‘Glass Onion’ Is Actually About Living in the Age
of Musk, Ye and Trump
The new movie is a murder mystery — but it’s also
about why we all willingly submit to the rules of billionaires.
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By CALDER
MCHUGH
12/24/2022
07:00 AM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/24/glass-onion-musk-trump-ye-00075002
If you’re
interested in “eating the rich,” the past few years have provided a veritable
big-screen buffet.
This year
alone, there have been films that satirize influencer culture (Triangle of
Sadness), phony relationships among rich kids (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) and fine
dining itself (The Menu).
The wealthy
people depicted in these films are awful in all of the by-now-expected ways:
They’re selfish; they mistreat anyone outside of their milieu without a second
thought; they wreak havoc on everything and everyone in their vicinity.
The other
significant entrant into this quickly growing canon came this year in the form
of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson’s sequel to 2019’s Knives
Out. In the original movie, the crafty detective with a flair for the dramatic,
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), solves the murder of wealthy mystery novelist
Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).
In Glass
Onion, Blanc is back when a murder mystery game on an island quickly turns
deadly. Johnson also adds a new dynamic to the satire: The rich are not only
evil; many of them are preternaturally stupid, their legitimacy propped up only
by the deference of those around them. The result is an allegory for all of us
living with the omnipresent Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos. (Warning:
spoilers ahead).
The film
begins with a group of old friends — a politician (Claire Debella; played by
Kathryn Hahn), a half-canceled model (Birdie Jay; Kate Hudson) and her
assistant (Peg; Jessica Henwick), a men’s rights internet personality (Duke
Cody; Dave Bautista) and his girlfriend (Whiskey; Madelyn Cline), a scientist
(Lionel Touissaint; Leslie Odom Jr.) who works for a tech billionaire (Miles
Bron; Edward Norton) and Bron’s former business partner (Andi Brand; Janelle
Monáe) — receiving a mysterious, beautifully designed package from Bron at each
of their homes. The package also comes to Blanc, who’s never met the group.
All of
these people have known Bron for years, and many of them quickly make reference
to his brilliance while solving puzzles inside the package, which ultimately
reveal an invitation to his private island in Greece for a murder mystery
party. They travel to the island ostensibly to solve the (fake) murder of Bron
himself. But after Blanc instantly figures out the game, a real murder happens
on the island. Cody is poisoned and dies.
Then, a
twist: In a flashback, we learn that Brand is already dead, and her murder will
soon be reported. The “Andi Brand” on the island is her twin sister Helen, who
has hired Blanc to solve the murder. After some running around the house and an
attempt on Helen’s life, Blanc brings everyone together and declares his
findings: It was Bron who murdered Andi and Cody, the former because she knew a
new invention of his was dangerous and she had information that could allow her
to take back his company; the latter because he’s the only one who saw Bron
leaving Andi’s house after committing the murder. Sometimes, as Blanc’s
character explains, the simplest answer is the truth.
Blanc
admits that he began to suspect that Bron was not all that he seemed when the
billionaire immediately began to misuse phrases, mispronounce words and farm
out any creative or original tasks to someone else, both in devising the fake
murder mystery (he hired Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn to write it) and coming
up with a plan to confuse the guests by turning off the lights (Blanc himself
references “turning out the lights” to Bron at another point in the film).
According
to Blanc’s reveal, this lack of originality and smarts is proof of Bron’s
motivation: to conceal the extent to which others, especially Andi, are
responsible for his company’s successes.
For the
viewer, Bron’s dimness comes as a legitimate surprise. The structure of the
film holds up Bron from the start: He’s frequently referred to as a genius; not
only has he designed the puzzles that determine how the friends spend their
days, but they’re also on his island, in his domain. He has the money and the
power. The more billionaire-skeptical among the audience might not like him,
but on first viewing it’s unlikely that they catch all of his verbal stumbles
because of the confidence with which he delivers them.
Under
direct scrutiny from the clever Blanc, though, all of the myths that Bron’s
friends and followers build up around him quickly vanish. For all of the
artifice, Bron is not playing 4D chess. He doesn’t have a secret plan. He’s
just bumbling along.
This point
suggests there’s something more to billionaires’ power over all of us than just
how they spend their money. It’s not only how they use their money to dictate
modern work life or bankroll politicians. The ultra-wealthy are increasingly
empowered to exert their influence on politics and culture at least partially
thanks to many of the rest of us, who are convinced that, by dint of their
riches and power, they must know something we don’t.
