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See How They Run

So I rocked up to the Palace cinema last week, intent on seeing Amsterdam only to hear that the session had to be cancelled for some projection reason. No harm done, I'd just finished work anyway so was thereabouts. Ah, but what's this? There's another film showing in that time slot, says the cinema staff. It's apparently in a similar vein - mysterious, rompy, witty, etc. Why not, I say, pretending to be spontaneous, though in actual fact, I'd been thinking of seeing this anyway. Oh, I forgot to mention that a seagull had shat on my shoulder on the way to the cinema, though it looked more like gozz than shite. Supposed to be good luck, so you might think that See How They Run turned out to be a brilliantly happy accident. No? No. It's not much good at all. I've been wondering how this was greenlit. Who is this even for?

The film 'ever-so-cleverly' weaves a murder around the London stage production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, with some real life characters like Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim (played by Harris Dickinson and Pearl Chanda) to add to the veracity of the story. Potential perhaps, but the big issue, apart from the plot contrivances, is the tone. It's a very light, fluffy confection of a film, like a Wes Anderson remix without the symmetry or the charm. Those excellent 27 percenters, Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell, headline but neither have the greatest time - I'm not sure they know how to play it - Ronan is not great at this comic whimsy shtick and Rockwell is virtually moribund. Others, like David Oyelowo and Tim Key, are slightly more suited to the film. Key, as Commissioner Harold Scott, may well be the best thing in it, and aside from always watchable Reece Shearsmith, he's the only real funny person here.

The whole hotchpotch is clogged way too clever with all the nudges and winks to camera and the playing with the form - too meta for meta. Wes Anderson alumni, Adrien Brody's plays Leo Kopernick, an American director hired to film the play. He has the thankless task of narrating the zany antics surrounding the 100th stage performance of The Mousetrap. He sometimes has to reel off things not to do in a film which suddenly, you guessed it, appear in the film. Not the most original trope, to be fair.

Maybe I'm being too cynical (a reasonable bow to draw) but I reckon I racked up ZERO laughs for the comedy and NIL gasps for the mystery. To top it off, it almost burst the onion bag for boredom. Sadly this is an immediately forgettable film, not worth the time of its fine cast.

See How They Run is showing at Palace cinemas and the Luna.

See also:

Rian Johnson's Knives Out (2019) is a far superior example of a big house mystery, as is Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001). And if you have to watch a Wes Anderson film, I reckon The Darjeeling Limited (2007) is the least twee and irritating.

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