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Your enjoyment of “See How They Run” will depend on your appreciation for its two most prominent elements. The first is the genre of the classic British murder mystery and the names associated with those who created them and those who parodied and meta-commented on them. And the second is the genre of meta-commentary itself. There are air quotes and winks at the audience in almost every scene. I’m fine with both, so since the movie is exceptionally well cast and stylishly filmed, I thought it was a hoot. But those who are not well-versed in Agatha Christie and the darkly comic British Kitchen Sink-era responses to her mysteries may find it so arch that it will make their fillings ache. Let me put it this way: If you know what The Mousetrap  is, and especially if you’ve seen it performed, you’ll get a kick out of “See How They Run.” If you don’t recognize the title “The Real Inspector Hound” or if you are allergic to air quotes, maybe not. Consider yourself warned.

The Mousetrap , a play by Agatha Christie, is the longest-running play in history, opening in 1952 in London’s West End and, except for a pause during the pandemic, running ever since with over 28,000 performances. “See How They Run”—the title also connected to literary mice through the nursery rhyme—takes place around the celebration of the 100 th  performance of The Mousetrap , in 1953 London, when an American movie director named Leo Köpernick ( Adrien Brody ) has arrived as a producer is negotiating the film rights to the play. 

Köpernick is a briefly anonymous off-stage narrator who tells us he has not seen The Mousetrap  but he's sure it's a “second rate murder mystery.” If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen one seen them all, he says. They all begin with “an interminable prologue in which all the key players are introduced." You get a sense of the world they inhabit and then the most unlikable character gets bumped off. Cue the entrance of the "world-weary detective" who pokes his nose around, talks to witnesses, takes a couple of wrong turns, then gathers all the suspects together and points to the least likely. Köpernick is in London because he has been blacklisted in Hollywood, and he tells us he has been hired to make the movie marginally less boring than the play. 

In the traditional British mystery, the first murder victim either has no enemies or is loathed by everyone. Köpernick is in that second category. He's murdered backstage, and, on cue, the world-weary, hard-drinking detective arrives, a WWII veteran with a limp. He is Inspector Stoppard ( Sam Rockwell ) and like other names in the film, this one is a meta-reference. The Real Inspector Hound  is an early work by Oscar-winner Tom Stoppard , and, like this film, it's about a theatrical murder mystery and the people connected to it. Just to make sure we get it, at one point a character says, “He was a real hound, Inspector!” Other characters are named for Richard Attenborough , who was in the original cast of Mousetrap  and played the killer in one of the other films referred to, and to " Downton Abbey "'s Julian Fellowes , who elegantly updated the classic British great house murder mystery in “ Gosford Park .”

In keeping with the mid-century setting of the film, the screenplay is best described as “too clever by half.” This reaches its zenith when everyone somehow ends up at the home of Agatha Christie herself (for casual and non-fans, note that her real-life second husband, Max Mallowan, is played by Lucian Msamati ), though the names and Dame Agatha’s interest in poisons are the only real-life connections. 

It all speeds by briskly when it isn’t distracting us with lazy flashbacks and knee-slappers like calling a possible murder “staged” because it is literally on a stage. And the performance and production values are fun for British mystery fans, with Saoirse Ronan , as always, pure joy as the eager young Constable Stalker (those names!) and the cast clearly enjoying having fun with the conventions and archetypes of the genre. There are references to the serial killer film “10 Rillington Place” and, less successfully, to a gruesome real-life murder that may have inspired The Mousetrap . If all of this is sounding like too much work, you should probably stick with the original or with better meta-mysteries like “ Knives Out ” and its upcoming sequel “Glass Onion” and the wildly funny theatrical production The Play that Goes Wrong . 

Still, all the stylishness and enthusiasm cannot disguise the fact that the mystery itself never comes close to those concocted by Dame Agatha. Then again, no one else has topped her either. 

Now playing in theaters.

Nell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com.

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Film credits.

See How They Run (2022)

Rated PG-13 for some violence/bloody images and a sexual reference.

