Damian Jones’ new comedy-mystery hybrid See How They Run is a delightful time at the cinema, if a little rough around the edges.
Its story centres around a performance of Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap and the murder of American director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody) as he plans to adapt it to suit a Hollywood audience, much to the dismay of those involved with the play’s impressive run.
Right from the beginning, Brody’s narration criticises the murder mystery formula and the ‘second rate play’ everyone is so emotionally invested in. In doing so, Jones seems to be claiming that this mystery will be a much-needed relief from Christie's work. Instinctively, I, a lifelong Agatha Christie fan, was quite offended, as I don’t believe that anyone could craft a who-dunnit as cleverly as her.
What is most important to consider though, is that Jones doesn’t seem to want us to be invested in the mystery itself. You can see this as a flaw or you can consider it part of a larger message. Jones isn’t trying to emulate Agatha Christie, rather he is trying to break away from her hold over the genre, even if that means not being able to outwit your audience.
At its core, See How They Run is actually meta art- meaning that it openly references the process involved in making it. During the film, I couldn't help but think that I was experiencing one person's stream of consciousness as they watched The Mousetrap explored through a parallel mystery. This is because it's meta in that it is both about the creation of art and Jones’ reaction to already existing work.
It is vivid documentation of the daunting task that working within the mystery genre is, given the expectations already placed on it. Jones has argued that there is no way the archaic who-dunnit formula can continue to apply to film, a medium that is constantly evolving, and satirised the idea that it could. It is hard not to draw a comparison to meta episodes of sitcoms like Community and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that mock themselves and the flaws often found within the sitcom genre.
But what makes See How They Run different is that, rather than attempting to mock the genre, Jones is celebrating the potential of murder mysteries. In this way it is much more akin to Fredrico Fellini’s 8 ½ (often dubbed the ‘most meta film ever made’) which focuses on the frustration Fellini felt making a film not born out of genuine inspiration but rather pressure from his superiors to continue making ‘masterpieces’. Both movies celebrate the potential of filmmaking and promote creativity to their audiences.
So, in the current reemergence of the mystery genre, with pieces like Knives Out, Decision to Leave and The Play That Goes Wrong, Jones implores us to adapt our stories to the changing artistic landscape. While he proves that taking on this artistic endeavour is daunting, he advertises being creative and defying the genre's expectations, even if you have to get a little meta with it.
