Toronto International Film Festival 2022: GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Big stars giving wacky performances in a Mediterranean locale is essentially all one needs to know about Glass Onion. Of course, it’s not like there’s really that much more I can tell you about this follow-up to the 2019 murder-mystery-comedy Knives Out. To reveal much about the plot would risk arrest by the TIFF police  —  is that a thing?

The only member of the previous star-studded cast to return is Daniel Craig as the cigar-chewing private eye Benoit Blanc  —  essentially Foghorn Leghorn in a well-tailored suit. This time he’s been summoned to the private island of an eccentric tech billionaire (Edward Norton) for an elaborate murder mystery party that’s bound to go awry at some point.

On the guest list is a senator (Kathryn Hahn), a scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a former model turned fashionista (Kate Hudson), her assistant (Jessica Henwick), a Joe Rogan-esque influencer (Dave Bautista), his girlfriend (Madelyn Cline), and a former partner of that tech billionaire who was wronged years earlier (Janelle Monáe).

From there, the crew lounges by the pool, become incredibly drunk and rehash old feuds until eventually, a body drops dead  —  I won’t say who. As a viewer, you know the beats of this story, and writer-director Rian Johnson is completely aware of that. What made Glass Onion’s 2019 predecessor so infectiously fun was its willingness to deconstruct and subvert the very beats of an ensemble murder mystery. What Scream was to something such as Friday the 13th, Knives Out was to Agatha Christie.

Deconstructing a genre

Johnson’s knack as a filmmaker has long been understanding the conventions of certain sub-genres and finding ways to turn them on their head, whether they be gumshoe noirs (Brick) or time-travel science fiction (Looper)  —  hell, we’re still fighting over how he played around with Star Wars as a culture. But, a bit of that wit feels lost in Glass Onion. Around the release of Knives Out, Johnson discussed Hitchc*ck’s age-old complaint with the murder-mystery sub-genre, claiming for all the fanfare, that audiences simply waited around two hours until someone just explained to them who the killer was. Even if you love this kind of picture, that’s an insightful dig.

Knives Out by comparison found a way to work around this flaw, directing our attention to Ana de Armas’ character fearing she could very likely be the killer by sheer accident, instead needing to divert the detective work of Craig’s eccentric Blanc as he snooped around looking for clues. Of course, with Johnson, there are always more intricately placed twists and turns but now is not the time to recap a four-year-old movie. All is to say Glass Onion never quite captures that same sense of electricity.

It’s broader, goofier, but strangely more conventional. For all the twists and surprises, I too still felt as though I was waiting for one long explanation.

A spoonful of satire

Johnson does seem to be leaning more into the class satire that lurked just under the surface of his first film though. Hidden between its puzzle-box structure, playful visuals and unique characters of Knives Out was a subversive twist; one in which de Armas’ immigrant character becomes the benefactor of the generational wealth accumulated by the family she works under.

In the hours after Glass Onion’s screening at TIFF, I overhead multiple festival attendees comparing the two film’s rogue galleries as old money vs new.

The cast of characters here switches from members of a wealthy New England family, intent on maintaining control over their own fortune, to self-described “disrupters,” whose newfound wealth and success have only driven them further out of touch with the world around them.

But this time, the nodding to real-world media figures, internet buzzwords, and outside events (did I mention this is a COVID film?) make the humor feel obvious and strained by comparison.

To be fair though, few movies in recent years have found a way to effectively communicate the lexicon of the modern-day internet with much success.

For the love of movie stars

Yet, part of the Glass Onion’s looseness does give off more of a boozed-up party vibe. There’s a relaxed nature to the performances and a lack of pretension that lets the actors bounce off each other in a delightful fashion. That energy doesn’t often come through in movies like this. There’s always the risk of all the camaraderie and fun feeling like a celebration the audience has no invitation to or just an excuse for famous folk to gather for a vacation.

But Glass Onion never tips in this direction. The looseness and energy of the cast become a three-ring circus for the audience’s pleasure. Movie stars so rarely get to be just that in this day and age. They’re often manakins for intellectual property or packaged with award season importance.

Here, Johnson trusts them to be the show, to rely on their magnetism and spark to real you in.

Conclusion:

Watching Glass Onion I couldn’t help but think, ‘this used to just be what was playing.’ You’d get dozens of movies such as this a year  —  ok, maybe not with so many stars but MOVIE STARS, that was the selling point. That’s what you were there to see.

As a whole mid-tier of movies has eroded from our screens, it becomes a relief to at least see something confident in the pleasure of watching people on screen.

Glass Onion premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2022!

Watch Glass Onion