Knives Out had me with the directness of its setup: a fancy manse; a rich, dysfunctional family; and a shocking murder in need of a solution. In walks Detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig), a master crime-solver with a résumé as thick as his southern accent. “I suspect foul play … I have eliminated no suspects,” he intones when asked why he’s there. The writer and director Rian Johnson, who assembled this project quickly after spending years in the franchise-filmmaking trenches with The Last Jedi, initially seems to be seeking out simplicity—a traditional drawing-room whodunit right out of Agatha Christie’s library. But the fun really begins when Knives Out starts flouting its genre’s rules.
That inventiveness shouldn’t be too surprising given Johnson’s career. Starting in 2005 with his breakout debut, Brick, a teenage noir homage, he’s been a filmmaker who draws from the classics but gives them sparkly new packages. Even The Last Jedi challenged the storytelling conventions of the long-winded Star Wars saga with humor and pique, rather than just reaffirming them (and stunned many a fan as a result). While Knives Out is a more straightforward proposition, a murder mystery that ties up every loose end, many of its best thrills come in the narrative hairpin turns Johnson makes along the way.
In the case of “Knives Out,” a modern-day murder mystery featuring Sudbury native Chris Evans that was filmed in Massachusetts last year, that task proves difficult.
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The film keeps the crucial tropes of a Christie plot, namely ostentatious wealth, a cast of colorful characters with blaring personality disorders, and a cunning detective who lives only to crack the case before him. Yet it’s set in the present day, dispensing with the antiquated fortunes of Poirot’s usual suspects. Instead, Johnson conjures a coterie of modern, rich buffoons—all of them related to the successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who is found stabbed on the night of his 85th birthday.
Who could’ve done it? There’s Harlan’s daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette), a self-styled lifestyle guru who dispenses quack medical advice that even Gwyneth Paltrow would wrinkle her nose at. His daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), is a real-estate mogul who constantly brags about being “self-made” despite receiving her father’s support. Harlan’s son, Walter (Michael Shannon), runs his dad’s publishing company, where his entire job seems to consist of printing and selling his father’s latest masterpiece. Even the grandkids, who include the handsome-jerk playboy Ransom (Chris Evans) and the taciturn alt-right-troll teenager Jacob (Jaeden Martell), are curdled in their own ways. Amid all the chaos and bickering, Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s live-in nurse, gets patronizing head pats from the rest of the family but is otherwise largely ignored.
Detective Blanc is ostensibly the film’s hero and serves as the audience’s surrogate, interrogating family members and sniffing around for clues. But Marta is the heart of the movie—a character who might easily be dismissed as a stock supporting role, but whom Johnson plants in the foreground. There’s no subtlety to Johnson’s message: The film champions a hardworking daughter of immigrants in a film about upper-class snobs scrambling to secure their inherited wealth. This is 2019, and one of the villains is a pale teen boy who posts offensive invective on Twitter.
But the detective genre has never been subtle. It’s a world where the investigator is intelligence personified and the suspects (as well as the viewers) are his captive audience, waiting for the answers to be revealed after two hours of careful deduction. Through Marta and Detective Blanc, who become impromptu partners in search of the truth, Johnson is telling a story about what justice might look like in America today—while also having plenty of fun.
The film’s advertising has obscured almost every detail of the plot besides the absolute basics, a difficult achievement today. So I’ll say only that while Knives Out is a whodunit with a twist ending, it’s just as concerned with why and how the murder was done as it is with the killer’s identity; the seemingly huge pieces of information dropped early on turn out to be small pieces of the puzzle. The art of a cinematic murder mystery is to make the act of putting clues together seem suspenseful and worth watching. In the hands of Craig at his most gleeful, de Armas at her career best, and Johnson oozing love for the genre, Knives Out rises splendidly to the task.
We all love a good murder mystery. There is the shock of the crime, the thrill of the chase, and then the inevitable joy of identifying and ousting the killer. Murder mysteries are mostly detective stories, where it is up to the sleuth to solve the crime and restore normalcy. There have been different kinds of detectives, be it the dapper, cerebral sleuths who use their grey cells in seemingly civil settings to find the killer, or the rough-edged, actionable sleuths who stir things up, to see what rises to the surface. The difference between the two is most notable in locked room mysteries and hardboiled detective stories. ‘Knives Out’, with its classic whodunnit structure, falls in the former category.