Sam Rockwell as Inspector Stoppard

Saoirse Ronan as Constable Stalker

Adrien Brody as Leo Kopernick

Ruth Wilson as Petula Spencer

Reece Shearsmith as John Woolf

Harris Dickinson as Richard Attenborough

Charlie Cooper as Dennis Corrigan

Pippa Bennett-Warner as Ann Saville

Pearl Chanda as Sheila Sim

Sian Clifford as Edana Romney

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Gio

David Oyelowo as Mervyn Cocker-Norris

Shirley Henderson as Agatha Christie

Paul Chahidi as Fellowes

Lucian Msamati as Max Mallowman

Angus Wright as Sgt. Bakewell

Tim Key as Commissioner Harrold Scott

Gregory Cox as Major Metcalf

Maggie McCarthy as Mrs. Boyle

Keiran Hodgson as Harley the Motorcycle Messenger

Ania Marson as Mother

Philip Desmeules as Pierre

Laura Morgan as Joyce

Tolu Ogunmefun as Mr. Lyon

• Mark Chappell

Cinematographer

• Jamie Ramsay
• Peter Lambert
• Gary Dollner
• Daniel Pemberton

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See How They Run

By Richard Brody

The director Tom George’s first feature is clever to a fault. The movie, elaborately written by Mark Chappell, is a comedic whodunnit-within-a-whodunnit, set in London, in 1953, behind the scenes of the West End production of Agatha Christie’s play “The Mousetrap,” which a blacklisted Hollywood director, Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), is adapting as a film. When an actual corpse turns up onstage, Leo’s plans are scuttled, and the taciturn Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and the overeager young Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) must find the killer among the troupe’s likely suspects, including a vain screenwriter (David Oyelowo) and a philandering producer (Reece Shearsmith). The action is stuffed with flashbacks and the screen is cluttered with gleeful period décor and inconsequential special effects. As red herrings pile up, the plot slows, leaving little to savor but the performances, especially that of Ronan, who revels in Stalker’s glittering array of pointed gestures and impulsive verbal tangles. The movie’s one good idea, regarding the perilous connections of art and life, is tossed off casually. (In theatrical release.)

‘See How They Run’ Review: Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell Team Up for a Snappy Retro-Kitsch Murder Comedy

A performance of Agatha Christie's long-running stage smash 'The Mousetrap' yields a backstage murder mystery of its own in this most enjoyable all-star comedy.

By Amy Nicholson

Amy Nicholson

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Agatha Christie, master of deduction, was wrong only once. When her play “The Mousetrap” opened in London in 1952, she reckoned it would last eight months. 70 years later, the unkillable production lives on — even Covid only clipped it for 14 months — and yet, the actual plot of the longest-running show in theater history makes most people draw a blank. This is due to two clauses in Christie’s contract: First, every night, the actors order the audience to keep the story secret, and second, every movie producer who wants to turn the play into a film is told they must wait until the end of its run, which at this point may be never.

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Gauntlet thrown. “See How They Run” is a retro homage that surprises audiences with giggles and suspense. Chappell’s script pits old-fashioned Christie-style chills against the hip gunplay that Köpernick claims will excite Eisenhower-era squares. (Köpernick’s ideas are destined to become the action flick status quo.) In flashbacks, he pitches his take on updating the whodunnit to the unswayable Melvyn (David Oyelowo), a traditionalist who clings so stubbornly to the past that he still pronounces the word “penchant” as though he believes it’s 1066 and England’s official language is French.

While the real-life London producers of “The Mousetrap” credit its perennial success to the fact that it’s performed without a drop of irony, George and Chappell give their cast’s deadpan line deliveries a light layer of modern gloss. We’re meant to snort at the subtext when Melvyn introduces his live-in Italian lover (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) as his, er, nephew, or chuckle when a police commissioner (Tim Key) declares himself a feminist modernizer, and then asks Ronan to fetch him a tea.

Sometimes, the joke is on “The Mousetrap” itself, which is presented as stiff and stagey. Whenever any of the film’s characters attempt to sit through it, they quickly make excuses to leave. A better Wile E. Coyote-style gag takes place in the wings, when a person in peril attempts to fend off the killer by flinging ceramic vases, which turn out to be plaster props that crumble harmlessly. Mostly, though, George and Chappell enjoy watching these artistic hotheads bicker about their differing story-telling philosophies, debates that allow the filmmakers to pluck sample gimmicks — time stamps, close-ups of pistols, country house clichés — and re-insert them into their own movie as a meta-prank.

As the plot quickens, editors Gary Dollner and Peter Lambert divide the screen into two pieces, then three, then four. Their cutting is brisk and fanciful, and, during a standout dream sequence, marvelously illogical. Meanwhile, composer Daniel Pemberton unleashes a jazzy upright bass to climb up and down the scales.

Still, the film is firmly in the pocket of Rockwell and Ronan as the odd pair working to solve the carnage. Rockwell’s shambling detective is all kinetic energy: He drinks, he limps, he slams his coat in car doors, and at one point, skids to his knees. Ronan is so aquiver with nervous excitement that she continually chokes out nonsensical lines that zoom almost under the radar. (She explains that she quit her secretary career for the police academy because she “hates the sight of blood.”) George gets Ronan in such a tizzy that we are poised to see her panic just from the snap of a pencil tip.

Reviewed in Los Angeles, Aug. 31, 2022. Running time: 98 MIN.

• Production: A Searchlight Pictures presentation. Producers: Gina Carter, Damian Jones. Executive producers: Katie Goodson, Richard Ruiz.
• Crew: Director: Tom George. Screenplay: Mark Chappell. Camera: Jamie Ramsay. Editors: Gary Dollner, Peter Lambert. Music: Daniel Pemberton.
• With: Saoirse Ronan, Sam Rockwell, Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson, Shirley Henderson, Sian Clifford.

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‘See How They Run’: An Agatha Christie-adjacent whodunit, with laughs

The murder mystery-comedy is set in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the long-running play ‘The Mousetrap’

While fans of the murder mystery genre count the weeks until the release of “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” the eagerly anticipated sequel to 2019’s twisty, sharply funny “ Knives Out ,” they can take the edge off their appetite with “See How They Run.” Starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan as a pair of odd-couple Scotland Yard officers investigating a theater-world murder in 1950s London, this larky meta-whodunit both subverts and pays homage to “The Mousetrap,” Agatha Christie’s famously long-running play. After opening in London’s West End in 1952, “Mousetrap” has been running continuously — except for a pandemic-induced break — for more than 28,000 performances.

