Glass Onion

We see, speak and think about the world and ourselves as a story, a continually evolving story with ourselves as its main protagonist with a plot of our own writing. That's why I believe we all love a good story when it's told in a compelling way, in writing, on a stage or in a film. Some of the best stories around are the ones in which you, as the viewer or reader, are invited to solve a mystery that's gradually unfolded, puts you in the role of a detective who tries to answer the question: whodunit?

My mother was an avid reader, and one of her favorite authors was Agatha Christie, the queen of the whodunit detective mysteries. She also loved the whodunit television series "Murder, She Wrote", starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher, who becomes involved in solving murders that take place in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, across the United States, and abroad. For twelve seasons Jessica Fletcher held my mother glued to the television, always trying to guess who the real murderer was. It was a pleasant surprise then, to see Angela Lansbury appear in a brief cameo in Rian Johnson's new murder mystery "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery". Before we continue, let me warn you about the many spoilers that lie ahead. If you haven't seen this movie yet, please stop now and watch it; it's available on Netflix.

Let's briefly talk about the film's director, Rian Johnson. I know he's our favorite Star Wars director who made our favorite Star Wars sequel "The Last Jedi"... Well, not really; The Last Jedi was terrible and divided the Star Wars fandom like no film or series did before. Rian Johnson's contribution to Star Wars was received very badly by people who grew up with the franchise, people like myself, as it broke the entire known Star Wars universe as well as its main character, Luke Skywalker. However, one of the worst scenes in that movie, the infamous Canto Bight sequence, may have provided us with a glimpse of Rian Johnson's ideological mindset; Canto Bight was a casino-city where the filthy rich gather, and the rebellious protagonists destroy much of it, very much in a people-versus-the-plutocracy manner.

And it can not be denied that, whatever we think about his excursion into the Star Wars universe, Rian Johnson is a daring director who does things his own way. His next movie was a classical whodunit murder mystery, Knives Out, with detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as an eccentric modern-day Poirot or inspector Clouseau, gathering all the suspects in a room or house, putting together the pieces of a complex puzzle through smart interrogation and attention to minute details. As is often the case in these whodunit mysteries, the suspects investigated by Benoit Blanc are all part of the upper class. In Knives Out it's the children of a very successful and wealthy writer, and in Glass Onion we're introduced to the friends of tech-billionaire Miles Bron. Johnson displays the same kind of ideological mindset as in the Canto Bight scenes in the sense that the real winners in these murder mysteries are not Benoit Blanc, but women of color; in the first film it's the personal maid, whose nationality is misstated by all the rich kids throughout the film, and in this sequel it's the African American twin sister of the murder victim who brings the filthy rich perpetrader to justice. If you're still here, please stop if you haven't seen these movies yet, for now we're entering the heavy spoilers territory.

I've seen both films twice. One of the main charms of these films is in the second viewing, when you already know who the real murderer is. Throughout the film, little clues are given away to the audience and the solution to the mystery was there all the time, out in the open. The title of the second film, Glass Onion, is brilliant. Benoit and the audience try to peel off layer after layer of the mystery to come to the answer at the core, but the layers are transparent, made of glass, so that core has been in sight the whole time! In the first film, the first assumption is that the rich writer committed suicide, and at the end of it all that was the right answer, albeit not that straightforward and surrounded by a lot of intrigue as well as nefarious intent by the writer's children who are all prime suspects because of the sizable inheritance that's at stake. The children were all depending on their father's wealth as well, none of them built a successful career of their own but lived wealthy lives nonetheless because of their rich father. It's intensely satisfying that in the end none of the spoiled greedy brats inherit the wealth, and everything is left to the poor immigrant maid, the only person who was really concerned with the health and well being of the rich writer.

