Tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites a group of friends/associates to his island home to take part in a game: solving his own murder.
Among the guests is detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who is sure that something else is going on beneath the surface…
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, Rian Johnson and his collaborators must have been rubbing their hands with glee - or vindication.
The most surprising thing about Glass Onion is that it is hiding no surprises.
The characters are obsessed with putting on facades of themselves and their relationships with each other, but ultimately there is nothing revelatory or complicated about them - they are bound by greed and fear.
Tech bro Bron is clearly a moron from the outset, and the big rug pull of the movie is that he is not hiding any depth or intellect. He is just a rich idiot.
The title should be the clue. I am not a Beatles obsessive so I had to look it up, but the original song is John Lennon’s satirical response to fans reading too deeply into the band’s lyrics.
Fundamentally the movie is about the ways in which wealth creates value judgments about a person’s abilities and exceptionalism.
And the way he is undone is not some great mind game or scheme.
Despite the surface flash (including celebrity cameos!), this movie might be more compact than its predecessor.
The flashback-within-flashback-within-flashback structure feels like a joke - a narrative framework teasing a depth that is ultimately a ruse.
There is something about Rian Johnson’s movies that has never quite sat with me - there is an overt sense of the writer’s hand, pushing characters together. I am not saying that he is not a good writer - I just feel like there are points where it is so precise in construction that I start seeing the plumbing.
Maybe that is why this movie went down so easy - the big reveal that there is nothing to reveal feels more impressive.
Craig’s accent is all over the place - there are times where it doesn’t matter, and other points where it does. It ends up being value-neutral to the overall experience.
While the original was a two-hander between Craig and Ana de Armas, this time Craig is paired with Janelle Monáe.
Monáe is well cast - she gives the character a stillness and economy of motion which adds a welcome note of danger and mystery to the first half of the movie.
She also handles the role of Andi‘s twin sister Helen, which is in a completely different register.
Andi is all internal - her face is an unreadable mask.
Monáe manages the transition well - there is something eternally withdrawn and hidden about Monáe, and that works for the mysterious Andi and her sister, who is navigating these circles for the first time.
If there is any justice in this world, Monáe keeps getting leading roles - she is a genuine movie star and you cannot take your eyes off her.
A game supporting cast (Kate Hudson is hilarious as the most honest of Bron’s sycophantic acolytes) and some great locations add to the fun.
It might be less original than its predecessor, but this feels like it is in a different sub-genre from Knives Out.
The best compliment I can give this movie is that I am very curious about its sequel, and where Johnson goes next.
No comments:
Post a Comment