The popular show has, almost as infamously, never been made into a movie. Hold that thought. It figures somewhat prominently here, and for reasons other than the fact that you can’t stream it on Amazon before watching “See How They Run.” Though after seeing the new movie, you may want to.

As “See How They Run” gets underway, the “Mousetrap” cast and crew — which, in a nod to verisimilitude, includes characters based on “Mousetrap” stars Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and his wife, Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda) — are celebrating the show’s 100th performance. An obnoxious but entirely fictional Hollywood director named Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) is in town to discuss a film adaptation with the British movie producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) and would-be screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo), when Leo turns up dead. Woolf, like several other characters in “Run,” is based on a real person; Cocker-Norris, whom Oyelowo renders with an amusingly priggish persnickety-ness, is not.

“Life imitates art,” reads a headline in a newspaper. But in some ways, “See How They Run” is a case of art imitating life.

In reality, death isn’t why the play was never adapted for the screen; there’s a far more fascinating explanation, which I’ll leave for “See How They Run” director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell to reveal, in one of the film’s deliciously ironic twists.

Called onto the case are Rockwell’s jaded, slightly boozy Inspector Stoppard and Ronan’s aptly named Constable Stalker, a dogged if untested police rookie who writes down everything she observes in her notebook — including this advice from the more experienced Stoppard: “Do not jump to conclusions.” Stoppard’s name echoes the playwright Tom Stoppard, whose one-act play “The Real Inspector Hound,” like this film, parodies the cliches of a “Mousetrap”-style stage mystery.

To that end, “Run” includes several suspects, all of whom have legitimate motives to do Leo in, including creative differences and secrets they’d rather keep hidden. It helps that this victim was widely disliked. It also helps the multilayered nature of this very loosely fact-adjacent film that the backstory of “The Mousetrap” itself is loosely based on true events. That’s another thought to hold in the back of your mind while watching the film, which is, true to form, larded with flashbacks and the occasional on-screen title detailing the passage of time.

And yet “do not jump to conclusions” is pretty good advice for audiences, too, as the red herrings pile up in “See How They Run.” The colorful characters of Stoppard and Stalker loom large here, as detectives so often do — Hercule Poirot , Jane Marple — in such fare. But even larger is the shadow cast by Christie’s 1952 play, which provides a fun backdrop, if one rendered irreverently, for this diverting puzzle within a puzzle.

“It’s just like one of [Christie’s] confections!” observes one character with seeming delight, as the film heads toward its antic climax. Maybe not just like, but close enough.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains some violence, bloody images and a sexual reference. 98 minutes.

Review: Murder-mystery ‘See How They Run’ really staggers

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A murder occurs right as “See How They Run” begins and for a very good reason: It’s a whodunit film about a real murder backstage at a whodunit play where all the murders are fake.

Got that? Good. Shall we continue?

Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan star as police officers who must unravel this knotty mystery in early-1950s London in a film that’s as much a valentine to whodunits as an indictment of them, and it’s not always clear which side the filmmakers are on.

There’s a touch of noir, some mocking of the murder-mystery tropes, a dash of self-awareness, lots of fedoras and coats, mannered humor — “Poppycock!” says one character; “Hitchcock, actually,” comes the reply — and an archness that keeps everything at arm’s length.

All in all, a pleasant diversion, if not a particular memorable one, although it has snagged a pretty impressive cast, all employing upper-class British accents as thick as Devonshire scones. It seems perfectly designed for folks who adore Acorn TV and PBS British mysteries. You know how many celebrities decide to star in kiddie films so that their children can finally appreciate what they do for a living? Well, “See How They Run” is for their grandparents.

It kicks off backstage in the West End at Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” a mystery that in this telling has celebrated 100 performances and Hollywood is noticing. But there’s a catch: No film adaptation can be made while the play is still running. That may lead to some sabotage.

When the malignant, would-be film director — a delicious Adrien Brody, playing the only American — ends up the victim of a murder — sorry that’s a MU-dur — Rockwell and Ronan show up to solve the crime, he a steely-eyed copper who drinks too much and she a nervous novice prone to jumping to conclusions.

The early death of Brody’s character doesn’t mean he’s out of the movie. He’s our narrator, snacking on the dialogue as if it were an overstuffed pastrami sandwich. “It’s a whodunit,” he says at one point. “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

Also along for the ride are Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith and Harris Dickinson. There’s also a fancy intellectual screenwriter played insouciantly by David Oyelowo, who is derisively called “London’s most sensitive writer.” It is a hoot to see him play insufferable — as it is to see Ronan do comedy.

Director Tom George and screenwriter Mark Chappell revel in the time period — the cars and furs and vintage dialogue speckled with “Darlings” and “Hop to it!” This is a film for you if you like your police officers extremely polite. “Constable,” says Rockwell to his partner. “Inspector,” the underling replies. They do this approximately 400 times.

It is a film that adores commenting on its own conventions as it folds in on itself, as when stage props fool savvy characters or when it introduces a flashback and Oyelowo’s screenwriter complains that such a device is “the last refuge of a moribund imagination.” Somewhere in here is an indictment of Hollywood, but it is as blunt a weapon as the one that does the murder.

The filmmakers employ all kinds of ways to try to keep viewers interested, like split screens, some farce and a surreal dream sequence, but there’s not enough humor or grit or anything other than actors swanning around in period clothing.