As a
result, Americans often become legitimate fans of rich people, particularly
ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs, and submit to their rules, mostly voluntarily.
This fandom partly explains why efforts to rein in the political influence of
wealthy people, for instance, have been weak, and it’s why people like Elon
Musk can feel compelled not just by money but by popular goodwill to take over
companies like Twitter, which only furthers their social influence.
In reality,
rich people are no smarter than everyone else; their plans and even downfalls
are simple. Peter Thiel is funding artists in New York City and politicians in
Arizona because he thinks they’ll influence culture and politics toward his
vision of a new right. Neither is going well for him. FTX founder and large
political donor Sam Bankman-Fried at some point bought the boy-genius myth that
he was selling to everyone else, lost a lot of money and landed himself in court.
Musk made an offer for Twitter because he was addicted to the platform and
thought it would be good to have an even bigger megaphone and now, his
companies and his own brand seem to be in freefall. Donald Trump ran for
president so that he could watch himself on cable television more, stumbled
backwards into the job, tweeted through it and is now hawking NFTs while he
tries to dodge prosecutions. Ye, better known as Kanye West, embraced shocking
behavior until it lost him lucrative business deals and, reportedly,
billionaire status.
At some
point, all of these men accrued enough capital that they found themselves
surrounded by people who fanned their egos in the hopes of a kickback. But as
they settled into these carefully constructed worlds that were built to
reinforce their supposed genius, any creative spark or understanding of
business or American culture that helped them in their journey to the top is
bound to dim.
Glass Onion
is not particularly groundbreaking. It’s not really news that rich people can
be stupid. But just like Benoit Blanc tells the audience, there’s no point in
overthinking it. A simple explanation of a phenomenon (or a murder), stated out
loud, is often the truest.
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Review
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review – Daniel
Craig’s drawling detective is back
Benoit Blanc returns, with a cast of A-listers from
Edward Norton to Janelle Monáe, in Rian Johnson’s ingenious new whodunnit romp
Peter
Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Wed 23 Nov
2022 13.00 GMT
The first
one was good … this one is better: an ingenious, headspinningly preposterous
and enjoyable new whodunnit romp featuring Daniel Craig as the legendary
detective from the deep south, Benoit Blanc. Writer-director Rian Johnson has
established his own murder-mystery working model, positioned equidistantly
between the Agatha Christie approach, in which the culprit is revealed at the
very end, and the Columbo approach, in which it happens at the very beginning.
Here, as in the first film, the guilty party’s identity gradually emerges in
the second half – not so much a twist as an unfurling pirouette. But Johnson
and his enigmatic, drawling sleuth keep us guessing.
Edward
Norton is an insufferable tech bro called Miles Bron who has become a
multitrillionaire through his stake in Alpha, an online network fusing data,
news and cryptocurrency. He invites a whole bunch of pals and fellow
“disruptors” to his private island with its giant domed building called the
Glass Onion for a murder-mystery themed party: these include politician Claire
Debella (Kathryn Hahn), supermodel turned designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson),
YouTuber and men’s rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), scientist Lionel
Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr) and – most uncomfortably of all – Cassandra Brand
(Janelle Monáe), who had the original idea for Alpha but was ousted from the
company by Miles and his lawyers with hardly a dollar.
But also
among the guests is Benoit Blanc himself. Bron says he didn’t invite Blanc, but
lets him in anyway, amused by whatever prank his guests are apparently playing
on him. His idea is that someone will fictionally “kill” their host and the
guests have to figure out who and why. Things turn deadly serious and of course
the ashen-faced guests turn to Benoit to save them.
Glass Onion
is never anything less than entertaining, with its succession of A-lister and
A-plus-lister cameos popping up all over the place. And Johnson uncorks an
absolute showstopper of a flashback a half-hour or so into the action, which
then unspools back up to the present day, giving us all manner of cheeky
POV-shift reveals. Craig’s outrageous leisure-themed outfits are a joy and
Monáe gives a tremendously likable comic performance as the woman with more
than one secret to reveal and more than one grievance to hold against Norton’s
loathsome Musk-ish plutocrat. Are eccentric detectives the new
superheroes?
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