Glass Onion: As fragile and hollow as its name suggests
Rian Johnson's sequel to Knives Out is all spice, no substance.
It wasn’t until the end that I understood why Knives Out 2 is titled Glass Onion. The movie is as fragile and hollow as its name suggests. Sure, it might be perfectly pleasant, but crack open its superficial layer and nothing of substance remains.
First, a few preliminary notes.
This post contains spoilers for Glass Onion, which is now streaming on Netflix.
Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Knives Out and Glass Onion, is one of my favorite directors. I love Knives Out — so much that I casted my version of the sequel for the second edition of this newsletter. Looper is one of my favorite films. I like almost everything about The Last Jedi; I think it’s the best film of the Star Wars sequel trilogy by a wide margin.
Daniel Craig rocks. Nothing but respect for my James Bond.
Generally, I do not enjoy writing about movies that I do not like. For one, people should like the movies that they like, and in the case of Glass Onion, everyone but me appears to like it, which is okay. I’m not here to tell anyone that they should not like Glass Onion. I’m just here to tell you why I did not like it. Two, I try to always view a movie through the lens of what the filmmaker is trying to accomplish, because I’d rather appreciate what a filmmaker accomplished rather than criticize their shortcomings. Three, I started this newsletter to write about the stuff in movies that excites me — what I’m passionate about. This is the first post I’ve written that can be characterized as negative. I imagine it’ll be the last one for a while. So, if you’re new here and didn’t sign up for a cranky, negative post about a film you enjoyed, don’t worry — back to regular programming soon.
That all said, here’s why Glass Onion sucks.
Chances are, if you’ve seen Glass Onion, you liked it. Released in theaters for a single week over Thanksgiving, it grossed $15 million. The showing I attended was so overstuffed that AMC moved it to a larger room without telling anyone, which led to absolute mayhem in the age of reserved seating. The movie boasts an approval rating in the 90s from both critics and audiences. It very well may be nominated for Best Picture. All of which is to say, the people love Glass Onion.
I get it. The movie is funny. The cast is loaded. Scene to scene, line to line, moment to moment, the movie is entertaining.
But it’s a hollow shell of a movie. The mystery is entirely too predictable, the characters are all fluff, the payoff is inconsequential, and the mechanics of the story don’t survive scrutiny. Glass Onion is all flavor, no substance — like a bag of Lay’s. Enjoyable? Sure. Substantive? Not at all.
Glass Onion is empty calories.
Like Knives Out before it, Glass Onion is a murder mystery. This time around, world famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is hired by Helen (Janelle Monae) to figure out who killed her sister, Andi (also Monae), the founder and former CEO of a tech company called Alpha. To figure out who killed Andi, Blanc and Helen travel to billionaire Miles Bron’s (Edward Norton) private island in Greece for a murder mystery party that Miles is hosting for his closest friends.
There, there’s Alpha scientist Lionel, Connecticut governor Claire, fashion designer Birdie, men’s rights Twitch streamer Duke and his girlfriend Whiskey, among a few other “douchey friends,” as Johnson described them. The only thing you really need to know about the side characters is that they’re all terrible, selfish people who will do anything to advance their own agendas at the expense of others and that they’re friends with Miles because he helps them achieve their agendas.
Before her passing, Andi shared a complicated history with Miles. Once friends who founded Alpha, Miles ousted Andi from the company when she refused to move forward with his pet project, a new hydrogen-based alternative fuel called Klear that happens to be as explosive as the Hindenburg. During the fight over the company, their close friends — the same ones on the island — perjured themselves at trial by testifying that Miles, not Andi, provided the founding idea of the company. Miles won and took over the company. Andi turned up dead. Before her death, Andi found the cocktail napkin that she scribbled the founding idea for Alpha on, theoretically proving that Alpha should belong to her, not Miles.
But Andi is dead now. Nobody except Helen knows about her death. The napkin is missing. And Benoit Blanc is on the case.
After Helen comes to Blanc for help, he hatches a plan: Helen will pretend to be Andi and use Andi’s invitation to the party to gain access to the island, where they’ll uncover the identity of the killer. Blanc, on the other hand, will show up and pretend that he was invited.
It works. The friends can’t tell Helen apart from Andi (remember: they think Andi is still alive) and Miles is so amused that the world famous Blanc has shown up to his murder mystery party that he lets him stay. From there, Helen and Blanc figure out that it was Miles who killed Andi, that Miles poisoned Duke at the party after Duke found out about Andi’s death, and that Miles is now in possession of the smoking napkin.
