Warning: Contains minor spoilers for See How They Run.
See How They Run is a comedy mystery that’s full of wonderful farce, but it can feel like it might be spoiling the coveted ending of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. See How They Run parodies many elements of the mystery genre and is staged around an early production of The Mousetrap at Ambassador’s Theatre in London’s West End in 1953. Throughout See How They Run borrows heavily from the plot, with the ending providing a meta example of life imitating art.
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Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap was first performed in 1952 and quickly moved to the West End later that year. From there, it went on to be the longest-running play in West End history, with the initial run finally ending in 2020 due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, before resuming performances once more in 2021. Despite having been in production for over 70 years, the primary plot and the shocking ending remain a closely guarded secret.
One shot in See How They Run sees Harris Dickinson playing Richard Attenborough, who in turn is playing Detective Sergeant Trotter in The Mousetrap and he is delivering a speech to the audience explaining that they are accomplices to murder. This is taken from the real performance and is paid homage to at the end of See How They Run: the actors tell the audience that as accomplices, they must never reveal who the murderer is to the outside public. This tradition has held firm: Agatha Christie requested that the short story she based the play on not be published while it was still being performed, and the Christie Estate has heavily criticized Wikipedia for including the reveal on their page for The Mousetrap. As See How They Run is such a love letter (if a somewhat mocking one) to The Mousetrap, it makes sense that the play maintains the secrecy and does not reveal the play’s ending.
How See How They Run Avoids Revealing The Mousetrap’s Killer
See How They Run avoids revealing who the killer is in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap by altering multiple plot points. While the movie borrows heavily from the play not just in the play’s inclusion as a plot device, but in the inspiration for its own plot, it is not, fundamentally, an adaptation of the play. See How They Run ends in a distant country house in a snowstorm and violence occurs there, but the homages don’t go as far as using the same people as the killer or the same motivations.
While See How They Run does not spoil the ending of The Mousetrap, nor vice versa, there are some treats in the movie for audiences familiar with the play’s plot. Several characters, plot points, and threads are either borrowed from parts of the play, or allude heavily to them. These don’t serve to ruin anything, but purely enrich the enjoyment of See How They Run for those in the know.