“It’s a whodunnit. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”
In one of the first lines uttered during Tom George’s breezy whodunnit, See How They Run, writer Mark Chappell suggests we’re just going through the motions. As a posh cast of characters is laid out before us, and a member of the company is mysteriously murdered, there’s an air of self-loathing familiarity. The film knows we’ve seen this story before, but can’t be bothered to do anything about it. After all, why else would you watch a whodunnit if not to enjoy a whodunnit?
It’s 1953 in London’s West End, where Agatha Christie’s hit play “The Mousetrap” is celebrating its 100th performance with a lavish party. Hollywood director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) has been tasked with directing a film adaptation of the play, that is until he is murdered in cold blood backstage. With several possible culprits and a scandal in their midst, the subdued Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) is reluctantly paired with eager, young Constable Stalker (Saorise Ronan) and put on the case. A little bit of antics here, a little bit sleuthing there, you get the idea.
Despite feigning superiority over its own genre, See How They Run feels very comfortable giving fans exactly what they paid for. The entire visual and sonic landscape is an ode to the period: every frame struts lavish sets and costumes, Daniel Pemberton’s score moves at a jazz swing, and the script is filled with silver-tongued 50’s banter performed by a cast of generally underrated comedic talents committing to their archetypes. David Oyelowo particularly gets to stretch a new muscle as the film adaptation’s obnoxious screenwriter, and young star Harris Dickinson, who found praise earlier this year for Triangle of Sadness, delights in this film with a scarily good take on real “Mousetrap” star Richard Attenborough.
But the true MVPs in this film are Rockwell and Ronan, who work off of each other extremely well while individually giving wonderful comedic turns. Rockwell is doing his best impression of Charlie Chaplin doing his best impression of Humphrey Bogart, and the results land many of the film’s physical gags to great effect. Ronan, who has never quite gotten the chance to be front and center in a straight-up comedy, absolutely shines. Her timing is impeccable, her charm is off-the-charts, and the sheer likability she brings to this plucky Constable, alongside her chemistry with Rockwell, could lend itself to its own series of mysteries.
However, despite providing so much for whodunnit fans to enjoy, and with ease, the film is also quick to scold those same fans. In one of the first interactions between Inspector Stoppard and Constable Stalker, the subdued detective is quick to warn the eager, young officer who, after interviewing only one suspect, thinks she’s cracked the case. “Don’t jump to conclusions.” Oh, you think you’re so smart, audience? Think again.
See How They Run wants to outsmart you, yet its cheeky contempt for the self-obsessed, debaucherous characters, and the genre as a whole by extension, makes it feel like they’ve already outsmarted you by taking the piss out of you…or so they think. By the film’s “shocking” conclusion, an admittedly engaging spin on the story that doesn’t inspire the gasps that it should, you have to wonder if the film ended up shooting itself in the foot.
As entertaining as it is, there is a self-satisfied simplicity to See How They Run that is a little too comfortable making fun of itself––as though its self-awareness of the many tropes and cliches excuses the film from being accountable for them. You can throw in as many red herrings are you want, but that won’t help when your film’s story moves at the pulse of teatime at Downton Abbey. The cinematography, though loaded with craft, frames every scene and interaction with a detached Anderson-lite symmetry that resists getting more involved with its characters.
The film sprinkles in stricter genre sensibilities, such as screwball comedy beats that feel reminiscent of the Marx Brothers, that could have given it a slight edge ahead of its contemporaries. The last several years have seen the murder mystery genre go through a bit of a resurgence, with Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise and Branagh’s own takes on Agatha Christie. While we don’t need every entry in the canon to reinvent the genre, See How They Run could have aspired to a tad more twistiness. Though the film will satisfy genre fans and may even act as a decent gateway for newcomers, it doesn’t quite earn a place with the very movies it is so smugly trying to remind you of.
See How They Run is currently playing in theaters courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
"See How They Run" is an enjoyable whodunnit, but doesn't quite muster enough twists and turns to be a seminal entry into the genre.
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GVN Rating 7
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Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.