“See How They Run” fits perfectly in a vibe right now — “Only Murders in the Building” on TV and “Knives Out” at the movie theater. Add to the list Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot adaptations “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile.” Whodunits are hot. But if you’ve see this one, you’ve definitely seen them all.

'See How They Run'

Rated: PG-13, for “some violence/bloody images and a sexual reference” Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes Playing: Opens Friday in general release

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‘See How They Run’ review: Saoirse Ronan charms in this mousetrap of a murder-mystery

Movie review.

“See How They Run” is the Saoirse Ronan show. Start to finish. Top to bottom, Now and forever.

The 28-year-old actor dominates the picture more completely than any performer in any movie in recent memory. In the role of a London constable working to unravel a knotty murder mystery, she’s winsome, whimsical, unfailingly chipper and funny. Above all: funny.

With a frankly adorable Scottish accent and big cornflower blue eyes, she creates a character who is a total charmer. Eager, observant, star-struck (the murder victims are from the worlds of the stage and the movies), whip-smart and ever upbeat, her Constable Stalker is tasked to work with a fedora-wearing veteran Scotland Yard inspector named Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) who views her with weary bemusement. It’s 1953, and a woman in a major investigatory role in a high-profile case is just not the sort of thing that was done in those days. But his boss the commissioner insists (in the script’s nod to as-yet unfledged feminism), so Stoppard is obliged to swallow his grumbles and go along. 

The character’s name alludes to playwright Tom Stoppard, whose 1968 play “The Real Inspector Hound” is a parody of “The Mousetrap.”

The setting is London’s West End where the 100 th  performance of Agatha Christie’s hit stage whodunit “The Mousetrap” is being feted. (The play is still being performed in the West End to this day, making it the longest-running play in theatrical history.)

On scene among the performers and the backstage glitterati is Hollywood director Leo Köpernick played by Adrien Brody. He’s in town to help secure the rights to the play so he can turn it into a movie. He’s crass and cynical beyond all measure. In other words, thoroughly American in the disdainful appraisal of the Brits.

He knows what he is and glories in his crudity. He also provides a running commentary on the goings-on in the early going, from beyond the grave as it were. In murder mysteries of the Christie variety, “The most unlikable character gets bumped off,” he observes, and sure enough off he is bumped before too long. Enter Stalker and Stoppard, and the game’s afoot.

Because Köpernick was such an offensive cad, everyone hated his guts, and so everyone is a suspect: the playwright (David Oyelowo), the play’s haughty impresario (Ruth Wilson), the lead actor (Harris Dickinson) who answers to the name of Dickie Attenborough and was a real-life theatrical figure who played the police detective sergeant in “The Mousetrap” in its opening run. Later in life, he became a prominent figure in film, directing “Gandhi” and “A Chorus Line” among others and acting in ever so many movies, including “Jurassic Park.”

As they’re all suspicious characters, Constable Stalker thinks each in turn has done it. Busily taking down their every word and movement in an ever-present notebook, she chirps to Stoppard that obviously this one did it, then that one. He sags slightly each time, giving her a baleful look until she abashedly admits to jumping to conclusions. It’s a running gag and consistently laugh-out-loud funny.

She’s initially respectful of her veteran partner, but then her admiration cools when it becomes obvious he’s an alcoholic of the quiet, falling-down-drunk variety. Rockwell’s performance is a subtle one and he’s the perfect foil for the sprightly upbeat Ronan. His accent, however, is uncertain, not quite British, not quite American.

In his feature directorial debut, Tom George, a veteran of BBC television comedies working from a screenplay by Mark Chappell, has a light touch. The pace is quick. The interweaving of actual “Mousetrap” period history and fictional elements is deft. And the settings, many of them filmed in actual West End theaters that were closed during the pandemic, are elegant.

A most delightful comedy, thanks above all to Ronan.

With Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, David Oyelowo, Charlie Cooper, Pippa Bennett-Warner. Directed by Tom George. 98 minutes. PG-13 for some violence/bloody images and a sexual reference. Opens Sept. 16 at multiple theaters.

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International Edition

See How They Run: Saoirse Ronan gives a stand-out performance using her own accent

Agatha christie-style comic whodunit is at least as enjoyable as knives out.

Assisting the damaged, often intoxicated Inspector Stoppard is Saoirse Ronan as the hilariously overeager Constable Stalker

It seems unlikely this meta-mystery would have made it to the big screen without the success of Knives Out. Once again a collection of carefully worked stereotypical suspects attempt to avoid arrest by comic variations on classic detectives. The filmmakers lay out their stall early on by sending one Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) to investigate a murder in London’s West End. See How They Run is not quite so self-regarding as Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, but See How They Run is a delightful, shamelessly affectionate deconstruction of ChristieLand that outstays not a second of its welcome.

The murder has happened on the stage of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. In a joke typical of Mark Chappell’s script, one possible motive appears to be the play’s pesky longevity. It is 1953 and they just can’t get it out of the theatre. You won’t need to be told it is still running nearly 70 years later.

Assisting the damaged, often intoxicated Stoppard is Saoirse Ronan as the hilariously overeager Constable Stalker. They make a complementary team. Offered a rare opportunity to act in her own accent, Ronan scribbles furiously in her notebook while Rockwell finds new ways to stumble unsteadily from Soho pubs. Their interactions are largely comic, but the screenplay also convincingly addresses the traumas so many Londoners carried over from the war.

