blanc drives the narrative, but he’s not on any journey. The puzzle is the fun, the puzzle is the journey.
It’s only when Blanc first confronts Marta that the audience starts to realize she is going to be our main character for the film, that hers is the journey we’ll follow. She’s of interest to Blanc primarily because of a quirky medical condition she has: she pukes whenever she lies. Blanc uses her to reveal what he already suspects about the rest of the Thrombeys’ lies, and Lieutenant Elliott lays out the entire timeline as we understand it at this point in the film. An audience likely won’t remember all of these details, but it’s important to have them set up so they can be played on later. There’s rules established for the film: Marta can’t lie, the stairs creak, Linda sleeps slightly. These are absolute rules, but that doesn’t mean we know the entire truth just yet.
Blanc finally starts questioning Marta about her own actions the night of Harlan’s death, and the structure the film has set up completely unravels. Like the other interviewees, Marta gets a flashback from her own perspective… but it reveals quite a bit more.
BREAK INTO TWO
We already know that Harlan is willing to share a lot with Marta - she knows everything about the family, after all. The flashback, though, really shows how he treats her as a full equal compared to the rest of the Thrombeys. Marta also shows herself to be a lot feistier than expected, no longer timid like she is with Blanc. He trusts her instincts, and instinct/reflex is actually a key theme. Harlan talks about prop knives and being able to tell the difference, and Marta’s ability to reflexively know which medicine is which comes back in the end of the film.
Of course, we soon find out exactly why Marta is timid with the detective… she caused Harlan’s death. Accidentally, of course, by switching his medications, but Harlan immediately jumps into action and plans a way for her to get away with this. He’s a mystery writer, so he has a flair for the dramatic, and his home even has a trick window that Marta utilizes. She’s panicking, but she goes along with it. In a few minutes, the entire story of Harlan’s birthday has transformed; where before, Marta was on the outskirts, now she’s at the center of events.
This flashback also makes it clear how biased the Thrombeys were with their earlier recountings. Joni didn’t notice Marta clearly distraught in the corner when she went to check on Harlan, and Walt doesn’t remember Marta (very obviously) reminding him of the time when she left. Marta’s plan partially relies on her being unnoticed by the rest of the family, to the point where she dresses up as Harlan and is barely given a second glance by Walt.
This is an archetypical Break Into Two. It completely transforms the objectives of the story; it’s no longer ‘how will Blanc solve Harlan Thrombey’s death,’ it’s ‘how will Marta evade suspicion and arrest.’ Our main character has been unveiled, and the murder mystery has turned into a game of cat and mouse. The ‘murderer’ is our lead, and we don’t want the crime to be solved anymore. Johnson totally flips the structure on its head, and it’s this extended flashback that carries us through that transition.
FUN AND GAMES
The Knives Out series is very concerned with translating classic mysteries to the modern day, and that includes modern issues and politics. Both films in the series are intensely current, with the Thrombey family discussing President Trump and forcing Marta into the argument. This theme would rear its head again in Glass Onion, which explicitly takes place during the COVID pandemic, something few films tried to tackle. Johnson’s characters are exaggerated archetypes like in classic murder mysteries, but instead of being barons, counts, or scullery maids, they’re new-money New Englanders with real estate or skincare companies. These mysteries don’t take place in old castles, they take place in our world, our time.
Blanc recruits Marta for help with his investigation, ostensibly because he ‘trusts her kind heart.’ We’re suspicious of his motives, as is she. When we know upfront that Marta is the ‘murderer,’ we assume that the detective of the story is onto her as well, and so Marta now has to appear helpful while also erasing evidence of her crime. This time, she doesn’t have Harlan to prepare her with a plan, but we see that she’s pretty good at winging it. Still, our eyes are always on Blanc; despite being our detective, his thoughts are fairly inscrutable. We only see him from Marta’s perspective, and it’s unclear what he really wants with her.
Marta is quick on her feet, but she isn’t exactly subtle with some of her sabotage. She erases the security tape with a magnet basically right in front of the detectives, she trods all over her own footprints, and she even chucks the broken trellis away behind Blanc’s back. It’s comical to watch, but it makes the audience question what’s going on: is Blanc truly unaware and this is just being played for laughs, or is the detective onto Marta and letting her play her game? By the end of the film, of course, we’ll find that it’s the latter, but this tension keeps the film moving even amidst these more comedic scenes.
