Glass Onion movie review: Daniel Craig doubles the charm in Rian Johnson’s giddily entertaining Knives Out sequel

More playful than its predecessor but still as socially relevant, Johnson’s film is modelled on Agatha Christie’s peril-in-paradise novels Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun. It follows a group of frenemies who are summoned by their tech billionaire buddy for a fun weekend at his private island. The billionaire, Miles Bron, is a name-dropping blowhard played by Edward Norton, who appears to have spent six months hiding in Elon Musk’s cupboard to prepare for the role. It’s astute casting that plays into Norton’s rather combative off-screen persona, but also makes the same mistake that so many other murder mysteries do. Discussing this in detail would probably ruin the surprises, but let’s put it this way, there’s a reason why the whodunnits of yore would cast actors of equal popularity among the ensemble.

Bron stands out as a character not only because he’s played by the most famous actor in the ensemble, but because that’s who he is. The embodiment of a deep cultural rot perpetuated by privileged white men, he thrives on attention. Within five minutes of his first appearance, he is casually announcing that the hourly gong on his island has been composed by Philip Glass, and that the interactive murder mystery for which he invited his friends over in the first place has been written by Gillian Flynn.

The humorous opening moments of the movie are dedicated to the ensemble receiving elaborate mystery boxes from Bron, inviting them to his Greek hideout. The lineup includes his ex-business partner played by Janelle Monae, a washed-out model played by Kate Hudson, a disingenuous politician played by Kathryn Hahn, and a flamboyant scientist played by Leslie Odom Jr. Dave Bautista appears as an alt-right streamer who I’m tempted to compare to Beerbiceps if he actually had any biceps.

The sole outlier is Blanc himself. The smooth-talking Southern sleuth has no idea why he has been inserted into this group, but is happy to be there because he was between cases and bored. He confesses as much to his partner — Blanc is apparently gay now — who is played by a rather famous Englishman who once went up a hill but came down a mountain. To Bron, Blanc simply asks why. The tech bro hasn’t the foggiest, but he’s immediately attracted to the hypothetical clout that having the world’s greatest detective at his party would earn him. And so, Blanc stays on, justifiably suspicious. Sure enough, before that Philip Glass-composed gong is able to strike midnight, a person lies dead. The island is declared inaccessible because of the tide, the murderer hides in plain sight, and the usually cocksure Blanc, perhaps for the first time, finds himself backed into a corner.

As with most murder mysteries, it would be unwise to discuss the plot beyond the set-up, and although a lot of it feels like a retread of familiar themes, Glass Onion is just as twisty as the first film. Blanc himself remains a blank slate, but the surrogate protagonist this time is Monae’s bitter former partner. If the first Knives Out was not-so-secretly about class warfare in America — it featured an immigrant going toe-to-toe against the old-money types — Glass Onion is about the nouveau riche sorts who can slit six throats before the stock markets even open. In both films, Johnson foregrounds the minority POCs who’ve been f-ed over by these entitled elites.

These characters — the nurse played by Ana de Armas in Knives Out, and Monae’s Andi Brand in this film — not only function as an entry-point on a story level, but also represent what Miles Bron would describe as Johnson’s ‘disruptor’ tendencies. The director has always approached his films with an eye to deconstruct genre tropes, and while this has largely worked in his favour, it has — particularly on one occasion — also blown up in his face.

He continues breaking the rules with Glass Onion, a film which completely does away with the customary detective-interrogates-the-suspects-one-by-one section. And this has its pros and cons. For one, you aren’t encouraged to ‘solve’ the mystery along with Blanc — the detective, it is implied, is in a league of his own. But then again, Glass Onion has more rewatch value than most murder mysteries. You can sense that Johnson is devoting more time to the journey than the destination, which feels kind of radical. In those lesser Christies, we’d all wait hungrily for Hercule Poirot to deliver the denouement. Glass Onion provides giddy entertainment all the way through.

Glass Onion
Director – Rian Johnson
Cast – Daniel Craig, Janelle Monae, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr, Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Madelyn Cline
Rating – 4/5