See How They Run

An utterly joyless comedic whodunit set in 1953 London during the 100th performance of the West End’s longest-running stage show, Agatha Christie’s murder mystery The Mousetrap. There's been a murder backstage, so a jaded inspector and his inexperienced rookie sidekick are on the case. First-time director Tom George is as desperate to please as Saoirse Ronan's young constable character—and he seems to think he's as cute as his star, but boy is he ever not. Nothing about this satire is remotely funny or insightful about the genre it's lampooning(?), paying homage to(?), borrowing the structure and tropes of for kicks(?) 

Mark Chappell's script is insufferably pleased with itself; constantly making references to Christie and whodunits in general, while dropping oh-so-clever lines of dialogue like, "He was a real hound, inspector!" Granted, any cast member of Clue could have gotten a laugh with that line, even from someone who doesn’t know the reference, but with this uninspired ensemble, it lands like a rotten Easter egg. 

Cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay's overlit, oddly composed photography seems designed to show off how well dressed the sets are and to enable many functionless split screens. The only thing more artificial looking than a contemporary period piece is a contemporary comedy period piece.