Movie Review: Glass Onion

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 139 minutes

Some spoilers follow:

Writer-director Rian Johnson set himself a difficult task with Knives Out.  Delivering a modern murder mystery that is both original and satisfying is hard enough but the 2019 film also sought to provide meta-commentary and deconstructionist analysis of the genre.  It managed to succeed greatly at both, becoming one of the most critically popular and commercially successful films of the last decade.  This put even more pressure on Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the first of two sequels ordered by Netflix, to deliver a similarly entertaining whodunnit while also doing enough differently to separate itself from its beloved predecessor.  Johnson once again is up to the task, with Glass Onion delivering an experience that is similarly full of consistently strong humor and creative, effective twists, even if it can’t quite reach the heights of the original.

Rather than try to add to Knives Out‘s practically perfect plot Glass Onion and future sequels are all planned to be standalone stories with Daniel Craig returning as eccentric private detective Benoit Blanc to investigate new mysteries.  In Glass Onion, tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites his privileged friends, who he calls the Disruptors, to an elaborate murder mystery party on his private island.  Just as Blanc becomes desperate for a new case as his version of pandemic-induced cabin fever sets in, he receives an unexpected invitation to the party as well.  The Disruptors are surprised by his arrival but even more so by that of Cassandra “Andi” Brand (Janelle Monáe), a former member of the group who was Miles’ business partner until he swindled her out of her position at their company, Alpha.  As these and other tensions become exasperated it becomes clear that there is a very real danger at this game weekend and Blanc gets his wish of another complex mystery to unravel.

Between the anthology approach and Johnson’s habit of subverting expectations in his films, one might expect Glass Onion to go out of its way to separate itself from Knives Out but that isn’t really the case.  The tones of the films are virtually identical and the witty, socially conscious comedy is, for the most part, about as amusing as it was the first time around.  And Johnson’s main thematic focus is still on critiquing wealthy privilege, although here it’s filtered through a wider lens.  Knives Out brilliantly scrutinized the not-so-hidden biases and corruption of wealthy New England so-called liberals but Glass Onion‘s cast depicts a wider assortment of interconnected privileged groups.  Miles is an obvious satire of Elon Musk and similarly egocentric, buffoonish billionaires and the Disruptors fit into various different privileged archetypes.  Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.) is the lead scientist responsible for bringing Miles’ far-fetched ideas to life.  Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) is the governor of Connecticut running for Senate on an outspoken campaign of environmental awareness and activism but is beholden to Miles because of his financial assistance.  Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) is a model and fashion designer who frequently makes politically incorrect public statements to the horror of her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick).  Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) is an alt-right video game streamer.  Their personal and professional relationships highlight the all-encompassing power of wealth and corruption.  As in the first film, Johnson’s script does an excellent job of embedding these themes into the story while maintaining the mystery and moral ambiguity.

Craig leads the cast with another delightful performance, reemphasizing that Blanc really is a perfect character for him.  After fifteen years of seeing him as one of the most suave, haunted Bonds it’s an immensely enjoyable shift to see him as a lighthearted, affable, somewhat awkward figure.  The script walks a fine line between making him too ingenious or too much of a goof, resulting in a perfectly balanced characterization through which Blanc comes across as part Clouseau part Holmes.  But Craig also excellently accentuates the character’s compassion for victims and passion for justice, drawing the viewer into the mystery on an emotional level.  The dialogue given to Norton brilliantly captures the wordy, ultimately meaningless attempts at philosophizing that figures like Bron make and Norton brings the perfect mix of vapidity and disturbingly genuine belief in his own bullshit to the role.  Secrets about Andi allow Monáe to stretch her range more than any of her castmates and she does a great job of doing so, often turning in vastly different performances from scene to scene.  She also has particularly strong chemistry with Craig.

Unfortunately, one area in which Glass Onion definitely falls short of the original is its handling of the supporting cast.  In Knives Out the culprit received the most attention, of course, but all the main suspects were fleshed-out sufficiently and felt like they needed to be there.  Aside from the guilty party, the Disruptors aren’t as well-rounded, with none anywhere near as compelling as Chris Evans and Ana de Armas’ characters from the first installment.  Hahn and Hudson get some of the best comedic bits, with the latter taking advantage of her vapid character to create a particularly enjoyable, hammy performance.  But ultimately a lot of the Disruptor material feels somewhat arbitrary filler to keep Blanc from getting to the bottom of the mystery too fast.  The Peg character is particularly superfluous, despite Henwick’s strong performance, and feels out of place in the film’s moral hierarchy.  That said, the group does become more central come the finale, with mostly satisfying results.

“Mostly satisfying” sums up how I feel about the film overall.  It’s not as fresh as the original and more drastic changes to the formula will need to be made if the potential third film is to work, but that was almost inevitable given how the original reinvented and revived its genre.  And despite its shortcomings, Glass Onion is still riotously fun and a cut above most other recent Hollywood films.