‘How to Make a Killing’ reinvents the genre of ‘eat the rich’ films
“Eat the rich” has recently become an increasingly popular genre in television and film.
One recent movie in this style is The Menu (2022), which targets the wealthy for their commodification of art and exploitation of the service industry. Perhaps most popular is The White Lotus (2021 – ), a show that navigates unfolding tensions as staff and wealthy guests interact with each other at various hotels across the world. These stories are defined by how they strip away the glamorous appearance of high society to expose the moral rot that lies underneath.
How to Make a Killing is no exception to this rule. The film, released on Feb. 20, is loosely based on the 1949 British movie Kind Hearts and Coronets, which follows a man seeking murderous revenge against the aristocratic family that disowned his mother for marrying below her class. Director John Patton Ford masterfully applies this premise to the contemporary American billionaire elite. In a context where our cultural obsession with – and frequent resentment of – the 1% escalates almost every day, Ford has crafted a chillingly relevant narrative of how we think about class lines.
The film begins with Mary Redfellow (Nell Williams), the heiress of an influential billionaire family, who subsequently got pregnant at 18 and was disowned by her father after refusing an abortion. Her son, Becket Redfellow – portrayed by Grady Wilson as a child and Glen Powell as an adult – grows up in an ordinary middle-class background, falls into foster care after Mary’s death and, after aging out, works in a suit shop. Tortured by his mother’s dying words about living the life he “deserves,” he sets out to kill all of his Redfellow relatives in order to claim the family fortune.
How to Make a Killing highlights a divide between the general public and the ultra-wealthy, crafting a clear us-versus-them dynamic. The film goes as far as depicting every Redfellow family member Becket kills as cartoonishly immoral. Becket’s victims include a vapid and carefree Princeton student, an unoriginal and rude artist, a tax-evading mega church pastor and a woman who adopts multiple foreign children for publicity. This one-dimensional characterization deprives the Redfellows of genuine complexity. The film, instead, focuses on their selfishness and frames it as a product of their privilege. By flattening the antagonists into caricatures, the film seemingly loses its narrative depth in addressing the issue of wealth inequality.
However, these one-dimensional characterizations can also exist exclusively through Becket’s perspective. More importantly, they could serve as benchmarks that track his gradual psychological transformation, as he gets closer to inheriting the fortune and farther from his humanity. It is this transformation that Ford is able to deftly articulate in the film.
Contemporary criticisms of the ultra-wealthy focus on their exploitation of workers, ostentatious displays of wealth and lack of charity to the impoverished. Becket’s drive, however, is much different. Mary’s dying wish for him to claim the life he “deserved” – the life of a one-percenter – functions as a myth that persuades Becket that he must pursue the Redfellow fortune. Becket convinces himself that, by his blood and the injustice performed against his mother, he has a right to those billions of dollars. As every other Redfellow simply practices selfish decadence like it were a birthright, the film reveals that Becket’s approach to wealth is almost indistinguishable from theirs.
Mary’s locket, which contains a lock of her hair, serves as a recurring symbol for Becket’s immoral logic. Initially, for Becket, this seems to function as an emblem of grief associated with having a disowned mother and then losing her. However, as Becket’s kill count rises, the film often lingers on this object, indicating that it has become a reminder to him that he needs to get the life he “deserves.”
Ford further implements symbolism by Becket’s use of archery to execute Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris), the man who disowned his mother and the final person that needs to die for him to claim the fortune. This act is foreshadowed by Becket’s mother practicing archery at the beginning of the film, prior to her falling pregnant. By using the very same weapon that his mother practiced initially to kill the man between him and money, Becket completes a poetic cycle. He both engages in the practice of “eating the rich,” but symbolically places himself in their position.
Becket’s transformation is further underscored by his interactions with Ruth (Jessica Henwick) and Julia Steinway, portrayed by Maggie Toomey as a child and Margaret Qualley as an adult. Ruth, Becket’s girlfriend/fiancé for a majority of the film, represents the “us” in the class divide. When previously dating Becket’s cousin, she appears humble and rejects the selfishness of the Redfellow world. Becket, in response, appears sweet and caring but also hides his goal of claiming the Redfellow money through murders from her. Becket attempts to preserve a clean version of himself through how he presents to Ruth, convincing himself that he is normal and un-Redfellowlike enough to live the life he “deserves.” The film culminates with her rejection of Becket and her return of his mother’s locket, signaling the loss of his last piece of genuine humanity.
Conversely, Julia Steinway serves as the perfect mirror of Becket. She is obsessed with the pursuit of wealth. She closely follows Becket, determines he is a murderer and blackmails him. When Becket is on death row for her husband’s murder, she forces him to sign over the Redfellow estate in exchange for releasing evidence to free him. The film’s final scene depicts them traveling to the Redfellow mansion together, marking Becket’s final transgression of the class boundary as he steps into the place of the elite whom he murdered.
Initially, How to Make a Killing seems to have a predictable plot and flat characterization, a recipe for an unentertaining story. However, if one simply looks underneath the surface, Ford compellingly portrays how human identity develops in a world obsessed with wealth and filled with inequality. For anyone looking for a darkly comedic thriller that truly answers what “eat the rich” means, this film is an absolute must-see.