Watching these films for the second time is intensely satisfying as well, as you can now see all the little clues you missed the first time around, you can see how the answer was right in front of you this whole time, and gain an appreciation for the way the story is told, how the layers of the onion are solid, but transparent. The title "Glass Onion" is not only a reference to things that are hidden in plain sight, but also refers to a Beatles song with the same title, which is in itself a reference to fans and media trying too hard to find hidden meaning in the band's lyrics, when in fact the lyrics are just the lyrics; what you see is what you get. The title itself contains multiple layers and is in itself a reference to an object with multiple layers, the peeling off of which reveals the same thing and meaning again... That's just brilliant.

In this sequel, all the friends of tech-billionaire Miles Bron are invited to his private Greek island for a weekend of fun and games. Miles Bron is described as a billionaire philanthropist, which is an oxymoron in itself. He's a brilliant entrepreneur, a visionary, a unique out-of-the-box thinker who started his multi-billion dollar corporation, Alpha, together with his African American female friend Andi. He, Andi, Birdie, Duke, Lionel and Claire were all part of a tight group of friends who, years ago, hung out regularly at their favorite bar, the Glass Onion. Miles was the last friend to be introduced to this group by Andi, and at their very first meeting Miles said that he wanted to be remembered after his death in the same breath as the Mona Lisa; this is important for the rest of the story and the ending, so keep that in mind. In a twist of highly egotistical greed for power and money, Miles cheated Andi out of the company they started together, and Miles got the rest of the group of friends to lie in court for him; you see, the "friends" are all depending on Miles for their careers, much like the children in Knives Out depended on their rich father.

Claire is a politician trying to get elected and is completely depending on Miles for her campaigns. Lionel is a real scientist, as opposed to Miles, who is employed by Alpha. Duke was set up by Miles as a right wing "manosphere" influencer on Twitch and YouTube, and hopes that Miles will get him a spot on the "Alpha News" streaming service. Birdie is a fashionista, an air-headed ex-model who now sells fashionable sweat-pants and runs her mouth way too much on Twitter where she's regularly banned for making racist remarks. Her excuse, which is completely believable because she's so dimwitted, is that she just speaks her mind immediately, that she "tells it like it is"; she's a straight shooter who doesn't beat around the bush. I love it when Benoit Blanc tells her to not confuse speaking without thinking with speaking the truth, something that seems to apply to so many right wing influencers nowadays... Miles holds power over Birdie because he knows that her line of sweat-pants is produced in sweat-shops with some of the most horrible working conditions for under-aged workers. If this fact about using child-labor were to be revealed, it would mean the end of the product and her career. Miles has asked Birdie to come clean about this in public, and has promised her to pay her tens of millions of dollars for her company if she does.

So Miles holds power over all the friends in this group, but they all keep up the facade of a continued intimate friendship, symbolized in part through a yearly gathering at a location of Miles' choice. This year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he sends an invitation for a weekend at his private island to all the friends, including Andi who he's cheated out of the company, in the form of an elaborate puzzle box which has to be solved to get to the invitation; this is how the film begins and it immediately sets the stage for the puzzle-solving adventure that lies ahead. Andi never receives the invitation because she's already dead, the supposed victim of a suicide: she's the victim whose murder has to be solved, but we only learn that later. Andi's twin sister, Helen, finds the puzzle box at Andi's house when she goes there to clean up after the alledged suicide. And although all the other friends painstakingly solve all the layered puzzles to get to the invitation contained within, Helen just smashes the box with a hammer; here's another reference to the fact that the solution is often much simpler than it seems...

Helen hires Benoit Blanc because she's convinced that Andi did not commit suicide and that one of the members of the group of friends, who she calls "shitheads" is the real murderer. Helen knows how they all depend on Miles and that they all lied for Miles during the trial in which Andi lost her half of the multi-billion company. These lies covered up another lie; the lie that Miles was the inventor of the company's unique structure and organization, when it was in fact all based on Andi's ideas. Andi scribbled her idea about how to structure the company on a napkin at their favorite bar, the Glass Onion, and Miles simply copied it and claimed it as his own. Andi couldn't prove the idea was hers because she had lost the original napkin, and Miles had coerced all the other friends to tell the lie that they all saw Miles write down the idea at the bar. Anyhow, Helen gives her invitation to Benoit Blanc, and he convinces her to go with him to the island as her twin sister Andi; Andi's death from a few days ago hadn't yet reached the news, and Benoit could hold it off a few days more, giving them both a chance to lure out the murderer on the island.

