Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan lead an ensemble cast in West End murder mystery comedy See How They Run. Despite the consistently brilliant Ronan and a beautifully realised 1950s setting, the results are just… fine, deduces a disappointed Amelia Berry.
See How They Run
Have you ever been to a cafe and seen something on the menu that made you go “phwoar, french toast with seasonal fruit, Canadian maple syrup, artisanal sourdough, and fancy European custard; sounds amazing”? But then it arrives and it’s just fine. Fine, but it feels worse than fine because really, it had all the ingredients to be amazing, but somehow nothing’s quite cooked right and the sourdough is actually a brioche.
Well, that’s See How They Run.
The debut feature from Tom George, best known for directing UK mockumentary series This Country, See How They Run is a murder mystery comedy set amidst London’s West End in the early 1950s. The victim is Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), a sleazy American film director, in London to direct an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap. The suspects are a gaggle of film and theatre bigwigs (including standout performances from David Oyelowo and Ruth Wilson), and the leads are, of course, our cunning detectives, Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan).
The setting of the film is beautifully realised. Taking cues from Wes Anderson and Edgar Wright, Tom George’s London is glossy, gorgeous, and a little bit twee. The editing is also playfully retro, with a lot of interesting split screen effects standing in for the old shot/reverse shot. Fans of old showbiz will appreciate the loving nods to music hall and 1950’s cinema, while the two real life people amongst the suspects, Richard Attenborough (original lead in The Mousetrap) and John Woolf (producer responsible for The African Queen), are played with tongue-in-cheek charm by Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) and The League of Gentlemen’s Reece Shearsmith.
The problem is that See How They Run just spreads itself too thin. Kicking off with a noir style voice-over from Brody, we’re all set up for an overwhelmingly self-aware spoof of classic Agatha Christie murder mystery fare. The kind where a character says something is a bad murder mystery cliche and then that thing happens in the film. It’s not long though before we’re out of this winking meta world, and spend the rest of picture darting between loving homages to The Mousetrap, half-hearted condemnations of true crime, genuinely fun character comedy, and an actual murder mystery which feels unsatisfyingly half-baked.
Saoirse Ronan as the deliriously overeager Constable Stalker is consistently brilliant, and carries the most of the film’s best and funniest moments. Sam Rockwell’s Inspector Stoppard, however, feels like a huge missed opportunity. A gruff veteran with a drinking problem, Stoppard’s alcoholism leaves him not as a tragic or a comic figure, but more like your mate who had one too many and has run out of interesting things to say.
Not as funny as Clue, not as incisive as Gosford Park, and nowhere near as satisfying a mystery as Knives Out, See How They Run is a film with an incredible ensemble cast, gorgeous costumes and setting, and a fun comedic sensibility, that all adds up to a movie that’s just… fine. Disappointedly fine.
