“Is this supposed to be funny?”, asked The Wife about 20 minutes into the purported comedy See How They Run, which is a send up of the drawing room mystery and its tropes. There’s a murder at a theater running an Agatha Christie play, and everyone involved with the play is a suspect for detectives played by Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan.
But what’s the point of parodying a form that doesn’t take itself seriously? Can one even parody the drawing room murder mystery? Agatha Christie was a smart cookie who never thought that the Miss Marple books were great literature; she knew that she wrote popular entertainment and that she was exceptionally good at it.
There’s also supposed to be some humor from the Odd Couple pairing of the jaded veteran cop (Rockwell) and the eager rookie (Ronan). However, the script doesn’t provide any freshness to this time-honored comedy situation, and the normally excellent actors don’t develop any chemistry. Other fine actors are similarly wasted: David Oyewolo, Ruth Wilson, Harris Dickinson. Only Adrien Brody gets the benefit of a flamboyant role and makes the most of it.
See How They Run was written by Tom Chappell and directed by Tom George, and this misfire is their fault.
The trailer promises a funny film, but it’s misleading. See How They Run is streaming on HBO. Skip it.