Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Rian Johnson’s sequel to his game-changing 2019 whodunit Knives Out is just as entertaining, funny, subversive and inventive as the first instalment. And although Glass Onion arguably leans a little more heavily into the comedy this time around, it still has plenty of surprises that you won’t see coming.
Premise: In the middle of the global pandemic, eccentric tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites five of his oldest friends to spend a weekend with him on his private Greek island playing a murder-mystery game that he’s devised. Joining them for the weekend are various hangers-on … and renowned private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).
Review:
Rest assured that this review will be spoiler-free, because if you’re anything like me, you enjoy knowing next-to-nothing about the plot of a whodunit before watching it. So I’ll be reviewing the film while saying as little as possible about its premise or what actually happens in it!
Suffice to say that Knives Out was a bold reinvention of the whodunit genre – at once a loving tribute to the classic murder mysteries of authors like Agatha Christie, while at the same time being a clever deconstruction of the tropes and expectations of the genre, all wrapped up with a darkly comedic sense of humour. Glass Onion continues what Knives Out started (although not literally, as this is an entirely standalone sequel that works even if you’ve never seen Knives Out), only this time, it’s not only setting out to subvert your expectations of the genre generally, but it’s also aiming to subvert your preconceptions of what a Knives Out sequel should be.
“…the talented cast bring an eclectic collection of larger-than-life characters to life…”
Like with Knives Out before it, half the fun of Glass Onion comes from seeing an amazing cast of talented actors bring an eclectic collection of larger-than-life archetypical characters to life. The plot’s instigator is tech billionaire Miles Bron, played brilliantly by Edward Norton as an amalgamation of various qualities that you might recognise from similar real-life, self-styled “disruptors”. It’s Miles who invites the other characters to join him on his private Greek island, thereby setting in motion the events of the film. (Incidentally, Glass Onion is one of the few films, aside from The Bubble, to actually acknowledge the Covid-19 global pandemic – in this instance, it’s the backdrop for Miles’ invitation for his “inner circle” to visit him on his private island).
That “inner circle” is made up of Miles’ friends from before he made his billions – although as Benoit Blanc quickly points out, all of them appear to have just as much reason to want him dead as to wish him well, so gathering them all at one secluded location may not be the best of ideas. In alphabetical order (so as not to give anything away!), Miles’ group of friends is made up of Duke (Dave Bautista), a vlogger and “men’s rights” activist who also brings his eye-candy girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline) with him to the island, Claire (Kathryn Hahn), an ambitious politician campaigning on a platform to tackle climate change, Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), a model-turned-fashion-brand-owner who prides herself on “saying what everyone is thinking” and who brings her long-suffering assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick) with her, Andi (Janelle Monáe), Miles’ former business partner, and Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.), as a scientist who works for Miles’ company.
“…the tone of this film seemed to be even more comedic than ‘Knives Out’…”
The cast is universally great, although it is fair to say that some get more to do than others (although I won’t say who), and one character in particular seemed quite underserved for an actor of their talent. But that is arguably the nature of a whodunit mystery – some characters will (for obvious reasons) get less screentime than others, and some are there more for their value as a red herring than as a fully developed character. But the flip side of that is that the main characters are incredibly fleshed out and nuanced by the end of the film, and even the arguably less-central characters still get plenty of memorable moments to shine during the course of the film.
Of course, it’s not all about the suspects, and Daniel Craig arguably gets more to do as Benoit Blanc in this film than he did in Knives Out (where, for a large part of the film, he was a character seen from a distance through the eyes of another main character). Here, not only do we get a brief but amusing insight into Benoit Blanc’s private life, but he’s also very much front-and-centre in a more traditional Poirot-style role – the outsider who gets caught up in a murder mystery at a secluded and contained location involving a group of friends/frenemies with complicated histories. Daniel Craig seems to be having a blast playing Blanc in Glass Onion, and overall, the tone of this film seemed to me to be even more comedic than Knives Out, although it is still far from being a parody or spoof of the whodunit genre.
“…Rian Johnson’s willingness to subvert expectations & preconceptions is what makes these films so much fun…”
One of the key factors in the success of Knives Out was that the central mystery was itself so intriguing and inventive. This has, however, become a double-edged sword for writer/director Rian Johnson in Glass Onion, as there is clearly pressure on him to come up with a murder mystery that’s even more unpredictable and original than Knives Out. But rather than simply trying to do the same thing again ‘but bigger’, Rian Johnson instead plays with the audience’s presumptions about what to expect from a sequel to Knives Out, and in Glass Onion he delivers a central mystery that’s somehow simultaneously less showy but more unexpected.
Alongside the impressive main cast, there are also a handful of completely unexpected cameos, which presumably are a testament to the esteem in which Rian Johnson is held. And ultimately, although these films are a product of the collaboration between Johnson, Craig and the movies’ various guest stars, they’re also unquestionably Rian Johnson films through and through. It’s his love of the genre, and his willingness to subvert expectations and preconceptions, that makes these films so much fun. And after Knives Out and Glass Onion, I already can’t wait to see where Rian Johnson goes with the next Benoit Blanc mystery.
