See How They Run (2022)

Directed by Tom George

“You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.”

The movie starts in the 1950-ies with our future victim Leo Köpernick narrating the events up to his death at the 100th show anniversary of The Mousetrap, a popular real-world mystery play written by Agatha Christie (which is still running). Leo lets us know that he doesn’t like whodunits (gee thanks!), as they’re too stiff for his liking and tells us plainly all of the plot beats of a whodunit from beginning to end. Then he dies and the mystery is afoot.

All of the cast is brilliant, with Saoirse Ronin’s and Sam Rockwell’s chemistry carrying most of the movie’s plot and humor. The sets are lavish, especially the set of The Mousetrap, which looks and feels like the real-life set at London’s West End. The music by Daniel Pemberton is befitting of a 1950-ies mystery romp. The plot of The Mousetrap was nicely woven into the plot of the movie and the portrayal of Agatha Christie, at the end of the movie, was amazing and worth the admission price alone.  

Unfortunately, See How They Run really wants to be “not like the other girls” - and fails miserably. It painstakingly highlights every trope of the genre, but doesn’t do anything with them except pointing and winking at the camera. In the same manner it tries to juxtapose several detective genres like Golden Age vs. Noir or stereotypes like the Trickster/Woman Detective vs. Hardboiled (drunk) Detective, but again fails to do anything with these contradictions, except point and chuckle at their mere existence. As the intended subversion or juxtaposition don’t go off as intended, the film feels like a graveyard of ideas. 

The quirky characters and the mystery are handled without any particular care or interest by the filmmakers, making it obvious that they don’t particularly like the genre, but weren’t creative enough to make it their own, instead opting for smothering the movie in an inordinate amount of meta humor.

See How They Run is funny in places and even smart in others with a stellar cast helping it along, but in the end it fails at what it sets out to do and serves us a lukewarm mystery in the process.