After Miles burns the napkin out of Helen’s hands, Helen destroys Miles’ expensive artwork and then uses Klear to lay waste to his mansion, including the real Mona Lisa that he has on loan from the Louvre, destroying his reputation. As a result, all of his friends agree to testify against him — that they saw Miles driving away from Andi’s house when she was killed, that they saw him burn the napkin, and that they saw him take Duke’s gun, which he used to shoot (but not kill) Helen. The police arrive. The end.
There’s a reason Knives Out became a phenomenon that transformed into a Netflix saga that will make Johnson filthy rich. Sure, it was funny and entertaining, but beneath the surface was: (1) a substantive story about a compelling character (Ana de Armas) we could root for against a family of spoiled brats, (2) a mystery that was difficult to crack, and (3) a rewarding payoff that made the entire viewing experience worthwhile. The shot of de Armas standing on the balcony with the coffee mug is one of my favorite endings to a movie in recent memory.
A murder mystery is only as good as its payoff, and Knives Out delivers.
Although Glass Onion is almost as funny and entertaining and features a character in Helen who, on paper, is easy to root for against a band of selfish friends, the mystery is not difficult to crack and the payoff is entirely devoid of reward — to the point where it made the previous two hours feel like a waste.
As for the answer to the mystery itself — who killed Andi — the answer is inexplicably obvious. It turns out, the person who killed Andi is the person who had the most to gain by killing her: Miles, who needed Andi and the napkin to go away in order to protect himself as the owner of Alpha so that he can move forward with Klear.
Affirming our suspicions is the fact that Miles clearly murders Duke at the party less than halfway through the film, after Duke learns of Andi’s death thanks to a Google Alert. It’s embarrassingly evident that Miles is the murderer, because he kills Duke in plain sight. Duke dies immediately after taking a drink from a glass — a glass that the movie very clearly shows is placed into Duke’s hands by Miles. And if you know Miles killed Duke, then you can probably guess that he also killed Andi.
Miles tries to pretend that the poison was intended for him because Duke drank from his glass — thus, he says, someone is trying to kill him. If we buy his story, then the killer is still at large.
Except that, we literally saw Miles switch glasses with Duke by placing his glass in Duke’s hand. It’s almost impossible to miss.
There it is, again:
Just in case you weren’t sure if Miles is the bad guy, Miles is later shown looking for Helen as he holds Duke’s gun. The same gun that is used to shoot (but not kill) Helen.
With more than half of the movie to go, the mystery is solved.
Knives Out is great in part because it features a bunch of terrible people turning against each other. It’s like Game of Thrones, Ivy League edition. They all conceivably could’ve committed the murder, which made it fun, figuring out the mystery. Glass Onion, on the other hand, is just a big collection of douches all on the same side, being douches together. Funny, sure. But the movie never really plays the characters against each other, seriously interrogates them, or gives the audience a reason to think any of them could have conceivably killed Andi. All clues, always, point toward Miles. It was so obvious that as I was sitting in the theater, I kept thinking that I was missing something — that it had to be someone else because there was no way Johnson would design a mystery this easily answered. It turns out, the mystery really is that simple.
Halfway through the movie, we already know who did the whodunnit. And if you already know who did the whodunnit, what’s the point?
The flaws extend beyond the mystery to the payoff. The mystery itself would matter less if the payoff delivered, providing Helen and the audience with catharsis. But Glass Onion falters because the ending is nonsensical and insignificant.
After Helen finds the napkin that proves Andi founded Alpha, she accidentally allows Miles to burn it, destroying the only evidence that, in theory, establishes that Alpha was Andi’s idea, not Miles’.
Except that, the napkin is not the smoking gun the movie pretends it is. For one, the napkin proves nothing definitive at all. How we do know when Andi wrote it? How we do we know she didn’t write it down after Miles told her about his idea? And so on. Two, the napkin might not even be admissible in court because it might qualify as hearsay, violating the Federal Rules of Evidence and nullifying its importance. Three, even if the napkin is admissible in court, it does not prove that Miles murdered Andi; at most, it might prove that Andi came up with the idea behind Alpha, which might give Miles a motive to kill Andi, but it hardly proves that he did in fact kill Andi. And the point of the movie is not to give the company back to Andi, who is very much dead, but to nail Andi’s murderer. The napkin hardly helps in that regard. It’s as if the movie got confused and thought it was trying to prove that Miles didn’t create Alpha rather than that he murdered Andi.
