Out of the recent glut of whodunit movies –Glass Onion,Scream,Death on the Nile,Bodies Bodies Bodies– Tom George’sSee How They Runcame and went without making much of a splash. The film received lukewarm reviews, opened fourth at the box office (according toDeadline), and although it made a strong debut on streaming platforms, it hasn’t provoked much discussion among audiences.See How They Runis too jumbled and unfocused to work as a murder mystery, it squanders most of the talented actors in its cast, and its final twist is hardly a surprise. But thanks to Saoirse Ronan’s hilarious turn as rookie detective Constable Stalker, it’s still more than watchable.
On the night of the 100th performance ofAgatha Christie’s mystery playThe Mousetrap, American filmmaker Leo Köpernick – planning an action-packed Hollywood film adaptation of the show – is murdered by an unseen assailant in the wardrobe department. Inspector Stoppard is put on the case, shadowed by the naive, inexperienced Constable Stalker. The two detectives speak to a succession of suspects (including real-life figures like John Woolf and Richard Attenborough), survive a couple of brushes with the killer, and bring the case to a head at a dinner party at Christie’s home in Wallingford, Berkshire.
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Ronan is a rare example of an actor who’s equally adept at both drama and comedy. She can cut deep with a dramatic performance and get huge laughs with a comedic performance. Audiences have been moved by Ronan’s engaging dramatic work inBrooklyn,Ammonite, andLittle Women. But with her roles inThe Grand Budapest Hoteland, indeed,See How They Run, she’s also forged a uniquely deadpan comic sensibility. Ronan’s best performances combine these two sides of her talent; her incredible career-defining turn inLady Birdhas both laugh-out-loud comedic moments (“Different things can be sad, it’s not all war!”) and tear-jerking dramatic moments (“I just… I wish that you liked me”).
The star-studded cast ofSee How They Runis full ofgreat actors, from Adrien Brodyas murdered Hollywood director Leo Köpernick to David Oyelowo as pretentious screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris to Tim Key as curmudgeonly police commissioner Harold Scott to the great Shirley Henderson as the “Queen of Crime.” But Ronan is the only one who transcends the thin characterization of Mark Chappell’s script. She technically plays second fiddle to Sam Rockwell as Stoppard, but he’s given a lot less to do than his co-star. Stoppard is a much more passive character than Stalker and his portrayal as a drunken buffoon is much more one-note than Stalker’s clueless naivety. Rockwell shines the brightest when he’s sharing“buddy cop” banterwith Ronan; they have a hilarious back-and-forth about her obsessive note-taking.
Stalker isn’t given any more depth than the rest of the ensemble, but Ronan works with what she has and rounds out Stalker as a character with her sense of humor alone. When Stoppard draws a blank on Attenborough’s name, she does a spot-on impression to jog his memory. With the perfect knowing smile, she makes a tongue-in-cheek comment about the murder being “staged, so to speak.” There’s a great running gag involving Stalker jumping to conclusions. When a suspect jokingly confesses and Stalker misses the joke, Ronan nails the dead seriousness as she goes in for the arrest.
Whilethe setup of a whodunittaking place around the production of a whodunit was perfectly poised to parody the whodunit,See How They Rundoesn’t deconstruct the form quite likeClueorKnives OutorMurder by Death. It has meta elements, but they don’t satirize the genre; they just add to the fun. The climactic sequence of the movie plays out exactly like the gun-toting climax that Köpernick storyboarded for his movie adaptation ofThe Mousetrapbefore becoming the killer’s first victim. But this is more of a callback than a real commentary on the whodunit formula. Christie’s placement as a character in the film doesn’t do it any favors, because it invites comparisons to the work of the master of the murder mystery. It’s like making a western with John Ford as a character, or a suspense thriller withAlfred Hitchcockas a character.
Usually, the appeal of a murder mystery is the ability to follow a twisty narrative and pick up on the hints and clues along the way in a bid to figure out who the killer is before the detective does.See How They Rundoesn’t work on that level. The killer’s shifty behavior in the opening scene makes it clear who he is from the outset, then the second act trudges through a string of red herrings before the inevitable reveal that the sneaky usher is the murderer. From a plotting perspective, it doesn’t keep the audience guessing and its twist ending isn’t satisfying. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. Ronan’s hysterical performance makes the moviework wonderfully as a straightforward comedy.
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