Glass Onion (Review)
It's a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth
Rian Johnson has shown throughout his film career two things consistently: his attention to detail, and his willingness to act against expectation. He is, unlike the criminal at the heart of Glass Onion, not an idiot. Like a master magician, he knows when to make the audience doubt itself, when to make them look left so he can act right, and most importantly, knows how to put on an entertaining show. Glass Onion, Johnson’s sixth feature film, contains all of this in abundance. The follow up (I am wary to call it a sequel, as that word carries connotations that don’t fit what is at play here) to 2019’s Knives Out, sees Daniel Craig return to the character of Benoit Blanc and set off to solve another puzzling mystery. Murder, certainly, though murder takes a back seat here for at least the first act. Unlike Knives Out, which opened with a throat following suit, the crime beneath the layers of this onion is primarily ego, and Blanc appears to be simply along for the ride. Though, much like peeling an onion, the viewer soon realizes that something was in their eye, and everything we thought we knew is upended.
Set in May of 2020 at the height of lockdown, an assortment of entertainingly unlikable characters are assembled on a private island by billionaire Miles Bron - just close enough to being an anagram for a certain social media owning man-child to make the point – played by Edward Norton. Bron is obnoxious from jump, perfectly emulating the current generation of smug, punchable billionaire who spout off Wikipedia summaries like its holy wisdom. The characters collected around him are equally endemic of the most insufferable of society, played with perfection by a murderer’s row of talent: Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista form this pandemic bubble straining to burst. Hudson steals the show, and arguably she, Monáe, and Norton pop so intensely that it risks pushing the film away from ensemble and into leads and support. Jessica Henwick gets the short end of the edit, playing a hilarious supporting role that I wish was given more screen time, as the hints and details we get of the character scream at more beneath the surface.
Craig, while headlining the series, is not the lead. He frames the story, he interjects in the story, but the mystery is the lead of the film. The culprits and victims push the narrative forward. Blanc is simply there to comment on events as they transpire, and to be there at the end when the cuffs come out. The master craft of mystery construction is difficult, and one that many films try and fail at. Johnson is confident enough not to hide anything from the audience. There are no leaps of logic in Johnson’s mysteries; he shows us everything we need to know to stand beside Blanc and say who dunnit. And we feel gratified when Blanc mentions something and we can say “I noticed that!” My fiancée shouted out a detail seconds before Blanc did in the midst of one of his expositionary monologues, and pumped the air when it proved to be integral.
Knives Out appeared in 2019, and was a pleasant, soothing surprise at the time. An original film that assumed an intelligence of the audience; it was a palette cleanser. For us, knee deep in franchises and IP clambakes; for Johnson, having just unlocked a new level of internet depravity for having the audacity to *checks notes* make a Star Wars film with integrity; and for Craig, who had recently emerged from the lowest depths of career disinterest having made the septic 007 film Spectre. It was of little surprise when sequels were ordered, disappointing that it was Netflix who would be ponying up the cash, as it doomed further Blanc films to the home experience. A mystery like this needs to be seen with a crowd, surrounded by two hundred other amateur sleuths trying to sort through clues. That was part of why Knives Out popped so hard: it was a collective encounter. Glass Onion is no less entertaining, no less thrilling, no less mysterious. Watching it in my basement though stripped away an element that cannot be plotted or shot but can only be experienced.
Glass Onion certainly puts its money on the screen, and I credit Johnson for resisting the urge to go really big with the story. Murder mysteries work when it’s people in a room, and no matter how extravagant the sets or tweaked by CGI they are, Glass Onion essentially still only takes place in a single house over a couple days. The most distracting addition was a shocking number of cameos that fail to add anything to the film. This is not a Muppet movie, we do not need a revolving door of actors who answered their phone during lockdown. In fact, as they weren’t being used to practical purpose and make the audience pay attention to them while an important clue slides across the floor, all they did was break the suspension of disbelief while you tried to figure out why Angela Lansbury is on a Zoom call (in what, I have to assume, will be her final film performance). Only one cameo had any sense of narrative value, and I am staking a claim now that the actor in question will have a larger role in the third Blanc film that Netflix has already ordered.
Glass Onion is a success at nearly every level I consider worth mentioning, and a reminder that films do not have to operate at the lowest common denominator. They can be intelligent and accessible; they can be serious and affable. Johnson takes his satirical Colbert Report sensibilities at shining a light on who he clearly considers to be culture’s villains, and allowing Blanc the gratification of pointing at them as saying “they’re just dumb” (which, top meme of 2023 material right there). I am grateful that Johnson and Craig find Blanc as amusing as I do, and that Glass Onion solidifies his deserving status amongst the likes of Holmes, Poirot, or Marlowe.
Glass Onion is available to stream.
Give This A Watch
The Brothers Bloom (2009)
Rian Johnson’s second film is his most forgotten at this point, but well deserving of love. The Brothers Bloom is kind of a twist on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody play con artist brothers who decide to target the reclusive Rachel Weisz for their next operation. Released in 2009, but outcompeted by the likes of 17 Again and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It was as much a love letter to con artist films and close-up magic as the Blanc films are to the murder mystery. It shows that from the start, Johnson knew the importance of keeping his casts small, his scale manageable, and that comedy can be a powerful tool for emotional misdirection.