Students of Christie and of mid-20th century English life in general will relish the melding of real-life characters with fictional composites. Playing Richard Attenborough, Harris Dickinson works a little of that actor’s native Leicester into his fruity delivery. Reece Shearsmith gives good outrage as John Woolf, Oscar-winning British producer of The African Queen and Oliver!. The standout performance is, however, yet again that of Saoirse Ronan. She has already generated laughs in Lady Bird and (albeit briefly) The Grand Budapest Hotel, but here makes the most of an opportunity to fully exploit Rolex-level comic timing.

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There is little sense of late-rationing-era austerity here. The cars all gleam as if auditioning for commercials on the still unavailable colour television. The dialogue features notable anachronisms such as “serial killer” (when referring to the Rillington Place murders). It is not, however, as if the average Agatha Christie novel – still less adaptation – has much truck with verisimilitude. At least as enjoyable as Knives Out, See How They Run crackles with invention and high spirits. We pray for its success and look forward eagerly to another “Constable Stalker Mystery”.

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke, a contributor to The Irish Times, is Chief Film Correspondent and a regular columnist

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See How They Run review: Playful Agatha Christie romp is as sweet and light as a fondant fancy

Saoirse ronan comes out on top in an ensemble comedy awash in giddy, well-intentioned fun, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Tom George. Starring: Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson, David Oyelowo. 12A, 98 minutes.

Could the all-star whodunnit finally save us from the monotony of superheroes? That’s the tantalising promise embedded in See How They Run , which may feel as cynically constructed as any of Marvel’s corporate-minded affairs, but goes down as sweet and light as a fondant fancy. It’s an equal-parts concoction of Rian Johnson’s wry, self-aware Knives Out and the aristocratic romanticism of Kenneth Branagh’s Agatha Christie adaptations. And if its ambitions towards broad likeability weren’t already obvious enough, the film’s caked in the Wes Anderson aesthetic – obsessive symmetry, bright palettes, French New Wave-inspired camera trickery. You also have to wonder whether the presence of two of his regulars – Saoirse Ronan and Adrien Brody – means they themselves weren’t wickedly deceived into signing their contracts. Are they aware this isn’t actually a follow-up to The French Dispatch ?

But, somehow – and almost against odds – See How They Run is a real pleasure to consume. If the appeal of the Marvel universe can be whittled down to a feeling of familiarity and stability in unwieldy times, then there’s not much that separates it from the legacy of Christie and her many successors. Both are rooted in a reassurance that justice can be restored and mayhem tamed. Christie wrote under the shadow of war, and the crime genre has always waxed and waned in accordance with our collective feelings of security. See How They Run follows all the rigorous codes of the genre: a dead body and a detective (or two); a colourful assortment of suspects; answers provided in neat, monologue form.

The deceased, in this case, is discovered plonked onto a prop couch centre stage at The Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End, where Christie’s The Mousetrap has just completed its 100th performance. The film mentions the real-life contract clause that bars a film adaptation from being made until the show’s run has ended – the grand joke of it all being that The Mousetrap is now the longest-running play in the world, still active at the St Martin’s next door (minus its brief, Covid-related closure). Inspector Stoppard ( Sam Rockwell ), with the assistance of rookie constable Stalker (Ronan), are on the case. The pickings of would-be murderers are rich, since they include some of The Mousetrap ’s original cast, Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda).

See How They Run marks the directorial debut of Tom George, the man behind all three seasons of the BBC mockumentary This Country . He’s carried over the same ethos here – hand a strong cast a set of well-defined characters and let them run wild (series stars Charlie Cooper and Paul Chahidi also crop up). It’s the sort of ensemble film that plays like a tennis match, as David Oyelowo’s ostentatious screenwriter lobs one-liners at Sian Clifford’s brittle producer’s wife, who lobs one-liners at Dickinson’s luvvie-ish Attenborough. Ronan, however, ultimately comes out on top. She plays Stalker’s eager naivety with the same kind of gentle slapstick quality of a baby deer wobbling around on its legs for the first time.

• Daisy May and Charlie Cooper: ‘We had nothing before This Country. It was humiliating... we couldn’t even afford McDonald’s’

As pure elevator pitch, See How They Run does admittedly come off a little trite. To copy Wes Anderson without also indulging in his profound sense of melancholy makes it no better a homage than an Instagram post of a satchel bag and a beret. But the film’s so plain in its ambitions – in its sense of giddy, well-intentioned fun – that it feels a little pointless to scorn its more superficial choices.

The same could easily be said of all its knowing winks to the camera. Brody’s Leo Kopernick, a film director who serves as the story’s narrator, introduces the tale with a broad evisceration of the murder mystery genre: “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”. But there’s no air of smugness to this gambit. Mark Chappell’s script playfully indulges in the very same contrivances that it parodies. Oyelowo’s character bemoans flashback sequences in movies as “the last resort of a moribund imagination” – in the middle of a flashback. When it comes to See How They Run , spotting the puppet’s strings is very much part of the pleasure.

‘See How They Run’ is in cinemas from 9 September

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See How They Run

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See How They Run may not do itself many favors by asking for Christie comparisons, but this is still one fun whodunit.

