Langreview Kurzkritik English Version Fakten + Credits

See How They Run ©2022 20th Century Studios

Even today, enjoyers of Agatha Christie’s works can experience one every day in London’s West End. There, “The Mousetrap” is still performed as a play, making it the longest continuously performed stage play. The play was originally written for the then Queen Mother Mary under the title “Three Blind Mice” and, apart from the forced pause due to the COVID-19th pandemic, there have been no major interruptions to performances since 1952. However, a renaming had to take place when the originally intended radio radio play was finally formed into the play, as there was already another work with that title. The exclusivity of the performances even ensured that, according to Max Mallowan, this play had as much tourist value as visiting Buckingham Palace and the Tower. Feature-length directorial debutant Tom George takes this successful template and develops his very own creation of the play based on it. Surprisingly, he can draw on a multi-award-winning and even Oscar®-winning cast.

This is what it is about

It is the 1950s and Agatha Christie’s play “The Mousetrap” is running brilliantly in London. The play is highly acclaimed and plans are immediately made to make a film of it. But before the 100th performance, the intended director is suddenly found dead. Inspector Stoppard, who is a bit of a has-been but always conscientious, immediately takes on the case and, with the help of his extremely eager, always attentive and inquisitive colleague Constable Stalker, begins to secure evidence, question witnesses and get closer to the culprit one by one. In the process, the experienced investigator not only encounters some difficulties in the case of solving the murder, but also has to deal with the hasty conclusions of the young Constable again and again, which even makes him a target himself. But one question remains: Who did it?

Review

Crime stories with a whodunit concept from Christie’s pen have been presented to us time and again in the past decades and especially MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and DEATH ON THE NILE have recently proved that this film genre is far from being exhausted and that the audience still craves for obscure murder hunts. It turns out that the focus is now less on the search for the murderer or murderess than on the charming way in which they are staged, often with unique and captivating characters. Nevertheless, George makes use of a story that is not all that well known at times, for in fact Die Mäusejagd was only adapted once as a 50-minute German television film under the title DIE FUCHSJAGD, although this was also only a studio recording of a theatre club.

See How They Run ©2022 20th Century Studios

In both the theatre and the film, the characters point out at the end of the performance that revealing the grand finale is not desirable and, in modern jargon, they thus impose a spoiler ban on the audience. We would like to adhere to this strictly. Nonetheless, it should be said that we are not going to be souled with a revolutionary story that seems completely unpredictable and surprising. Instead, the film team even aims to play with various genre clichés and satirise whodunit films to the fullest. While DER WIXXER and its sequel have already taken on such a theme, SEE HOW THEY RUN takes a more sophisticated path and uses even more subtle humour than the fabulous comedy CLUE. This is not without a highly referential nature, which is why we keep being inundated with posters for all kinds of plays and stories.

The genius masters his chaos

However, George not only revels in early film and theatre history, but also makes use of today’s masterpieces, especially in terms of staging. Several times it seems as if Wes Anderson was a great inspiration for the director, because even if the images are often bursting with disorder, a love of detail seems to have been incorporated, which in turn brings order to the chaotic mess. The perfectionist camera movements, which not infrequently seem to spring more from artistic than cinematic love, also complement this assumption. With an extremely free visual interpretation of the 50s as well as an unusual constellation of characters, which is noticeably poised for diversity, it is quickly apparent that no historically correct plot is to be told here, but rather SEE HOW THEY RUN aims to entertain the audience. It should be mentioned here, however, that the work has some shortcomings, especially in pacing, and thus promotes a feel-good, sleepy atmosphere.

See How They Run ©2022 20th Century Studios

At the centre of it all is, of course, the team of investigators, embodied by Oscar® winner Sam Rockwell as well as the multi-nominated Saoirse Ronan. Even if hopes are pinned on another fabulous production by Rockwell, it is Ronan who completely steals the show. The US-American’s talent is unfortunately not played off at any point, as he is always just the grumpy sidekick of his own investigation in a perpetually absent performance. Apart from this, an attempt is made to create an ensemble film, as the film poster clearly suggests. However, this is only partially successful, because instead of giving each character a similar screentime in the classic whodunit style, the focus of the plot always remains on the team of investigators and thus unfortunately shows far too few scenes around the individual roles that inspire speculation.

Conclusion

Even though SEE HOW THEY RUN doesn’t exactly shine with a spectacular, unpredictable and unique story, it’s clear that this was never the director’s intention. Instead, in a little over 90 minutes of film, we get a nice little satire on the whodunit films of Agatha Christie and, at the same time, a piece of theatre history previously unfilmed as a feature film. With a top-class cast, we can expect not an ensemble film, as the poster suggests, but a classic detective thriller in which lead actor Sam Rockwell remains only in the shadow of his co-actress Saoirse Ronan. The work itself offers some nice interweavings that play especially with the “play within a play” theme. Because of this and because a lot of time is spent on the characterisation of the protagonist duo, the film definitely has deficits in pacing, which can not infrequently be associated with microsleep. Nevertheless, The Search for the Murderer offers nice entertainment with many references for in between.

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