PremiumThe Revisionist Charm Of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Glass Onion is not necessarily bigger and better than the first Knives Out film, but it’s more satisfying. It’s growing older and moving forward rather than replicating the same old-school tricks.
Last Updated: 10.53 AM, Dec 24, 2022
This is #CineFile, where our critic Rahul Desai goes beyond the obvious takes, to dissect movies and shows that are in the news.
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Evolution has not been kind to the old-fashioned Hollywood murder mystery. Over the years, the genre has gone through too many iterations in its battle to stay relevant — and one step ahead of modern, cinema-literate audiences. It’s reached a stage where the simplest of stories are shaped by the most complicated revelations; multiple twists and red herrings seem to be reverse-engineered to outwit not just the viewers but the narrative itself. Logic is often sacrificed at the altar of interactive entertainment. Enter Rian Johnson. His sendup to this convoluted new-age genre is defined by his affection for the vintage whodunit. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — much like the 2019 hit it succeeds — cheekily reverses the formula. As its title suggests, there are layers to peel, but the centre is always in plain sight. It’s the gleefully complicated story that’s a front for the simplest of revelations.
It’s almost as if Johnson is determined to prove that such films — much like its eccentric detective hero, Benoit Blanc — are determined by style and process. That’s where the fun is. The substance is secondary. In the end, Blanc is a man of the law; logic is non-negotiable, which is why the twist is that — no matter how far the plot reaches — the butler did it. The core is obvious. The onion is transparent. The film can’t pretend to be smarter than it actually is. Perhaps it’s fitting that the Mona Lisa, a seemingly simple painting determined by deceptively complex brush technique, plays a key role in this film. It lies in the living room of a glass-onion-shaped mansion of a tech billionaire named Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is. He’s like those contemporary whodunits: a rich man full of borrowed intelligence, empty phrases and derivative style. His empire is built on credit that’s not entirely his, too.
Evidence of Bron’s inflated self-worth arrives early, when a “murder mystery” game he’s organised on his private Greek island is decoded in one minute by Benoit Blanc, the only uninvited guest there. For all his frills and extravagance, Bron is painfully basic. His guests include his closest aides, whom he calls his ‘disruptors’: an up-and-coming politician (Kathryn Hahn), a former supermodel turned fashion designer (Kate Hudson), his company’s head scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a YouTube men’s rights activist (Dave Bautista) and his attractive girlfriend (Madelyn Cline), and most of all, Bron’s estranged ex-business partner (Janelle Monae). Much like the first film, where a wealthy patriarch heads a dysfunctional family that depends heavily on him, Glass Onion also reflects the Succession power dynamic. Most of the guests are ‘owned’ by Bron in a way, with their hopes and aspirations inextricably connected to his money. When one of them actually dies on the weekend, Benoit Blanc springs into action, and the movie skillfully peels back layer after layer of backstory to paint everyone as a suspect. Scenes are replayed from different perspectives, hidden personal equations emerge, celebrity cameos slap, and writer-director Johnson has a blast designing the scenic route to the most obvious conclusion.
One of the reasons Glass Onion works is because it throws shade at the most topical things. It occurs during the first few months of COVID-19 lockdown, more or less setting the stage for the sort of cabin fever that renders everyone insecure about their careers. Miles Bron is essentially an avatar of Elon Musk — and the casting of Norton will delight The Italian Job fans. The satirical rich-people-suck theme echoes today’s storytelling landscape, bringing to mind The White Lotus (the vapid fashion designer even has a terribly dressed assistant) and The Triangle of Sadness. Except Glass Onion is a little more middling in its social anatomy: These are people who’ve sold their soul to be rich and successful; they want to be privileged and oblivious, but they aren’t yet at that stage. It’s an irreverent takedown of autocracy culture, where every dimension of a nation — politics, news, science and fashion — is driven by tech wealth. At some level, the presence of Benoit Blanc is the presence of order; he is there to solve a mystery, but also to restore the moral language of society. One is the smokescreen for the other.
That’s also the subtext of Daniel Craig’s delightfully loose performance. In his hands, Benoit Blanc comes across as a literary device that rarely oversells his metaphorical role. His Southern American drawl is deliberately exaggerated and silly, almost as if he wants us to be in on the levity of the movie. He’s more of a stand-in for Johnson’s sophisticated taste and his own exasperation towards a corrupted genre. In Glass Onion, Craig’s classic conclusion scene — where a detective is supposed to ‘crack’ the case with grand pride — is probably the funniest moment across both films. The derision with which Craig’s Benoit Blanc reveals his findings evokes the vibe of a vexed film critic scolding a film-maker for being unoriginal. He can’t believe the perpetrator is so predictable, at one point almost berating himself for not being daft enough to uncover the mystery earlier. Mediocrity is Blanc’s kryptonite; he struggles to solve easy puzzles and thrives on being challenged, a wicked in-joke about simplistic thrillers that ask the audience to play detective.
That he puts himself in the position to transfer the agency of this mystery to another character is a testament to the sequel’s updated reading of the world it occupies. Glass Onion is not necessarily bigger and better than the first film, but it’s more satisfying. It’s growing older and moving forward rather than hoping to replicate the same old-school tricks. The honeymoon period is over, and it isn’t afraid to be a tragedy disguised as an irreverent crime comedy. Take away Benoit Blanc’s alliterations and cigars, and he’s just James Bond stuck in the gig economy.