Those who follow my reviews know that whenever a series or film uses the “whodunit” formula, I go back to the main source: Agatha Christie. The crime queen, whose life she scripted with dramatic events, is unbeatable even 70 years after taking London by storm and breaking incredible records. That’s right, the play The Mousetrap – which deserves a separate post – debuted on the London stage in 1952 and is still on display today. Seven decades of absolute success.

For those who know the curiosities about the play, its origin, and its author, the film See How They Run is brilliant. If not, it’s still a gem. Intelligent, curious, and fun, it brings Saiorse Ronan and Sam Rockwell as the detectives who have to solve the crimes that occur behind the scenes of the crime play, which makes The Mousetrap a metalanguage plot absolutely above the others that intend to reach simple genius. by Agatha Christie, such as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery or the wonderful The White Lotus.

See How They Run revolves around the play The Mousetrap in a satire on people’s obsession with deciphering “who killed” (whodunit) before the plot’s detectives. In other words, “classic Agatha Christie” specialized in simple stories and wild twists. In the case of the film, in London in the 1950s, there are 10 suspects, two detectives (one disinterested and one rookie), and a corpse. Excluding the ever-suspicious butler, who could have killed?

Director Tom George takes the opportunity to inform us about the source with correct information (cast, source, success, the impossibility of filming it while it was in theaters, etc.) to satirize the public’s eternal morbid curiosity about crimes. Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) explains everything we need to know to find out “who killed”, and teaches (or tries to teach) officer Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) not to “hurry to conclude facts”, but of course it is useless. At every comma, we try to guess who killed the detestable Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), a Hollywood director who wanted to take The Mousetrap to the cinema.

Purposely keeping the atmosphere of the excessive drama of suspense plots, what remains is to laugh and have fun.

There is a lot of curiosity and quotes in the film that are worth revisiting (we will have overposting!), but what remains here is the reinforced suggestion of seeing the film, available on StarPlus, and letting yourself go. It’s one of the gifts of 2022!