For some reason I can’t explain, I put off watching this film for years — and as it turns out, that was a big mistake. It's a true masterclass for screenwriters, as some professionals in the field have noted, and I completely agree. But when I shared my enthusiasm with friends, I was surprised to be met only with skepticism. They said the film lacked depth and that, apart from the all-star cast, there wasn’t much to see.

It’s true that the cast of Knives Out is phenomenal, and each character is colorful and memorable. But that’s just the surface. Rian Johnson’s film is actually a layered cake (much like the film Layer Cake, also starring Daniel Craig), where the shocking plot twists are just the top layer. What lies beneath — I’ll talk about that next.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Perhaps the main feature of Knives Out is that the film constantly subverts expectations. And not just in terms of plot twists — it plays with expectations on every possible level. Rian Johnson built this trait into the film’s DNA.

Let’s start from the very beginning. The opening scene shows a mansion in the early morning. A light mist and dramatic music give the moment a mysterious and ominous atmosphere. In the next scenes, we learn that a murder has occurred in the house. Hundreds of detective stories have begun this way.

What follows only reinforces the idea that we’re watching a classic Agatha Christie–style whodunit. All the familiar elements are there: a single location, a cast of colorful suspects (played by well-known actors, in the case of film adaptations), a mysterious murder, and a brilliant detective determined to solve it. But by the end of the first act, our expectations collapse. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) flips a coin — and the film shifts genres.

From that point on, we learn exactly how the head of the household was killed and who did it. The mystery appears to be solved. All that’s left is to watch how Blanc catches the guilty party (a required element of nearly any detective story) and brings them to justice. Or... maybe not?

Here’s where the crime thriller begins. Because Harlan Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) death was caused by an accident — his nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), the most morally upright character in the film, mixed up the medication vials after Harlan himself knocked over the Go board. This turns everything upside down: we’re left with no choice but to sympathize with the “killer” and hope Marta doesn’t get caught. But we don’t know how far she’s willing to go, which is what creates suspense. Rian Johnson himself referred to this moment as “the Walter White choice.” The tension peaks during the scene in the laundromat, when Fran dies in Marta’s arms — but Marta, still a decent person, calls an ambulance, thereby losing the game to Blanc.

After that, the film returns to the structure of a traditional detective story. We get the classic scene where the detective gathers everyone and explains what really happened, naming the true culprit. But the deception was a success. Though some film buffs may have caught the clue to the genre switch in the very first frames. That opening shot of the Thrombey mansion with two German shepherds is a direct reference to the 1985 film Clue, a parody of classic whodunits. (One of the police officers even refers to Harlan’s home as a “Clue board,” referencing the famous detective board game.) And yes — in that movie too, the head of the household was murdered.

Johnson pulls off this kind of trick more than once. Throughout the film, we’re led to believe that Marta mixed up the medication and accidentally killed Harlan — but in reality, she gave him the correct dose. Or take the moment when we expect Blanc to notice a bloodstain on Marta’s white sneakers at the end of the film — a clear Chekhov’s gun — yet he actually notices it within the first minute of meeting her.

Even Harlan’s death becomes less tragic when you think about it. He lived like a character in his own novels — in a house full of secrets and artifacts from the books he wrote, fond of encrypted messages (like the secret language he used with his daughter Linda), and he even managed to script his own death by morphine overdose (including the detail with the swapped vials). Harlan dreamed of “closing the book with style” — and isn’t that exactly what he got for his 85th birthday?

His other wish also came true: to cut his entire family off financially. That’s why his portrait, once grim and solemn, changes to a smiling one at the very moment when Marta overcomes all obstacles on her way to freedom and inheritance.

Now let’s take a closer look at Benoit Blanc. He’s introduced to us as a brilliant detective, but this notion is questioned throughout the film. Marta — just an ordinary girl — manages to deceive him with ease, constantly interfering with his investigation. Even Blanc himself behaves rather absurdly at times — casually singing in the car while Marta is trying to get rid of crucial evidence right under his nose. She even tells Blanc outright that maybe he’s not such a great detective after all. Though in the end, she turns out to be wrong.

