Valeofruin’s review published on Letterboxd:
Fantastic. Surprisingly formalist Murder mystery. Knew nothing about this going in.
I have seen a few of Rian Johnsons work which, in retrospect were entirely formal in presentation. Knowing nothing in advance, not even a genre or a trailer was the way to go here. Most movies these days go for a much grittier realist approach, with a few formal Hollywood Noirs sprinkled in here and there. This was neither. It was very Wes Anderson of him. A fun little surprise.
That said, the movie was pretty plain. Both technically and narratively it did literally everything it was supposed to do.
Played it safe and played by the rules. Knew the outcome within the first 20 minutes of the story and all the more intricate technical aspects of this production were pretty straightforward and by the books. Which is fitting given what Rian was going for here.
This is a great movie if you don’t necessarily care about being “wowed” but don’t necessarily want to be disappointed either. It’s very “safe”. This is that movie you get tickets to see when you’re standing in line at the theatre but nothing in particular looks great but you don’t want to waste your money and really just need to pick something to buy