These scenes do set up Blanc as a bit of a buffoon, which is something Glass Onion plays into as well. He’s not untouchable, but he’s also very good at playing the Southern rube to get people to let their guards down. He does have some insights, though, like testing the GO board and seeing that it wouldn’t make a sound loud enough for Joni to hear. Marta’s story isn’t adding up for him, and she can see that. She has to both keep his trust enough to get him to share information and not let him progress the investigation far enough to find her guilty. A real pickle.
Chris Evans’ Ransom formally entering the picture spices up the Thrombey dynamics, and they immediately start turning on each other. Richard goes after Walt and Jacob, Walt comes for Ransom… and the question of Harlan’s will comes up. Once Ransom reveals that Harlan cut him out of the will, even his own parents turn on him; these people flip on a dime, even on their own family members. We’ll see that soon enough when it comes to Marta, because the Thrombeys have no idea what’s in store for them at the will reading…
MIDPOINT
When Blanc recruits Marta to help with his investigation, he tells her that she’s the only one with nothing to gain from Harlan’s death. It seems that way to the Thrombeys as well - until the will reading, that is. As it turns out, Harlan didn’t just cut Ransom out; he cut out his entire family, leaving everything to Marta. It’s a surprise to her, of course, but the family doesn’t believe that. In a second, Marta goes from a background character to the Thrombeys to suspect #1.
Just like the family swiftly turned on Ransom, they now flip on Marta. Linda, who’s seemed to be the most reasonable Thrombey thus far, turns aggressive quickly, and Marta has to flee. Ransom himself is loving the chaos, and on first watch I assumed that he knew that the entire family would be cut out and came to the reading to watch their expressions. He’ll later claim otherwise… but my suspicions were well-founded and good to keep in mind for later. The turning points of Knives Out are very well-delineated, making my job a lot easier. Everything shifts with the will reading, from Marta’s position to the family’s motivations to her teaming up with a new ally, Ransom (after her car conveniently breaks down).
DOWNTURN
With everything upended for Marta, the only resource she has is Ransom, who rides the line between friend and foe. His story is a little fishy right away- why would he come to the will reading if all he knew was that he wasn’t getting anything? He is a bit comforting to Marta, just to turn on her and force her to confess the truth about Harlan’s death. When he offers to help her get away with the crime, we’re not sure how to feel about him. It’s a bit of a deal with the devil, and now one other person knows about Marta’s guilt… and he isn’t exactly the most reliable.
Meanwhile, the Thrombeys, once affronted by the idea of a murder investigation, now are fully on board - provided that the investigation points to Marta. Even Meg, Marta’s closest ally within the family, betrays Marta at her family’s behest. In the first act, Marta thrived on slipping into the background and relying on people underestimating her. With all the scrutiny on her, things start to close in. The will becomes publicized, so now there’s media attention on her and her undocumented mother as well. All of this energy to try and prove Marta guilty… and we as the audience know that she actually is guilty, so the stakes are high. All eyes are on our protagonist, and eyes are the one thing she wanted to avoid.
BREAK INTO THREE
When Marta receives a blackmail letter, she goes to Ransom with it instead of Blanc. She can’t trust the detective to be on her side, and at this point, neither can the audience. After all, we think she did, so Blanc’s pursuit of the truth can only hurt Marta - right? The mysterious blackmailer is also a new figure in the film, we know it has to be someone we’ve met. That’s just a rule of murder mysteries; you don’t introduce a new character at the 11th hour. By now, the audience might have even forgotten about the other mysterious figure whose identity we don’t know: whoever hired Blanc to investigate this case. Even when we think there is no mystery and Marta just needs to get away from suspicion, there’s still questions.
Marta ends up in a car chase with Blanc, and while in a conventional mystery, we might follow the detective chasing down the dastardly villain, here we’re grounded in the perspective of the ‘murderer’... and she’s actively panicking. Marta doesn’t even go over 60 miles per hour, and the ‘exhilarating’ car chase is just happening through lazy New England roads. It’s comedically lame, and it emphasizes how Marta isn’t some mastermind, she’s winging her way through this entire thing. It makes her relatable to the audience, and it’s here that I feel the need to reiterate what Johnson has done: he’s gotten us to the point where we’re basically rooting for the murderer to get away with it and for the case to go unsolved. It’s the opposite of why we usually watch a mystery movie, but Johnson will have his cake and eat it too. There is still a mystery to be solved, the pieces just haven’t fallen into place yet.
