Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

When Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery got a very brief theatrical run over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it drew large crowds, and many wondered if it should have gotten a full theatrical release, rather than going to streaming on Netflix.  I feel the need to join this crowd, as watching it at home, I could only imagine how fun this was to watch with an invested audience.  Regardless, even watching at home, the joy, fun and humor of this clever murder story shines through, and creates one of the most enjoyable films of the year.

Returning writer-director Rian Johnson reunites us with his lead detective character, Benoit Blanc, played once again by Daniel Craig.  And while Craig is most famous recently for his current run as James Bond, my wish is that Detective Blanc becomes his most prized character, because he truly deserves to be.  Just as in 2019's Knives Out, Craig is clearly having the time of his life playing this character who is a mix of Southern charm and oddball comedy.  He is dropped into another mystery with an isolated group of bizarre suspects, this time surrounding a tech billionaire named Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who has invited a small group of friends to his private island mansion home for a murder mystery game weekend that naturally escalates quickly into something else entirely.

All of the people summoned to the island play some part in Bron's tech company, and naturally, all have some reason to hate him.  They include a Connecticut governor (Kathryn Hahn), a lead scientist for Miles' company (Leslie Odom Jr.), a flighty supermodel turned fashion designer (Kate Hudson), and a thick headed men's rights activist (Dave Bautista).  They all knew Miles before he became the giant among men that he is today, and helped launch him to fame.  There is also an unexpected guest, Miles' former business partner Andi (Janelle Monáe), who is quite standoffish with the entire group for reasons that will not be revealed here  It's also revealed that Benoit is also an unexpected guest, as even he doesn't know why he's been invited to this island weekend.

When an actual dead body does show up during the course of the first night, we get to truly appreciate how Johnson has carefully thought through every aspect of his mystery.  He uses a combination of humor, misdirection, and jumping about the story's timeline to fill in gaps in order to tell the story, but it's never overly complicated, and tremendously enjoyable to follow along with.  As I said in my review of Johnson's original film, it's all too easy in this genre to pile on the red herrings and pull the rug out from under the audience, but with his clever script, Johnson proves his expertise with the genre.  He's not out just to fool us (though he certainly does that from time to time), but sets up the pieces so that we can put the pieces along with the film's detective hero.

Glass Onion is also aided by a highly energetic cast who seem to be having just as much fun with this material as Craig, and play out their characters beautifully.  They're an assortment of oddballs who can be suspicious, threatening, or funny whenever the script needs them to be.  Similar to before, Johnson shows a real expertise of taking a large cast filled with recognizable faces, and not only successfully have them play off each other, but create memorable individual characters.  There's even some cameos to look out for.  All of this adds up to an experience that is some of the most fun you can have currently watching a movie.  It never tries to be anything more than a puzzling murder mystery, and shows nothing but mastery at what it's trying to achieve. 

Again, my only wish is that I got to see this with a room full of fans.  I know that Netflix is planning one more film with Benoit Blanc, and I hope the character gets the chance to return to the big screen in a full-on theatrical release where he belongs.  He's just too memorable and fun to be stuck only on streaming.

0 comments