Every now and then, you get the pleasure of reliving some part of your past that you thought might be gone to you forever. I felt that way a couple of weeks ago when I got to attend a lecture during SF Sketchfest by, among other people, the man who helped write Clue (the Movie), and we watched it on the big screen at the Castro theater. I love Clue, and they really don’t make movies like it much anymore. Or, possibly, they never really did. When I was a kid, of course, I liked the TV shows such as Murder She Wrote, but I knew that to see the big screen equivalent was rare.

Tonight, my friend Leah talked me into seeing Knives Out and oh, Lord, am I glad she did. Spoiler alert: it’s good. But even better: it’s genuine. It’s a movie made by someone who both understands and is in love with the old whodunit, without being overly slavish. It’s not a movie for everyone. There are things about it that are silly, to be sure. But if you like Clue, you will love this movie. And I love Clue. So yeah.

All the standards are there: the mansion, the old man, the impossible crime, etc. But there are some things that stand out: first, and most importantly, the main character - who is not Daniel Craig, despite what the trailers would have you believe. Instead, it’s the caregiver, a young Cuban actress whose name I never did catch but I just looked it up (Ana de Carmas). Her role is tricky and had to be believable to pull the movie off, and she knocked it out of the park. Daniel Craig is, of course, great, as is Chris Evans. This is a character study, so of course the characters have to work and they do. Unlike Clue, this movie occasionally lets its characters out of the house, and those are some of the most interesting scenes; filled with tension, as if the movie keeps drawing everyone back to the murder. Nobody is allowed - quite literally - to be away from it for long, and it rides over the whole movie. If you’re like me, there’s a central tension to the film, a sort of epic fight between good and evil. I turned to Leah after it was over and said “My God, if that movie had a bad ending I was going to be so, so angry.”

Spoiler alert: it does not have a bad ending.

Go see it.