Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Directed by Rian Johnson
World-famous detective Benoit Blanc heads to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery surrounding a tech billionaire and his eclectic crew of friends.
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What critics say influenced Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
This past month, directors of four Netflix films were invited to curate some personal favorites; thanks to Rian Johnson’s mystery-minded picks, I ended up seeing a very nice 35mm print of Evil Under the Sun , a fairly ideal Agatha Christie adaptation that, unsurprisingly, is indeed a key reference point for Glass Onion , which borrows its first-act mechanics of bringing suspects to an island and running through all their motives, and its third act in ways that would be unfair to reveal; the second act successfully goes its own structural way.
Like Knives Out , this sequel pays homage to classic whodunnits (the many versions of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None come to mind, as does Evil Under the Sun ), but much fun comes thanks to its many surprises—I will not be the one to spoil them.
Evoking the feel of seaside murder mysteries like Evil Under The Sun (1982) and The Last of Sheila (1973) (this one particularly, given its similar absurdity), Glass Onion ramps up the broad caricatures, silly one-liners, and genuinely stupid (“stupid” is a term of endearment in my household) sight gags, all of which are wondrously funny, but, more than that, they rarely ever don’t have a callback to something important later.
Its pacing races, then slows to swell around a dynamic new turn; it's as if Blanc's strong grip has us by the hand, confidently guiding us through betrayal, greed, and murder at a clip that brings to mind the fantastic final acts of Clue .
There’s a casual confidence to Craig’s turn that makes him the marquee attraction even when others are stealing (or he’s allowing them to assume) the spotlight, and moreover, he’s just plain funnier this time around—all of which ultimately comes to a head in the film’s most astonishing and illuminating bombshell regarding its hero: his fervent disgust of Clue.
The shambling cadre of overexcited lunatics who make up the remainder of the core cast are equally goofy, each acting as if they’re cartoonishly auditioning for a part in a remake of 1985’s slapstick classic Clue .
Add to that it’s elaborately staged, Clue-esque production and costume design, and Knives Out not only became a quick autumn favorite, but the best kind of phenomenon: one that quietly earned its sizable reputation through word-of-mouth with impressive box-office results still intact, and all without flaunting the kind of open-endedness that would immediately tease a sequel.
Knives Out played to our desire for light and pleasant fare and gave us a taste of Clue-like murder mysteries, priming us for Only Murders in the Building and even Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.
Director
Paul Thomas Anderson
Critics compare Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery to 2 of Anderson’s films.
The jokes are significantly zingier than its predecessor, including a wonderful Magnolia reference, and the focus is back on Blanc, who manages to fuse comedy into even the more straightforward mystery portions of the script.
Johnson brings back mainstay cinematographer Steve Yedlin and editor Bob Ducsay, both of them working overtime to keep us engaged and on our toes with their visuals and pacing, capturing production designer Rick Heinrichs’ intricate set nuances and Jenny Eagan’s playful costumes (complete with a Magnolia look from 1999) with care, leaving us to warm ourselves in the sun-soaked surroundings and feel like the upper crust for a brief moment.
He nicked the move from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights , the showstopping set piece at drug dealer Rahad Jackson’s bachelor pad ratcheted to an unbearable tension by the Chinese twink tossing firecrackers in the background.
Director
Steven Spielberg
Critics compare Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery to 3 of Spielberg’s films.
He also reminds us, with a glee that anticipates the joys of everything from “Duel” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and beyond, that there are few things more satisfying than seeing a bully get his comeuppance.
He also reminds us, with a glee that anticipates the joys of everything from “Duel” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and beyond, that there are few things more satisfying than seeing a bully get his comeuppance.
Ask The Godfather Part II , The Empire Strikes Back , The Lost World: Jurassic Park , Spiderman 2 , X2: X-Men United , etc. Films will either live up to expectations or they’ll crash and burn because fans didn’t get what they want.
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His eyes are opened, improbably, by Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth,” typically remembered as one of the worst films to win the Oscar for best picture, but hey, the movie gods work in mysterious ways.
Shot (mostly) in Greece during the pandemic summer of 2021, Glass Onion is a cheerier companion piece to Crimes of the Future , shot in the country right after; Cronenberg went nighttime and dank, but Johnson leans into the time-honored tradition of movies that showcase attractive people against beautiful scenery.
Drawing on the glitzy vibe of 1973’s “The Last of Sheila,” the writer-director gives us a set of characters who are walking showboats of acrid ambition.
If this all sounds familiar that’s because it is: director and writer Rian Johnson was inspired by director Herbert Ross’s 1973 movie The Last of Sheila .
That’s too bad because Johnson, clearly working with a larger budget, has made a lavish murder mystery that pays tribute to one of his often-cited influences, the 1970’s whodunnit, The Last of Sheila .
It’s as if the filmmaker has taken The Last of Sheila and combined it with Ten Little Indians and then put his own macabre “eat the rich” spin on it.
Once again collaborating with cinematographer Steve Yedlin, composer Nathan Johnson and editor Bob Ducsay, Johnson designs Glass Onion as a jaunty and electric The Last of Sheila-style venture in which diversions turn deadly serious.
Evoking the feel of seaside murder mysteries like Evil Under The Sun (1982) and The Last of Sheila (1973) (this one particularly, given its similar absurdity), Glass Onion ramps up the broad caricatures, silly one-liners, and genuinely stupid (“stupid” is a term of endearment in my household) sight gags, all of which are wondrously funny, but, more than that, they rarely ever don’t have a callback to something important later.
Like Knives Out , this sequel pays homage to classic whodunnits (the many versions of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None come to mind, as does Evil Under the Sun ), but much fun comes thanks to its many surprises—I will not be the one to spoil them.
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To drive home that parallel, The Social Network is referenced in the film.
If you loved Justin Timberlake in The Social Network , you’ll love Norton’s Mark-Zuckerberg-meets-Jeff-Bezos-meets-pick-your-favorite-billionaire type with the charm those guys wish they had.
With those cranks out of the way, let’s figure out if Glass Onion is good, bad, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button .
The film is also set in the early days of the pandemic, and the ingenious way it gets around protocols and masks brings to mind that line in Thank You For Smoking about “good thing we invented the, you know, whatever device.”