Mysteries are predicated on surprises, so it’s no shock to discover that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery boasts deceptions, twists, and head-spinning revelations galore. What qualifies as unexpected, however, is the fact that Rian Johnson’s follow-up to 2019’s Knives Out is a wholly superior whodunit contraption, at once more complex, cunning, and laugh-out-loud amusing. Those with a love of intricate brainteasers and bold, charismatic performances are in for a grand time when the film—currently premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival—arrives as a veritable Christmas present December 23 on Netflix.
Though it’s a standalone sequel that requires no familiarity with the first movie, Glass Onion remains of a piece with its predecessor, and not only because it features Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the master detective with the Hercule Poirot deductive skills and the Foghorn Leghorn Southern accent. Johnson’s latest is, like his prior hit, a thriller that may not have a murdered victim, is populated by a diverse collection of well-off men and women indebted to a wealthy benefactor, and pivots around a female minority protagonist who could be the key to unravelling the entire affair. Those similarities effectively cast the writer/director’s franchise (a third entry for Netflix is on the way) as a mischievous genre critique of the greedy, self-interested and cutthroat upper crust, all of whom here find themselves playing a game that transforms into a crime that isn’t what it initially seems.
As befitting an Agatha Christie-style enterprise such as this, Glass Onion concerns a cluster of disparate characters: Claire (Kathryn Hahn), the pro-environment Connecticut governor running for senator; Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.), the accomplished scientist; Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), the former fashion model who runs a successful clothing line while staying out of Twitter-related trouble thanks to her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick); and Duke (Dave Bautista), the men’s-rights YouTuber who’s dating Whiskey (Madelyn Cline). All of them are friends with, and brought together by, tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who requests their presence on his private island for their annual reunion by sending them a puzzle box that, once solved, informs them that their gathering will revolve around the (fictional) mystery of Miles’ slaying.
The other person who receives this invite is Cassandra (Janelle Monáe), Miles’ former business partner who was banished from the empire she helped co-found by Miles as well as the rest of his hangers-on gang. There’s also Blanc, who’s exceedingly grateful to be summoned for this shindig, since the pandemic has left him a frustrated mess, desperate for a baffling homicide to challenge his superhumanly rational mind. Johnson reintroduces audiences to Blanc via a comical cameo-filled opener set in a bathtub before integrating him into the rest of the ensemble—an environment that Blanc finds quite strange, since the rest of these characters are close friends, and he knows neither them nor Miles. Nonetheless, after a brief oral injection of a medication that magically prevents him from contracting COVID-19 (or needing to wear a mask), he accompanies them on a yacht to Miles’ residence.
That haven is an extravagant techno-paradise dominated by a giant glass-onion dome, and its owner proves to be just as over-the-top. As delightfully embodied by Norton, Miles is an individual who’s so rich, and so far up his own ass, that he immediately tells his guests that he wants the weekend to be casual and down-to-Earth, this as a robotic luggage-cart animal trots behind him and a startling “DUM!” chimes through the air (composed, Miles notes, by Philip Glass). He’s the personification of 21st-century egomania, convinced—per the speech he gives to Blanc—that he and his mates are “disruptors” whose success is due to their ability to ignore the naysayers and push past traditional boundaries in order to shake up the system. Norton makes Miles a grinning-idiot tyrant who likes to pose as an everyman while showing off that he’s acquired the Mona Lisa, and his cocky energy fuels much of Glass Onion’s delirious early going.
Given that cracking cases is his passion, Blanc is all too happy to partake in these overblown festivities. And since everyone involved has a real-world motive for (figuratively) offing Miles, he dives into the proceedings with gusto. What transpires is of a byzantine nature—and can’t be discussed without wading through spoiler-heavy waters. Nonetheless, it ruins nothing to say that Johnson orchestrates his deft misdirections and absurdist disclosures with wit and panache, such that the truth is constantly being reconfigured by new perspectives. The film loves doubling back on itself to show things from a slightly altered vantage point, along the way exposing fresh details that keep answers ever-so-slightly out of reach—the better to maintain a mood of tantalizing intrigue and suspense.
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. He’s also aided by another fantastic cast, with Hudson in particular stealing scenes as the flamboyantly inappropriate Birdie, who must be denied a cell phone lest she insult some race, gender, religion or ethnicity. Still, there’s a clear star here, and it’s Monáe, delivering a powerhouse multifaceted performance as a scorned entrepreneur who loathes her vacation compatriots and, most of all, Miles—a conniving rat whose friendliness toward her on the island comes off as less than sincere. Like the film (and its titular metaphor), the singer-actress repeatedly reveals new layers as the action tangles itself up in knots, along the way exuding legitimate A-list magnetism.
Craig, meanwhile, appears even more comfortable than before in Blanc’s shoes, free to provide greater glimpses of the sleuth’s human side without fear of undercutting a sense of his imposing intellect. 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.
