One of the stranger moviegoing experiences of my life was walking out from The Last Jedi and feeling sure I’d experienced a masterpiece. I’m not the most devoted Star Wars fan, but I thought I’d seen something special. I still do. So, you can imagine my surprise when the rest of the world was, shall we say, a little divided on The Last Jedi.
I’m not here to relitigate that whole exhausting conversation now. But while watching that movie, I felt a connection to the filmmaker, Rian Johnson. Something in the way he navigated the power of belief, the handing down of received wisdom, and the challenges of carving new paths in old traditions spoke to me. I was not surprised to later learn that Johnson had been raised in the church, and I was delighted when he decided to take that as both the theme and setting of the third Knives Out film, his wildly popular murder mystery franchise starring Daniel Craig’s Foghorn Leghorn-throated detective Benoit Blanc.
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