Daniel Craig stars as the detective Benoit Blanc, who is hired to investigate the suspicious death of a hugely successful crime novelist named Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). All of Harlan’s family stand to gain from his will, and all of them have a motive for killing him. So who actually committed the murder?
Craig’s “deep south” accent takes some getting used to, but he’s compelling in the role nevertheless. Ana de Armas is perfect as Marta Cabrera, Harlan’s kindhearted nurse who becomes inextricably mixed up in the events and who – in a surreal twist – cannot tell a lie without vomiting.
It works because alongside the mystery needing to be unravelled there’s also an intriguing portrait of a dysfunctional family. And in a surprisingly old-fashioned way, the film seems to offer a simple moral about kindness.
A sequel followed in 2022.
