See How They Run (2022)
**/****
starring Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo
written by Mark Chappell
directed by Tom George
by Walter Chaw TV director Tom George’s feature debut See How They Run is a Wes Anderson shrine decorated with screenwriter Mark Chappell’s theatre-brat deep cuts, which ultimately just leads one to ask what of it is its own. Set around a murder that takes place at the time of the 100th performance of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, complete with original cast members Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and Deila Sim (Pearl Chanda), the whole thing is a twee exercise in medium shots, split screens, and not much else. George and his production designers are gifted at creating clean, period-cozy environments, but all those acres of slick really do is demonstrate how money can buy a talented team of costumers and craftspeople in the pursuit of a recognizable veneer of prestige and quality. What it doesn’t do, at least in this case, is provide the courage and the vision–perhaps it’s experience and wisdom–to tell a story that isn’t all surface pleasures. The real problem is that See How They Run has nothing to say about the world, about people, or, frankly, about Agatha Christie or murder mysteries. It doesn’t even have all that much to say about itself. It’s more the elderly Catskills chic of “Only Murders in the Building” than the genuine social revisionism of Knives Out. It has its opportunities; it mostly ignores them. It’s a choice, and your mileage may vary.
