TMS Movie Review: See How They Run

(Parisa Taghizadeh / Searchlight Pictures)

Tom George’s new star-studded whodunit period piece See How They Run is an homage and pastiche to the classic mysteries of Agatha Christie, with a bit of Alfred Hitchcock and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019) thrown in. With Oscar season just around the corner, we begin with an enjoyable, traditional murder case set in the mid-20th century. It probably won’t be nominated for anything despite the cast—including Oscar winners Sam Rockwell and Adrien Brody, Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson—but it’s still worth a viewing as for early autumn.

In 1953 London, England, seasoned Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and rookie Constable Stalker (Ronan) are complete opposites who are paired together to inspect a shocking murder which happened backstage the West End theatre. Brash, volatile Hollywood director Leo Köpernick (Brody) is visiting town in preparation to adapt Christie’s popular stage play The Mousetrap. The American and pretentious English writer Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo) butt heads creatively on the script; while studio head John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) and theatre producer Petula Spencer (Wilson) also clash on how the play should be adapted to film. Suddenly, everything goes haywire when Köpernick is found dead center stage.

(Parisa Taghizadeh / Searchlight Pictures)

Harris Dickinson, Charlie Cooper and Shirley Henderson co-star. The first thing I noticed and loved about See How They Run was how much Ronan was clearly having a blast playing Stalker. One of the best, most talented dramatic actors of her generation, it’s nice to see the Irish star enjoying herself in some lighter material compared to John Crowley’s Brooklyn (2015) or Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019). George’s costume romp has a lot of callbacks and send-ups to classic mysteries, including Dickinson playing a fictionalized Richard Attenborough [who really co-starred in the original 1952 stage production of The Mousetrap]. Some are amusingly tongue-in-cheek, while others are a bit too on-the-nose and hamfisted. Brody, Wilson, and Oyelowo are delightful in See How They Run, yet I was never fully convinced of Rockwell as a Brit, even when playing a very mumble-y character. Though, there is a rather neat, artsy dream sequence with Stoppard in the middle of the movie that is kind of unique to the whodunit formula.

Like a lot of these types of pictures, See How They Run is most entertaining and interesting during the first half when we see the characters and their backstories set-up. While the ending is a little too gimmicky for me, See How They Run manages to be a fun nightly viewing for whodunit fans; and a step up from whatever Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile was earlier this year.