knives out is so good for so many reasons but I really appreciate how utterly, absolutely, devastatingly sad it is that Harlan didn’t have to die. he didn’t want anything bad to happen to Marta because of a mistake she didn’t actually make. he would’ve been fine. she was his friend and he died to protect her. what a perfectly executed tragedy.
The more I watch that movie the more that I think Harlan was just as flawed as the rest of his family.
He didn’t die trying to protect Marta. He died trying to bring his mysery novels to life.
Properly protecting Marta would have been following her instructions and recording something to insist it wasn’t negligence. Not suicide.
The entire Harlan family never actually listens to Marta - they use her as a prop. Sometimes as a demonstration of a “proper immigrant,” sometimes as a prop to get their inheritance back, and sometimes as a plot device in one final grand mystery.
Which is what Benoit means when he tells Marta, “You didn’t play his game.”