Even if See How They Run isn't the smartest or most unpredictable mystery you've seen, some great work from the stars makes this a consistently good time.

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Sam Rockwell

Inspector Stoppard

Saoirse Ronan

Constable Stalker

David Oyelowo

Mervyn Cocker-Norris

Adrien Brody

Leo Köpernick

Ruth Wilson

Petula Spencer

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See How They Run

In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered. In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered. In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after a pivotal member of the crew is murdered.

• Mark Chappell
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• 272 User reviews
• 195 Critic reviews
• 60 Metascore
• 4 nominations total

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• Trivia Richard "Dickie" Attenborough greets the detectives as "Darling." This was a real-life quirk of Attenborough's which he admitted he would often use if he forgot someone's name.
• Goofs At the end, Inspector Stoppard is awarded the King's Medal for police etc. This movie is set in 1953; while Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne in February 1952, the name of the King's Medals were not changed to Queen's Medals until May 1954, so it is accurate that the award Stoppard received would be called "King's."

Max Mallowan : Better make that eight for dinner, Fellowes, and let Agatha know.

Fellowes : Yes, sir.

Max Mallowan : And get a shovel to clear the path.

Max Mallowan : And do we have enough coal?

Fellowes : Yes, sir. Three bags full, sir.

• Connections Featured in EE BAFTA Film Awards (2023)
• Soundtracks St. Thomas Written by Sonny Rollins Arranged and Produced by Ed Farmer

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• Runtime 1 hour 38 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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See How They Run movie review: this meta-mystery showcases Saoirse’s comedy chops to perfection

Set in London’s West End , See How They Run is being given a big push by Disney, who want to sell it as the next Knives Out . It’s not quite as weighty (or plausible) as Rian Johnson’s whodunnit, but on the plus side, it’s a gazillion times smarter and wittier than Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile , offers a puzzle worth solving and is super-cosy. Despite seeing it in a miserably cold screening room, I felt snug as a bug throughout.

It’s the 1950s and Saoirse Ronan is nerdy, inexperienced Constable Stalker, assigned to help world-weary, war-wounded Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell), handle the murder of Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), a US producer who, we discover, was desperate to turn the popular play, The Mousetrap, into a Hollywood-friendly movie (Leo wanted more guns, bromance and lashings of Hank Williams).

As the police interview Leo’s enemies (he had no friends), Stalker writes everything down in her notebook. She can’t curb her enthusiasm for fresh intel and is constantly jumping to conclusions. She’s also a martyr to her own good manners; watch her face as she’s offered and then sips fresh nettle tea.

Ronan displayed her gift for comedy in Brooklyn, Ladybird, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Little Women. She’s always had perfect timing, but we’ve never filed her under “laugh a minute”. See How They Run will change that.

Equally delectable are Harris Dickinson and Ruth Wilson, both playing characters based on real-world legends. Dickinson is The Mousetrap’s charmingly condescending lead, Richard Attenborough; Wilson is the show’s outrageously penny-pinching impresario, Petula Spencer (a playfully cruel spin on theatre producer Peter Saunders).

You don’t need to have seen The Mousetrap, by the way (or remember who did what, at the end) to follow what’s going on. That said, you’ll get an extra kick out of the proceedings if you view Christie as a genius. Via its hero’s name, See How They Run signals that it’s part of a tradition of meta-mysteries, i.e. Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound. But unlike Stoppard, scriptwriter Mark Chappell has respect for what he’s deconstructing.

The problem is Californian star, Rockwell. Is it wrong to harp about his “English” accent, given that many a big name (see Knives Out’s Daniel Craig) has thrown authenticity to the wind? No. Rockwell’s accent is a different kettle of fishy, because the script makes so much of the Inspector’s back story. It’s deeply distracting that the inspector seems, from the off, like a man with something to hide. Viewers may find themselves thinking: “I’ve cracked the case! The Inspector’s secret: he’s an out-of-his-depth actor!”

Also, Stalker’s home life is unnecessarily complicated and, on closer inspection, doesn’t add up. If there’s to be a sequel (and Tom George’s sweet and wickedly clever film deserves one), that rumple in the plot needs smoothing out. Christie would never.

98mins, cert 12A

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See How They Run Review

09 Sep 2022

See How They Run

See How They Run  is built on a simple but delicious premise: a whodunnit buried inside an actual whodunnit, in this case Agatha Christie’s  The Mousetrap . It not only gives Tom George’s film many genres to satirise — it’s a backstage drama, crime potboiler, police procedural all wrapped up in a farce — but it allows for a knowing, self-referential quality that brings the conceits and conventions of the murder-mystery to the fore. It doesn’t completely work, but it’s fast, funny and frequently stylish, topped off with great work by Sam Rockwell and especially Saoirse Ronan .

Mark Chappell’s screenplay does a nifty job of affectionately embroidering the story’s madcap malarkey with real nuggets pulled from British film and theatre lore. Chief among them is the little-known fact that Christie (embodied briefly by Shirley Henderson ) inserted a clause into her  Mousetrap  contract that decreed no film version could be made until six months after the play had ended its theatrical run. The detail gives a plausible motive for a host of engaging characters to sabotage either the stage or film version via the murder of movie director Leo Köpernick ( Adrien Brody , who also narrates) backstage at the Ambassadors.

