See How They Run

I went to see this mystery movie expecting a zany comedy like Clue, or at least an interesting whodunit, but I didn't realize that this was a spoof specifically about Agatha Christie's Mousetrap play. I've never seen the play, but I have read the short story based on it decades ago; it was called "Three Blind Mice" due to the killer whistling this tune. I didn't know that the story was based on a real life child abuse tragedy, and I also didn't realize that the title "see how they run" is a line from the Three Blind Mice nursery rhyme.

Also, as signaled by the Inspector's name "Stoppard" this movie is a self-reverential, recursive farce. It's very meta about whodunit tropes, although sometimes the jokes don't make sense. The stuffy playwright complains about the Hollywood director wanting a bloody murder in the first 10 minutes, but I believe that Christie's play does feature a murder in its opening minutes, so that would actually be faithful to the text.

There are a number of real people portrayed, including Richard (Dickie) Attenborough, his wife Sheila Sim, and Agatha Christie and her second husband the archaeologist. I do like that the movie has diverse casting despite the 1950s setting, and the cast is packed. I enjoyed most of it, but found it more wry and amusing rather than laugh out loud funny. It's just that I've seen plenty of examples of Hollywood parodying itself, so that I find that kind of joke tiresome and cliche. Maybe if I'd been in a better mood I would have liked it more. I hope that the Knives Out sequel will be better.