This review was originally published in connection with with glass onion theatrical release. It was updated and re-released for the film’s streaming release.
Many things worked together to make Rian Johnson’s 2019 crime thriller knife out a hit. Like Johnson’s loving magpie eye for a discarded genre, ripe for plucking. Or the spectacle of Daniel Craig, who lets himself loose as camp detective Benoit Blanc and cheekily takes up arms at the end of his tenure as James Bond. And then there’s the top-to-bottom cast: Don Johnson is a sleazy, useless, gold-digging husband, because of course he is!
But perhaps the most significant boost to the film’s success is the perfection of its Pinterest-ready moodboard, expressed through its brilliant production design, costumes, and cinematography. Chunky fall knits and chic tweed coats; Jamie Lee Curtis glows in fuchsia topped with a mop of white hair; Chris Evans snarling 1970 BMW and beloved cable sweater; overcast skies and low cool November light; a halo of knives for decor; a universe of creepy knick-knacks, all crammed into a creaky New England mansion that evokes a bleak old-world vibe. (But as Rian Johnson’s screenplay maliciously notes, bought by a Pakistani real estate mogul in the 1980s.) It’s a smart, funny film that keeps its confidence at just the right distance, and its style is on point.
Check out the mood board for the Netflix-funded sequel. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which once again explores mind games and the foul murder of the most privileged. This time, a Porsche hypercar spins on a roof-mounted turntable; azure seas and skies under a scorching Greek sun; personalized cocktail glasses and tinkling smartphones; glass sculptures and gizmos adorning a fantasy tech palace with a huge, onion-shaped dome; flashy prints, loose linens, neckerchiefs, sun hats and a pistol attached to the codpiece.
All that is to be said glass onion is a brighter, louder and more outgoing film than the first knife out. The themes and fashions flirt with brazen cartoon silliness. This time Johnson goes for big ideas and big laughs – this is a funnier film, almost a comedy at times, and a broad one at that. From where knife out aims at the defensive claim of inherited wealth, glass onion satirizes the desperate hunt for new money in a world of tech billionaires, influencers and flash-in-the-pan politicians. But as before, the gentleman Benoit Blanc is here to disillusion these people with odd courtesy.
Also as before glass onion begins as a crime thriller that looks like it might lack actual murder. The death of crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) in knife out is investigated at various times as a suicide or an accident, and Johnson was happy to preserve the nature of the crime and the criminal’s identity to the end.
Only acting this time. Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who has made an unimaginable fortune with a vague tech platform called Alpha, has invited a motley group of friends to his private Greek island for their annual reunion. He calls them his “disruptors”: a stressed-out Liberal politician (Kathryn Hahn), a scientific genius working for Bron (Leslie Odom Jr.), a blatantly Meninist Twitch streamer (Dave Bautista), and an airy former model (Kate Hudson ) with a line of edgy sweatpants that’s booming because it’s 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic has everyone working from home.
Everyone is surprised by the arrival of Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), who built Alpha with Miles but ruthlessly dropped him from the company. Everyone seems equally surprised when Benoit Blanc is invited, Blanc included. But Bron has a murder mystery party planned where he’ll be the “victim,” so at least the world’s greatest detective fits the theme. Further revelations would disrupt the intricate clockwork of Johnson’s plan – but of course someone really does end up dead, and someone has an interest in making sure a celebrity sleuth is on the scene.
While Johnson is deep Admirers of Agatha Christie
Structurally, it’s quite a magic trick. Some of the gadgets he pulls it off with are fairly dated, but this choice seems appropriate for such a tongue-in-cheek, theatrical endeavor, and the work is solid: all the pieces fit together. However, gambling has other consequences. Some characters are deepened and enriched by the change of perspective, while others are flattened. Crucially, genre conventions require Johnson to pull off a reveal at the end to do justice to the surprise of the twist he developed halfway through, but once he gets there it turns out he’s run out of options and the payout doesn’t end up the way it should.
Until then, however, Johnson is less interested in finding the killer than in destroying the characters’ entire world in a blaze of flames. In knife out, written in the immigration-obsessed Trump era, he asked whose country America was anyway and chose a side with his stunning final shot. In glass onion, which emerged amid the dissociation of COVID, it only lashes out left and right at a series of simple targets: the utopian fantasies of big tech, the hypocrisy of liberal politics, the stupidity of online imaging. It’s muddled stuff, embodied in a bevy of faint caricatures between which he struggles to establish a natural affinity.
However, they still jump off the screen, aided by Jenny Eagan’s extravagant costumes. Bautista manages to be both loutish and puppy-like as Duke, the insecure male child trapped in the body of a ledge. Hudson is hilarious as Birdie, a queen of glamorous idiocy who has had her tweets canceled so many times that her assistant won’t let her answer her phone. Akin to the absurdist Elon Musk, Norton digs a deep seam of stupidity without dulling his immense charisma – it’s a joy to see him once again at the center of a big, flashy Hollywood production and to be reminded what for a star he is . Monáe shines in the most refined and multi-faceted role, with a sincerity, a seething anger and a genuineness that the others cannot touch.
This is also a film in which we see Daniel Craig play Between us in the bathroom with the late Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim via Zoom. The film embraces Craig’s macho Bond image in a delightfully surprising way, but both Craig and Johnson push the elegant detective, with his distinct Southern traits, in a more cartoonish direction – away from Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot and towards his parody descendant, The Pink PantherInspector Clouseau. Unlike Peter Sellers’ idiotic detective, Benoit Blanc is no fool, but as he descends into a swimming pool in a striped two-piece swimsuit and tie, he looks a bit of a funny figure.
does it matter? Not as much. A great tracker, like Peter Falk’s Columbo – who Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne will soon be paying tribute to in their crime series poker face — does not have to have hidden depths. They are the keys that turn the lock, open the door and expose our failures. We don’t need to know why they’re doing it, but we ask them to do it in style. As flashy, fun, star-studded entertainment, glass onion sure does.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery now streaming on Netflix.