The real joy of the film is the rapport between the investigating plods, Sam Rockwell’s cynical Stoppard and Saoirse Ronan’s newbie WPC Stalker.

On the theatrical side we have impresario Petula ‘Choo’ Spencer ( Ruth Wilson ), actors Richard Attenborough (a terrific Harris Dickinson , who gets the young Dickie’s voice down pat) and Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda). Among the movie suspects are mogul John Woolf ( Reece Shearsmith , playing the actual producer of  The African Queen ), his wife Edana Romney (Sian Clifford) and celebrated (read: overrated) screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris ( David Oyelowo ). The cast attack the mayhem with gusto but the whodunnit element ultimately loses its grip, the revelation of the killer less than satisfying.

There’s a knowing, meta quality to the screenplay — a bemoaning of flashbacks as a hoary device crash-cuts to a title-card “Three Months Earlier” — and sometimes it feels too winky-winky. As such,  See How They Run  works best when it’s leaning into old-school wordplay, visual whimsy and strong gags (“Which part of France are you from?” “Belgium”). Debutant feature director Tom George cut his teeth on lo-fi BBC Three mockumentary  This Country  — Charlie Cooper shows up as a dimwit usher — but elevates his ambition here. There are shades of Wes Anderson in the stylisation ( The Grand Budapest Hotel  looms large) and hints of Edgar Wright in the emphatic cutting but George makes it his own, neatly evincing ’50s London’s different atmospheres and moving things along at a fair old lick.

But the real joy of the film is the rapport between the investigating plods, Sam Rockwell’s cynical Stoppard (there’s a running joke about coppers named after playwrights) and Saoirse Ronan’s newbie WPC Stalker. Rockwell brings grizzled, Walter Matthau-type charm to the inspector but it’s Ronan who shines brightest as an over-eager, by-the-notebook constable, star-struck by the suspects and taking everything at face value. They make such an enjoyable duo, in fact, that the further investigations of Stoppard and Stalker would be very much welcome.

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‘see how they run’ review: sam rockwell and saoirse ronan in lifeless riff on agatha christie.

Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo and Ruth Wilson also appear in this 1950s-set ensemble comedy, a whodunit framed against the 100th West End performance of 'The Mousetrap.'

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Nursery rhymes and Beatles lyrics aside, the generic title of See How They Run recalls those bougie farces spiced with naughty innuendo that were a fixture on London stages in the 1980s. But this starry whodunit is more directly tied to another West End staple, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap . The film is set in 1953, when that murder mystery was just 100 performances into its ongoing seven-decade run, interrupted only during the COVID shutdown.

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Directed and written by Brit TV recruits Tom George and Mark Chappell, respectively, the film has less in common with updated murder-mystery comedies like Knives Out than with the kind of manic capers that came out of England 30 or so years ago, with A Fish Called Wanda among the best of them. At least, that’s what it appears to be aiming for. The result, while it raises a chuckle or two, is more in line with farcically inclined flops like Blame it on the Bellboy . Missed that one? Never mind.

From the first murder victim’s wise-ass narration to the over-exertions of Daniel Pemberton’s score, which swerves between jauntiness and intrigue, the production gives off a moldy whiff of desperation. Even the very idea of a whodunit parody seems tired.

That narrator is Leo Köpernick ( Adrien Brody ), a smugly cynical film director blacklisted in Hollywood for possible Communist affiliations and now working in London. He’s contracted to direct the film adaptation of The Mousetrap for producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) but makes few concessions to establishing an amicable working relationship with self-important writer Mervyn Cocker-Norris ( David Oyelowo ), a dandified diva who tries to pass off his temperamental Neapolitan boyfriend (Jacon Fortune-Lloyd) as his nephew.

The first police officer to arrive at the scene is Constable Stalker (Ronan), a briskly efficient rookie given to taking copious notes when she’s not making corny jokes or gushing like a starstruck theater nerd. Her supervisor is habitually late boozehound Inspector Stoppard, played by a miscast Sam Rockwell , whose accent work isn’t bad, but who nonetheless lacks the quintessentially British qualities required for a role that would have been a better fit for a David Tennant, Ewan McGregor or Rhys Ifans.

Among those confined to the Ambassadors Theatre while the investigation gets underway are impresario Petula Spencer ( Ruth Wilson ), Dickie and leading lady Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda), the usher Dennis (Charlie Cooper), Woolf, his aloof wife Edana ( Fleabag ice queen Sian Clifford) and his assistant Ann (Pippa Bennett-Warner), also not so secretly his mistress.

As the police start digging — conscientiously on Stalker’s part, more haphazardly by Stoppard — various motives surface, mostly connected to the Mousetrap film project. A second person turns up dead, but the movie hemorrhages energy just when it should be gathering speed. By the time everyone convenes after receiving a mysterious invite to the Berkshire home of Agatha Christie herself (Shirley Henderson, in a daffy cameo), I was seriously yearning for the playful whodunit parody and delicious character turns of the Neil Simon spoof, Murder by Death .

It took two editors to pull this together, with lots of fussy split-screen interludes to shuffle the action and show multiple perspectives, yet the pacing remains off.