The game Miles prepared for the friends was in fact a murder mystery; he tells them that this evening a murder will take place, that someone will kill him and that the friends have to find out whodunit, how they did it and, most importantly, what their motive was. The one who finds out will win the game. And this is where both the fake and the real murder mysteries begin. Well, actually only the real murder mystery because Benoit Blanc solves Miles' prepared mystery in a matter of seconds, solidifying his reputation as the world's best detective. From here on, events play out, slowly leading Benoit and Helen, whom the friends think is Andi, to the solution and the audience to an immensely satisfying conclusion. Rian Johnson made this film long before Elon Musk's whole Twitter drama began, but he must now be very satisfied with the film's release date at the end of last year; Miles Bron is clearly modeled on Elon Musk and other billionaires like him, who are idolized as brilliant minds, but in reality have no original ideas of their own and just steal or buy other people's ideas.

The film doesn't just peel layers of the mystery, but of the personality of Miles' fake persona, as well as that of the friends. We're gradually exposed to the fact that Miles is in fact stupid, to the point that even his rhetoric is exposed as meaningless with him using a lot of complex sounding words that mean nothing, are made up even sometimes. Nothing is his own; even the murder mystery he prepared wasn't his own as he hired someone to prepare that for him. His guests are amazed when they see that Miles has in the main room, which is literally shaped as a glass onion filled with glass statues, the original Mona Lisa. Miles explains that during Covid the Louvre was financially wrecked, he even says that "France needed the money", indicating how extremely rich he is, and that he got them to rent out the Mona Lisa to him temporarily. His hubris is revealed when he explains that one of the conditions was that the priceless painting be kept behind bullet- and fire-proof glass at all time, but that he had an override-button made to remove the glass protection, all because he wanted to be able to look Mona Lisa in the eyes directly, without the glass in between them...

Miles is fake. His friends are fake. Their friendships are fake. Their success is based on elaborate lies. Everything they have is stolen, as they all rely on Miles, who in turn relies on the work and ideas of others which he has stolen. Needless to say that Miles is shown to be the murderer, not only of Andi, but of Duke as well, who was the only witness to see Miles return from Andi's home after the murder. Everything about these people is fake and the brilliant twist is in the fact that the murderer, Miles Bron, is excluded from the list of suspects at the beginning by Benoit Blanc, as well as the audience, because he's seen as brilliant, and that murdering Andi at her own house, with so much in the way of motivation against Miles, would be stupid. Well, it was stupid, but we only realize that Miles is stupid enough to act so stupid at the end of the film, after all layers of fake genius are peeled off his fake persona. And the transparency of it all only becomes apparent in the second viewing of the film when you see all the little signs and clues Benoit explains at the end at the moments that they happen.

Both films are brilliant. But I can't get over how perfectly the antagonist of the second film, Miles Bron, is modeled on our "real life Iron Man", Elon Musk. Just watch it; you'll have the distinct impression that the film was made after the Musk-Twitter drama, after the veil of fake genius was stripped from the man who is now no longer the world's richest man. At the end of Glass Onion the real Mona Lisa burns down together with the fake castle of fake genius Miles Bron, ensuring that we will indeed be remembered in the same breath as that famous painting, only not in the manner he had envisioned. And there's a chance that Elon Musk will be remembered not as the fake founder of Tesla, or the government and taxpayer exploiting founder of SpaceX, but as the man who burned down the real Twitter.

But even without all that, the rest of this film is brilliant as well; the look, the acting, the star-studded cast, the many cameos ranging from Angela Lansbury to Serena Williams, the way the story is structured and the plot is unfolded, the see-through layers, everything is near perfection in my opinion. Watch the below linked video for more details on all those other aspects. Both films in this fledgling franchise have been great successes, and Johnson as well as Netflix have already said they're going to make more Benoit Blac murder mysteries; I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

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