The Thrombey Family (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Trust me, I know. The fact that it took me THIS long to watch the movie -- let alone make a video on it -- it makes no sense (pauses). It compels me, though

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Yes, Readers. You saw that intro correctly. It’s been out for over a year by now, but I finally got around to watching Rian Johnson’s mystery film, Knives Out for the first time.

And as you probably would’ve guessed if you picked up on my taste in films over the years, I LOVED this movie.

/The aesthetic, the music, the dissection of the mystery’s multiple layers was just nothing short of a good time for me/

But you know me, Readers. I always have to either speculate on something the film’s alluding to or look at something it presents and find a teachable moment in it

/In the case of Knives Out however, its the vibrant cast of characters that make up the privileged  Thrombey family, and realizing that their digression over the course of the movie is a warning tale about how to spot the real-life deplorables that they represent./

Like I stated before, Readers; Knives Out is a who-dunnit mystery thriller. And the mystery in this case is finding out if the death of the famous murder mystery author Harlan Thrombey -- played by the late Christopher Plummer -- truly was a suicide or if foul play was involved.

/And to figure that out, a mysterious client hired Daniel Craig’s character -- a Private Eye named Benoit Blanc -- to investigate and get to the truth of the matter while working with the local police./

Now while it’s been heavily established that the popularity of Blanc has shown to be popular enough that the Knives Out audience -- as well as writer/director Rian Johnson himself -- wants another mystery movie with Blanc on the case, the movie makes it clear that -- despite watching him work out the angles and get to the bottom of everything -- he is not the main character of this movie.

/The ACTUAL main character is Harlan’s at-home nurse Marta Cabrera -- played by Ana de Armas -- who’s been by his side till the very end. LITERALLY./

Because of this and how well she takes care of Harlan, the extended Thrombey family consider HER to be part of the family.

/And at first glance, it definitely seems that way./

But it’s in that declaration that we start to see some very interesting things about the Thrombey family.

First we have Richard Drysdale, the husband of Jamie Lee Curtis’s character Linda Drysdale, Harlan’s daughter.

Because of how the scenes play out in the movie, the immediate scene that makes us want to initially associate the family considering Marta as part of the family is one of him beckoning her to join the rest of the members discussing something in the living room of Harlan’s home during his birthday party.

Then the next time we get that scene, we find out that what was going on in said scene was a political debate between himself and Joni Thrombey -- the widow of Harlan’s middle son.

And because the movie came out in 2019, you can bet your bottom dollar that the debate was on the Trump presidency, where Richard was proudly defending him and his policies on immigration.

/Some members of the family side with him -- like his brother-in-law’s wife, for example -- while others choose to keep their opinions to themselves and only declare their irritation when others are being brought into the discussion./

/Like when Richard called over Marta not to be part of the conversation, but to use her as an example in his argument/

(You came here the RIGHT way)

The interesting bit here is Richard saying that “earning your share from the ground up” is something that’s a pretty common mantra when it comes to the Thrombey parents that are immediately related to Harlan..

/And they like to throw that point around over the course of the movie (Linda). Y’know, until the movie reveals that was a lie (took a million dollar loan from her grandfather)./

That’s pretty much why Harlan made the decisions that he did on the day of his birthday party...

/When he revealed to Richard that he knew he was cheating on his daughter, when he decided to fire his son Walt from running his publishing company, and when he decided to cut Joni off financially after discovering she’d been stealing from him. It was his attempt to try and right the wrong of making his family too dependent on him over the years to the point where they believed they were entitled to it./

(I hope I can make some of this right before I go)

And he did, in the form of his will.

/When instead of splitting all of his fortune with his family, he instead left EVERYTHING to Marta. Including the house./

And it was only when the Thrombey family felt that sense of entitlement -- that security blanket that was their initial inheritance -- slip through their fingers that their TRUE colors began to show.

/Jodi -- desperately clinging to the hope that her portion of the inheritance would make up from being cut off from Harlan’s funds -- immediately shifts to believing there was foul play involved on Marta’s fault the moment they all learn the inheritance would be split amongst the family if that was proven to be true.

/The plans of taking care of Marta and her family that Walt’s daughter had to talk him into during the memorial dinner, immediately shifted to the threat of having her mother deported upon learning she was in the country illegally.

/Even Ransom -- the Black Sheep of the family and the one responsible for this whole affair to begin with -- sought all of this out because he KNEW Harlan was going to leave Marta everything and concocted this scheme and even act on the fly to try and get what he believed to be was rightfully his./ (you think I’m going to let you steal it from us)

You see, the beauty of Knives Out is that while it is -- in fact -- entertaining to watch, both in its mystery and the feel-good feeling of watching an entitled privileged family get screwed over by the final acts of its patriarchal head...

It uses the Thrombeys and their situation as an analogy to a group of people that, up until recently, have had the pleasure of hiding their true selves behind the masks of liberalism and coexistence.

The Thrombeys are the ones who put on the DISGUISE of liberalism. They parade their good deeds and work ethic in front of everyone thinking it’s a sense of worthiness for having what they have, only for the actuality of their accomplishments to be steeped in the same amount of privilege and selfishness that they constantly deny.

/They’re the ones who’ll DEBATE the blooming bigoted opinions of their other family members, but will only do so in order to show the world that coexistence with individuals who challenge the right of others less fortunate to them to exist is possible, because they’ve grown too comfortable and accustomed to the security the name grants them./

Then, the moment that privilege and security is threatened -- thanks to either outsiders or from someone who finally realized that they’ve been nothing but an enabler -- they immediately throw the facade away in order protect and claim what they believe is rightfully theirs, no matter who they have to manipulate or threaten to get it.

While Knives Out was a very well done old-school whodunnit mystery movie, Rian Johnson -- albeit not so subtly at times -- found a perfect way to display the warning signs of those in high privilege and fortune who use activism, coexistence, and the cherry-picked ideal of the American Dream as a surface level shield to guard themselves from the people they TRULY are, for those of us who don’t already know what to look for.

And while most of it is meant to be for the sake of the movie’s comedy, the turn-of-the-dime shift the majority of the Thrombey’s display when their way of life is threatened -- both the blatant and the calculated -- properly reflects what happens when members of our OWN modern day society have been gassed up by American-flavored elitism -- recently amplified by bigotry and facism -- to the point where even the SLIGHTEST adjustment to their way of life is considered a threat to their current place in the status quo.

/ESPECIALLY if the perceived threat to said place is a person of color./

Spoiler Alert: It’s ALWAYS going to be a person of color (Winks at camera)

With that being said Readers, your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section down below what YOU thought of Knives Out if you’ve seen it.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, if you’ve seen any other films that acted as a way of showing how to spot wolves in liberals clothing

Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.