FINALE
Marta still tries to complete her plan and meet up with her blackmailer, but she finds Fran, the housekeeper, dying. Even when she thinks Fran is the one blackmailing her, Marta’s first instinct is to try and save her life; Blanc rushes in, and Marta can’t hold back the truth anymore. She’s discovered not with a bang, but with a whimper. Ransom tells the cops everything offscreen, and Blanc seems unsurprised by Marta’s involvement. There’s no big reveal, no dramatic climax - which is exactly how we know this can’t be the real ending.
Blanc interrupts Marta’s confession to the Thrombeys, and now is when we get out classic ‘detective unpacks the entire story.’ And it’s not to implicate Marta, it’s to implicate Ransom. There’s been twists throughout the film here, but this explanation moves at breakneck pace with twist after twist. It’s almost overwhelming, but the audience has been primed with all the right information throughout the film to follow. We finally get accurate flashbacks with the full picture, and find that Ransom purposefully sabotaged Marta’s medical kit in order to convict her and get back his inheritance. It’s thrilling, both for Blanc and the audience; after a slow case, he’s on the high of a case solved, and we’re right there with him.
The moment where Blanc affirms Marta’s goodness is cathartic after a whole film of her feeling guilty and like a horrible person. She’s able to detect which medication is which just by holding it, which means that she actually gave Harlan the correct meds that fateful night. It’s almost a twist of the knife to know that Harlan’s death was entirely unnecessary and he would have survived, but we probably should have known something was up when Harlan was acting lucid for minutes after being injected with so much morphine. It speaks to Marta’s instincts; Blanc wasn’t lying when he said that he trusts her good heart.
Once Ransom thinks that he’s in the clear and they have no real evidence against him, he gives a full hammy monologue. It’s mask off, and Chris Evans gets to really have fun in this role. When Marta reveals that she tricked him into confessing to Fran’s murder, he immediately goes for her, but like Harlan was afraid of, he couldn’t tell the difference between a fake and a real knife. He’s guilty, and the case is wrapped up… well, not in a neat little bow, but a twisted, convoluted bow. Just the right amount of convoluted, though. The climax of the film is basically one long monologue from Blanc, but we’re carried through by a combination of the writing, the film’s structure up to this point, and, of course, Craig’s performance.
Blanc leaves the film like a travelling Robin Hood, on his way to more cases. He’s not here to grow or change, he’s here to leave his mark and then move on. In this case, he’s left both Marta and the Thrombeys forever changed through the simple pursuit of truth. The script doesn’t do the ending image justice; the mug prop they used makes this moment, and it wasn’t something originally written in. It’s both hilarious and cathartic for Marta to own her new place above the Thrombeys. We end with her fully realized, fully confident, and standing on the balcony of her house.
WHY IT’S GREAT
Knives Out is both a love letter to the mystery genre and a new twist on it. It lets itself be grounded in modern discourse while also having these archetypical mystery characters. I fear that I overused the word ‘classic’ throughout this article, but that’s really what this film feels like at its best: a modern classic. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc is a detective for the Hall of Fame, and his supporting cast in this movie pulls their weight. Every single character is eminently enjoyable; Ana de Armas’ Marta and Chris Evans’ Ransom are standouts for how dynamic their roles are, constantly switching up our perception of them.
Structurally, despite its many twists, Knives Out is very clearly laid out. There are obvious transitions between each act, and Johnson imbues those transitions with the drama they deserve. Each one fully switches the goal of the film and our view of the central mystery, and it’s the kind of three-act plotting one should strive for. Every piece of information is called back later, the dialogue is tight, and characters deliver key pieces of evidence without it being out of character or awkward.
I’m thrilled that Knives Out spawned a franchise, with Glass Onion also being rife with fun script details to dig through (maybe another time). Wake Up, Dead Man is just around the corner this year, and I know that I’ll be tuning in to find out what case Benoit Blanc tackles next. His first outing remains one of my favorite films of the 2010s, and, I hope, a great example of screenwriting for all of us.
