He called Pat Kiernan, the forty-three-year-old Canadian anchorman on NY1, and the go-to man for directors who need a newscaster to explain a knotty plot point to moviegoers.
The production was staged in a warehouse on Governors Island, requiring patrons to make their way to the tip of Manhattan, hop a ferry, then walk 20 minutes in the swampy heat for the privilege of delving into the knotty plot of Dostoyevsky's tale of radicals in pre-revolutionary Russia.
But a knotty plot is imperative to Mr. Athale's aims, since, like Robert Bresson's film "A Man Escaped" or Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket," this is ultimately a story about friendship, about people who would rather follow a delusional pal than logic.
Knotty plots, atmospheric settings and larger-than-life characters are, of course, all part of it.
But there's nothing of the dry, intellectual exercise in Paretsky's work: alongside the still-noteworthy presence of a female hero whose gender is not the most significant thing about her, Paretsky's novels are distinguished by their knotty plotting and vitalised by her almost tactile rendering of Chicago – VI's home town, and Paretsky's beloved adopted one.
He's more like the dizzy sidekick in an old-fashioned thriller, who asks the detective to explain some knottier plot points: "Tell me what an option is?
Shakespeare's knotty double plot, propelled by friendships, rivalries and a blithe spirit at once romantic and cynical, is a better vehicle for Mr. Whedon's sensibilities than the glowering revenger's tale that every superhero movie is forced, these days, to become.
Her professional exasperation and wistful pining for Jude Law's Bond-slick super spy are all too human even as the plot (as knotty as Spectre, and arguably more logical) careers into wilder hijinks, giving her brash knack for slapstick a thorough, and thoroughly riotous, workout.
Instead, Will Sharpe's six-part series – set in the shambolic rural home of the Flowers family (played by Julian Barratt, Olivia Colman, Daniel Rigby and Sophia Di Martino) and screening every evening across the week – intermingles its knotty and desperately sad plot with the kind of comedy that litters our lives no matter what state they are in.
The unlikely friendship of these men — Fearless is all fists and testosterone, Paris is a gun-shy truth-seeker — is the source of the novel's humor, and propels the reader through the plot's knottier moments.
I soon came to love crime fiction – for its rollercoaster plots, its memorable heroes and villains, and its knotty moral concerns.