We’re also led to believe that after Helen burns down Miles’ mansion, all of his friends are suddenly willing to testify against him, undercutting the one thing that the film told us about these characters: that they only act in their own self interest. The movie seems to suggest that because Miles' pet project has failed and suddenly owes a debt to the Louvre, he is ruined, meaning that he can no longer provide support to his friends’ endeavors, meaning that they no longer need him, meaning that they will now testify against him. But by testifying against him, all of them will be admitting that they previously committed perjury — a felony. Maybe they can all strike a deal or whatever, but it’s difficult to believe that people who only care about themselves are willing to confess to perjury in order to testify against Miles, all to help Helen, their ex-friend’s sister that they met for the very first time on the island, who also happens to openly despise all of them. Maybe if Miles is, in fact, ruined financially, they’ll end their friendships with him. But risking their own fates to bring him down? No way. Not when they have nothing to gain by backing Helen, a complete stranger to them.
Further, the friends have no actual first-hand knowledge that Miles poisoned Duke or shot Helen. As Blanc makes clear at the end of the movie, they all missed it. Nobody actually saw Miles put the glass in Duke’s hand or take Duke’s gun. Sure, they can lie and claim that they saw Miles do those things, but will they really perjure themselves — again — all for someone they met earlier that day?
Beyond that, it’s a stretch to assume that Miles is suddenly ruined because Klear has failed. How many times have we seen the mega-rich fail in an endeavor only to pivot to another idea? Miles is hurt, but like most tech billionaires, he’ll recover.
Helen’s victory over Miles — her version of justice — is like winning game four when you’re down 3-0 in the series. It might feel good in the moment, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter. Miles won’t go to prison for the murder of Andi, because unless Lionel testifies that he saw Miles leaving Andi’s house when she was murdered, there’s no proof that he killed her, and Lionel has no reason to testify against Miles if Miles isn’t actually ruined. Hardly anything has changed. The team up 3-1 almost always wins anyway. Perhaps Miles will be arrested for poisoning Duke or shooting Helen earlier in the movie, but at the conclusion of the movie, no actual proof that Miles committed either of those crimes exists.
Ironically, the police arriving on the island at the end of the film very well might arrest Helen; after all, she’s the only one who committed a crime that everyone witnessed when she blew up Miles’ home while multiple people were inside. Then, Miles can, in theory, recuperate his financial losses by suing Helen for her willful act of destruction. Blanc himself already admitted in the film that Miles is unbeatable in a legal struggle. “Miles’ machine of lawyers and power could destroy her through sheer dumb force,” Blanc says.
The simpler course of action for the friends is to testify against Helen — that she destroyed Miles’ property — in order to protect Miles, who in turn will continue to support them, and it won’t even require them to perjure themselves. Then, they can all return to their lives and forget about Helen, with whom they have no personal attachment.
After the explosion, Miles confronts Helen and asks her if she feels better now. “I hope your little bitch tantrum gave you closure,” he says, “because it accomplished nothing.” He’s right. All she did was destroy a mansion, the most famous painting in the world, and the viability of an alternative fuel that would have blown up at some point anyway — likely with human casualties. If anything, she saved Miles from an even bigger and costlier humiliation.
In Knives Out, the murderer is arrested and the main character wins, providing a tidy ending to the mystery — justice served. In Glass Onion, the murderer loses his mansion, his favorite work project, and a historical painting. But he’s still a billionaire living free.
There’s also a broader problem with the payoff: It doesn’t resonate emotionally.
Knives Out was told from de Armas’ perspective, giving us an emotional attachment to the story. We understood her character. We were invested in her. We wanted her to win, so that when she did declare victory, it felt like a victory for us, too. Her victory was our catharsis.
But the way Johnson presents Glass Onion deprives Helen of her point of view, severing our emotional attachment to the film. For half the movie, the audience is completely unaware that Helen even exists. The movie doesn’t reveal her existence or switch to her point of view until halfway through — all for the sake of a twist. And when the story backtracks to explain Helen’s perspective, it tries to tell us, rather than show us, why we should care about her. But people don’t come to care about characters because they’re told to. They come to care about characters because they experience their hardships with them. But Helen hasn’t even suffered the brunt of the hardships — her sister did. Without experiencing those hardships, it minimizes the impact of the ending. When Helen is busy trashing Miles’ mansion, it doesn’t feel like a victory. It feels like nothing.