Perhaps the tourists who are still rolling up to see The Mousetrap in London will get a kick out of the nods here to the production’s long history — Richard Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim really were part of the original cast, and the film’s title actually comes from Christie’s radio play template, Three Blind Mice . But naming a key character after playwright Tom Stoppard, whose The Real Inspector Hound was a far more inventive and slyly humorous riff on The Mousetrap , does no one any favors.

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‘The Idea of You’ Review: Surviving Celebrity

Anne Hathaway headlines a movie that’s got a lot to say about the perils of fame.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

Women of a certain age (that is, my age) feel like they grew up alongside Anne Hathaway, because, well, we did. We were awkward teens together when she made “The Princess Diaries” in 2001. We felt ourselves to be put-upon entry-level hirelings right when “The Devil Wears Prada” came out in 2006. We understood her broken-down narcissistic addict in “Rachel Getting Married,” because who couldn’t? And we watched the Hathaway backlash, pegged to public perception that she was trying too hard, and worried that people saw us the same way.

Now we’re 40-ish. We know for sure that Gen Z considers millennials to be cringe, and, thankfully, we no longer feel the need to care. The greatest gift of reaching middle age is having settled into yourself, and that is apparently what Hathaway, age 41, has done . She has been through the celebrity wringer (and more ) and come out the other side looking radiant, with a long list of credits in movies that swing from standard commercial fare to auteurist masterpieces.

This is perhaps why it’s so satisfying to see her name come first — alone, before the title credit — in “The Idea of You,” which is on its surface a relatively fluffy little film. Based on the sleeper hit novel by Robinne Lee, “The Idea of You” is plainly fantasy, in the fan fiction mold, that poses the question: What if Harry Styles, the British megastar and former frontman of One Direction, fell madly in love with a hot 40-year-old mom? In this universe, the Styles character is Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the British frontman of a five-member boy band called August Moon.

Hathaway plays Solène Marchand, an art gallery owner whose arrogantly useless ex-husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), buys v.i.p. meet-and-greet tickets for their 16-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her two best friends, all of whom were huge August Moon fans … in the seventh grade.

The event is at Coachella, and Daniel is set to take the teenagers but backs out at the last second, citing a work emergency. Solène reluctantly agrees to take them, and while at the festival, mistakes Hayes’s trailer for the bathroom. They meet, it’s cute, and you can guess what happens next.

Or can you? It was clear about 10 minutes into the movie that what was required for enjoyment was to surrender to the daydreaming, and so, with very little internal protest, I did. How could I resist? Solène is smart, competent, kind and secure; she has great hair and a great wardrobe; and most important, she seems like a real person, even if the situation in which she finds herself greatly stretches the bonds of credibility.

More than once, I was struck by how authentically 40 Solène seemed to me — a woman capable of making her own decisions, even ones she thinks might be ill-advised — and how weirdly rare it is to see that kind of character in a movie. She has a kid, and friends, and a career. She reads books and looks at art, and she is flattered by this 24-year-old superstar’s attention but takes a long time to come around to the idea that it may not be a joke.

Solène also feels real shame and real resolve in the course of the winding fairy tale story, which predictably has to go south. But most of all, she’s in a movie that doesn’t try to shame her, or patronize her, or make her appear ridiculous for having desires and fantasies of her own. She’s just who she is, and it’s simple to understand her appeal to someone whose life has never been his own.

Directed by Michael Showalter, who wrote the adapted screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt, “The Idea of You” succeeds mostly because of Hathaway’s performance, though she and Galitzine spark and banter pleasurably (and he can dance and sing, too). It tweaks the novel in a number of ways — Hayes is older than the book’s character, for one thing — and also seems to implicitly know it’s a movie, and that movies have a strange relationship with age-gap romances.

In fact, that’s one of its strengths. Several times, characters remark on the double standard attached to people’s judgment of Solène and Hayes’s relationship, hypothesizing that in a gender-swapped situation, people would be high-fiving the older man who landed the hot younger star. Sixteen years looks like a lot on paper, but in the movies, at least, it is barely a blip.

That musing is interesting enough, if a familiar one. More fascinating in “The Idea of You” is its treatment of the cage of celebrity. Hayes seems mature compared with his bandmates and the girls who follow them around, but he’s also clearly stuck in some kind of arrested development. And I do mean stuck: He is self-aware enough to tell Solène, plaintively, that he auditioned for the band when he was 14 and not much has changed beyond his level of fame. He wants a life beyond the spotlight, badly.

And that’s just what he can’t get. Neither can Solène, nor, eventually, anyone around her. The idea of living a quiet life might obviously be out of reach, but the added elements of tabloid news and rabid fans unafraid to treat Hayes as if they know him make things far worse. The film starts to feel a little like the tale of a monster, but the monster is parasociality, encouraged by the illusion of intimacy that the modern superstar machine relies on to keep selling tickets and merch and albums and whatever else keeps the star in the spotlight.

It’s probably coincidental that “The Idea of You” comes on the heels of Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” on which she strongly implies that her carefully cultivated fandom has made her love life a nightmare. But spiritually, at least, they’re of a piece — even if the origins of the film’s plot seem as much borne of parasociality as a critique of it. And that makes Hathaway’s performance extra poignant. She’s been dragged into that buzz saw before. And somehow, she’s figured out how to make a life on the other side of it.

The Idea of You Rated R for getting hot and heavy, plus some language. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch on Prime Video .

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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