A similar twist happens with Chris Evans’s character. His Ransom is portrayed from the beginning as a complete jerk, but later he appears not so bad — agreeing with his grandfather’s decision and even helping Marta. But ultimately, we learn it was all a lie: Ransom is the real villain of the story. And casting Chris Evans in this role was a brilliant choice. Most viewers know him as Captain America, so the shift from villain to apparent hero doesn’t feel jarring — it seems natural.

And returning to the film’s most common criticism — the large ensemble cast of famous actors — it no longer seems like a cheap marketing move or an attempt to cover up the film’s flaws. Instead, it becomes clear that it was a deliberate choice to evoke the exact associations the director wanted.
Everything else is just a bonus.

Earlier, I mentioned the bloodstain on Marta’s sneaker as a Chekhov’s gun — but in fact, that’s far from the only one Rian Johnson has prepared for us. He clearly understands and skillfully applies this dramatic principle.

First, let’s define the key characteristics of a Chekhov’s gun:
— it must be visible to the audience (ideally shown multiple times throughout the story),
— it must be relevant to the plot (either obviously so from the beginning or revealed later),
— and it must “fire” within a reasonable amount of time after first being shown.

The tiny bloodstain is the most obvious kind of Chekhov’s gun. A close-up shot and dramatic music the moment it first appears on screen tell us: this is important. It implicates Marta in Harlan’s death. Naturally, we expect this “gun” to fire closer to the finale — after all, we’re in a detective story.

But when the moment finally comes, instead of a loud bang, we get a quiet fizzle: Blanc had known about the stain from the very beginning. He even hinted at it several times, repeatedly emphasizing the word “foot” (or words that sound like it) in his speech. And so, Rian Johnson uses a classic Chekhov’s gun — only to subvert audience expectations once again.

Another example of a Chekhov’s gun in the film is Harlan’s baseball. We see it repeatedly throughout the story, but until the very end, its role remains unclear. Let’s follow the chain of events.

We first notice the ball in Harlan’s hands while he’s sitting in his study next to a laptop. On the screen, we see evidence of Richard’s (Don Johnson) infidelity. Pay attention to the two large eyes behind the writer — in one shot, they’re directed at the letter in his hands, in another — at the ball itself. This is how Rian Johnson subtly links the ball to the story, specifically to the letter exposing Richard’s affair. The eyes also seem to hint to the viewer: “watch the ball.”

Later, we see the ball again in Harlan’s study — but this time after his death. Richard is searching for the incriminating letter but finds only a blank sheet of paper in the envelope. Angry, he grabs the ball and throws it out the window.

Blanc finds the discarded ball and puts it in his pocket. Later, the detective pulls it out and begins tossing it in the air. One of the dogs notices this and trades the ball for a piece of the broken trellis — a crucial clue proving that someone had secretly entered Harlan’s room. (By the way, note how in this scene Marta is framed within a circle — a visual hint that she is the missing piece in Blanc’s investigation, the one that fills the hole in the donut.)

But the ball’s journey doesn’t end there. The dog brings it to Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), Richard’s wife, who returns it to her father’s study. There, she discovers the encoded letter revealing her husband’s infidelity. The circle is complete — and at its center lies a smoking gun.

Another Chekhov’s gun appears in the form of the massive knife sculpture — a dramatic installation that’s often visible in the background of shots but never addressed directly. Until the very end, none of the characters pay attention to this striking piece of decor, so the viewer also has no idea what role it might play in the story.

Let’s start with the interrogation scenes. Rian Johnson deliberately places each suspect to the right of the knife sculpture — even though the frame practically begs for someone to sit directly in front of it, creating perfect symmetry. But we don’t get that shot until the moment Blanc reveals the crime. Only then, seated directly across from the installation, Blanc’s head blocks the hole at its center — and Marta does the same a moment later — symbolically filling the very “donut hole” the detective spoke of earlier.

But this gun fires again — when Ransom, described by his grandfather as someone who “can’t tell a prop knife from a real one,” grabs a blade from the sculpture and stabs Marta in the chest… with a fake knife.

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