The mystery and ending aren’t Glass Onion’s only problems. The entire setup defies logic because it’s inexplicable that Miles would allow Helen and Blanc onto his island in the first place.
Miles killed Andi. So, he knows Andi is dead. Put another way, he knows Helen is not Andi when they arrive on the island. Miles also knows that Blanc is the most famous detective in the world and that he did not invite Blanc to his island. Clearly then, Miles should also know why Helen and Blanc have shown up: to figure out what happened to Andi. So, why does Miles let them onto his island? Why doesn’t he turn them away? Johnson offers no explanation other than: Miles is stupid.
Even if that can be excused away by Miles being stupid, why did Blanc come up with that plan? Before meeting Miles, Blanc had no way of knowing that Miles was a colossal idiot. Blanc himself admits that he “assumed” that Miles was a “complicated genius.” It’s not until he’s around Miles on the island that Blanc realizes Miles is plain stupid. So, if Blanc thought Miles was a genius, why did he think that Miles would ever let them on the island? Why did he devise a plan that entirely hinges on Miles being the biggest idiot ever? Sure, he didn’t know at the time that Miles was the murderer. But wasn’t Miles always the likeliest suspect? Even if Miles didn’t personally kill Andi, he probably had one of his friends do it on his behalf. This is really the plan that the most famous detective in the world came up with?
And why did Miles even keep the napkin? Why didn’t he destroy it the second he got it? The only explanation, again, is that Miles is an idiot.
Johnson takes great glee in exposing Miles’ stupidity. Which I get — it’s funny and with no particular real-life billionaire in mind, is impeccably timed for this moment. But a murder mystery’s explanation hinging entirely on “the bad guy is actually an idiot!” is a disappointment. Every plot hole can be explained only with: “because he’s stupid!” Which, again, might be funny, but doesn’t make for a fulfilling answer to a mystery. It’s the equivalent of “somehow, Palpatine returned.” Well, if you say so.
There’s an irony to all of this. Glass Onion tells the story of a dumb tech billionaire who thinks he’s a genius all the while being a movie that thinks it’s ten times smarter than it actually is. The mystery is simple. The social commentary — tech billionaires might actually be dumb — could’ve been a tweet. The movie is underwhelming in both regards.
Glass Onion and Miles Bron are one and the same.
If you would have told me that Johnson had sold the Knives Out franchise to Netflix and signed on as a no-show producer, and Netflix had gone on and hired, say, David Yates to direct the sequel, I would’ve believed you. (No offense to David Yates).
Maybe I’m being harsh. Glass Onion is not a bad movie. It’s funny. It’s well acted. It’s entertaining. It’s perfectly pleasant. If you’re looking for a fun movie to watch with the family, it works.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a fun movie that otherwise makes you feel nothing. I saw and enjoyed Bullet Train, and then immediately forgot about it. But Bullet Train wasn’t written and directed by Johnson.
I want more from Rian Johnson. Looper is one of the best science fiction movies of this millennium. The Last Jedi posited the boldest storytelling ideas of Star Wars in the Disney era and features some of the best moments in any Star Wars movie ever. Knives Out ruled. Johnson is one of the best filmmakers around today, which is what makes Glass Onion and Johnson’s commitment to making Knives Out 3 so much more disappointing.
If Johnson wants to make pleasant movies devoid of substance with a hint of gentle social commentary sprinkled in, so be it. But he should aspire to do more, because he’s one of the few who’s good enough to do more.
That’s why Glass Onion disappointed me.
Late in the film, Blanc gives a speech that perfectly encapsulates how I feel about Glass Onion. Blanc was spelling out the answer to the mystery for the audience, but he may as well had been talking about the movie.
“Well, I keep returning in my mind to the glass onion. Something that seems densely layered, mysterious, and inscrutable. But in fact, the center is in plain sight. And that is why this case has confounded me like no other. Why every complex layer peeled back has revealed another layer, and another layer, and come to naught. And that was the problem right there. You see, I expected complexity. I expected intelligence. I expected a puzzle, a game. But that's not what any of this is. It hides not behind complexity, but behind mind-numbing, obvious clarity.”
I expected a complex puzzle, densely layered, mysterious, and inscrutable. I expected complexity and intelligence. What I got confounded me like no other: a mind-numbingly obvious film as hollow and fragile as its name suggests.
Why does Andi/Helen get an invitation in the first place if Miles killed her. The premise is broken from the get-go.