Rian Johnson, who has helmed ‘Knives Out’, is no stranger to the tropes of detective fiction, and has shown that he is willing to play around with the genre, as is evident in ‘Brick’, Johnson’s high-school hardboiled detective story. With ‘Knives Out’, too, the director makes a return to his favored roots, telling a tale of a man who tries to reunite his troubled family for his birthday, only to end up being killed by one of them. A detective comes to investigate, and manages to open a can of worms, by way of family secrets and troubled interpersonal relationships.
Knives Out Filming Locations
Now, in any murder mystery, the spatial setting is equally important in the staging of the crime and the investigation that follows. Therefore, you might be wondering about where was ‘Knives Out’ filmed. We have got you covered in that regard. Read on.
Read More: Who is the “Killer” in ‘Knives Out’?
Boston and Medfield, Massachusetts
According to reports, we know that the principal shooting locations of ‘Knives Out’ include Boston, Massachusetts, where most of the movie was shot, as well as Medfield, Massachusetts. Some of the filming locations include Marlborough, Natick, Wellesley, Maynard, Waltham, and Canton. In Medfield, reports state that the historic Medfield State Hospital has been used as a filming location. Movie aficionados might recognize the place as the creepy facility which was depicted in Martin Scorsese‘s ‘Shutter Island‘.
Notably, reporters have remarked how Boston might not always attract high-profile shoots but regularly attracts and hosts smaller budget movies and television shows. From accumulated reports, it is easier to get a more specific idea about the filming locations for ‘Knives Out’.
Marlborough, Massachusetts
There’s an extended scene in the film in which two characters are supposed to meet at a specified location. Without revealing much, this location ends up catching fire and burning down. Those who have seen the film would know which scene I am talking about. This whole extended sequence has been shot at Registry of Motor Vehicles building, located on Maple Street in Marlborough. Funnily enough, several people along the Southborough line happened to be drawn to what looked like a fire. However, when they arrived at the building, they found out that shooting for a film was taking place.
The familiar building won’t be the only thing that catches the eyes of locals watching ‘Knives Out’ since many local firefighters also serve as extras for the movie. Dan Martin, the assistant location manager for the movie, stated that the property was selected specifically for its angle, the circular architecture and because it is vacant. Martin added that the crew loved the building’s availability and decided to film in and around it. Notably, while the Marlborough shoot was going on, ‘Knives Out’ happened to be filming under the name of ‘Morning Bell’.
Film Knives Out Full Movie
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Knives Out Movie Cast
It is also clear that ‘Knives Out’ filmed in South Natick under the alias of ‘Morning Bell’. In Wellesley, the movie was filmed at Summit Road and Crown Ridge Road near Linden Square. Reportedly, the car chase scene was shot in Wellesley. Waltham and Maynard also managed to get a taste of the glitzy Hollywood in late 2018, when ‘Knives Out’ was filmed there.
Reports suggest that among the scenes shot in Waltham, was one where Chris Evans‘ character is frisked by an undercover cop before he is arrested and put in the back of a vehicle. Notably, the actor almost returns to his home turf for ‘Knives Out’, which is one of the reasons he was on board for the project in the first place. Evans comes from Sudbury, Massachusetts, which just happens to be 10 miles west of Waltham.
Borderland State Park
The Knives Movie Jamie Lee Curtis
Now to the filming location that probably brought you here. After all, you must be curious about the beautiful house that features so prominently in the film. Well, the historic mansion is actually located in the Borderland State Park, Easton. Most of the interior shots in the film were shot inside the mansion. Constructed by a branch of the Ames family in 1910, and acquired by the state in 1971, this 20-room mansion perfectly plays its part as the intimidating yet gorgeous house of Harlan Thrombey. A note of caution here: The exterior shots of the house is of some other mansion.
The film permit at Borderland State Park happens to be with Benedict White, LLC, as confirmed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Benedict White LLC listed Greg Chiodo as the contact person for the production. Chiodo confirmed to reporters that the filming crew that had been given access to the park’s historic mansion belonged to ‘Knives Out’.
Now that you have a fair idea of where several notable moments of ‘Knives Out’ were filmed, when are you booking your tickets to Massachusetts? In case, you live in the state or close to it, why not plan a weekend trip to the Borderland State Park.
Read More: Who is the “Killer” in ‘Knives Out’?