Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, November 23, 2022) Movie • Page 19

Maybe I’m just a big ol’ chump but I found the “retread” to be immensely satisfying

 

second half was absolutely better, first 30-40 minutes of this were an absolute slog

the lights going out was when it got good

 

imo it works because Monae’s character is compelling in a way none of the others are, so re-experiencing the first hour grounded in her perspective makes all the difference

and tbh I thought it was pretty cleverly done either way

 

The retread was not cleverly done at all, maybe the laziest kind of storytelling.

Contrast it with Knives Out, which actually was incredibly clever in a way that I think not enough people give it credit: we hear all the basics of the story first from all the family that makes us think it was a basic murder mystery, then we get the entire story of our protagonist, Marta, which makes us think that it is not a true murder mystery movie, because as far as we can tell, the entire "mystery" was just solved, and the rest of the film is simply following her trying to cover it up. And it is not until the end that we learn the whole truth -- that this secretly was a basic murder mystery the whole time, but we didn't know it because we had only been following the perspective of Marta, who didn't know the whole truth herself but rather only had clues to infer from (vital clues, as Blanc wasn't able to figure it all out without them, but still just clues), and even with those clues, we were distracted away from them by the fact that Marta herself was so convinced that she did know the true version of events.

Here, the problem is that Blanc is our protagonist and therefore we are viewing things from his perspective, not Monae's. Yet the reveal about Monae's character shows that there were countless scenes with Blanc that were withheld from us or outright changed solely, for no other reason, but to keep us, the audience, in the dark. That is the opposite of clever. Imagine a version of Knives Out where key details of Marta's story were omitted entirely the first time around that would have made it completely impossible for the audience to even try to infer the truth of the situation -- it would not have been nearly as clever or interesting as what the movie actually does

Or, more abstractly, imagine a magician who, instead of doing an impressive sleight of hand card trick right in front of people's eyes, simply turned around and intentionally obscured everyone's vision as he rearranged the cards. That's the equivalent of what Johnson did here by deciding which initial details to keep from us until later.

 

No

 

right on the money

 

Feel like it’s a bit unfair to compare the beat for beat plots to each other.

The reveal of Monae playing another character is the lynchpin, because at this point the audience believes that Andy is still alive. Purposefully withheld, yes, but necessary because of the nature of the story. Bron is introduced and is positioned to be the victim and maintains that until it’s necessary for the plot to continue, hence the revealing of the actual murder in question.

How effective it was will vary, but after seeing it a couple of times, I think it works well. All the necessary information for one to predict the reveal is there in plain sight [couldn’t resist myself] before it’s unveiled. A second viewing and obviously hindsight makes it easier to see it play out but that all strengthened the movie for me.

 

I’m not comparing the beat by beat plots, but using KO as an example of an actually clever use of a reveal. Here, pre-reveal, there is literally no possible way for the viewer to infer that Andy is actually dead, or that she’s been replaced by her sister, or that Bron was the killer. You may be able to tell that *something* is up, but obviously not all of that. And by itself, that is all fine - we don’t need to know it until the moment it is revealed.

But where it goes wrong is that Blanc himself *is* in on it the entire time, and that practically all of what we had been watching was just a version of events that had been heavily edited by Johnson just for the sake of hiding it from us. That is where it becomes lazy.

 

I noticed the awkward beat in the beginning when, on the beach, Andy’s sister tells Blanc that his shoe was untied. I had figured it was supposed to be some significant tell that would pay off later, and then when I learned that all it amounted to was Rian Johnson being like “Look away! Don’t watch the rest of this scene play out just yet!” I just rolled my eyes.

 

I found adding in more context was interesting.

 

Sounds like some people just wanted the same exact movie again. I liked it. Reminded me of Ocean’s 12 which also rules.

 

I'll say up front I don't totally disagree with that criticism and also that I thought the movie was flawed, especially in comparison to KO.

That said, I don't know if I agree it's lazy because Blanc is the protagonist and as such a bunch of key details were withheld just to make the story work. Imo, the first third of the movie gives relatively equal weight to everyone in the ensemble, and with that read, it doesn't seem off base to me that at times we're going to only have the details that any random character in that group has even if Blanc (or Helen) is technically our protagonist and has more. I don't really see the misdirection or withholding as lazy or cheap, it's just a plot device.

Whether it works, ymmv. I come back to the first hour being the problem because I feel no stakes for the group to which we're introduced. From the point we get Blanc's actual version of the backstory onward, we have stakes and an equal playing field in terms of information. I found it compelling and fun from there out. I just don't know if it could really work without the misdirection to get there, and I don't feel that it's too cheap for Blanc to have information the audience doesn't, so long as that gap is bridged before the case is solved.

 

it was a good and fun movie

 

Yeah I actually don’t even disagree with Marx on this, the only difference is I didn’t (and still don’t) really care because I was Having A Good Time At The Movies. But the criticism is valid for sure

 

Was looking for the box office numbers for "Glass Onion" and was surprised that Netflix just doesn't report them at all. What a supremely weird company.

 

they probably wanna shield from prying eyes the evidence that they fumbled the bag by only having this out for a week. can't count on one hand how many "glass onion rises, strange world flops" reports i've seen

 

Interesting! Last time I checked BOM, they weren't reporting. Thanks!

 

I just don’t get this at all - it is very obvious from the beginning that *something* big was going to happen, likely a vengeful murder, and it was just a matter of when the shoe was going to drop. That aspect of it absolutely kept me deeply focused, trying to play the murder mystery game lol

I think it could have easily been done in a way that simply doesn’t do what I described as the problem. Like just off the top of my head, a story in which Andy’s sister takes it upon herself to do everything she did, without Blanc’s upfront knowledge, is just as plausible to me, and would essentially eliminate the issue. The whole original premise that we were given — Blanc getting a mystery invite to a remote billionaire island just to help be the lynchpin in a case that he wasn’t even completely aware about until the last minute — is a totally compelling story! It works on its own

 

This was fine. Which, is disappointing when compared to my expectations! But, I had a consistently pretty good, occasionally great time watching it, so whatever.

Best part of seeing this in the theater is having random old people on both sides of my seat, who talked at certain points throughout the film in a charming, wholesome way. Seems like they had a pretty good time!

 

yeah the structure of Knives Out is kind of a masterpiece by itself. giving us a murder mystery where we see the full death within the first 20 minutes, and the main source of tension is concealing it from the detective who's meant to be our hero is absolutely inspired. Blanc is technically an antagonist for most of KO, because we're following it through Marta's eyes, and we get tricked into not trying to solve the murder because we think it's already been solved. the big reveal scene pulls double duty, because we not only discover the real antagonist but we finally see Blanc's deep sense of empathy and compassion which is what really makes him a hero

there's just nothing on that level here, which obviously is a tall order lmao but it's the downside of having to make Blanc the lead character in a sequel: it invariably makes it a standard detective story and puts the audience back in the "let's solve this" mode instead of catching us off guard like KO. the Monae reveal to me honestly felt like a bit of misdirection to distract from the actual mystery being kind of plain

 

Loved this, had such a nice time. Didn’t think the beginning dragged at all, but I have such a weakness lately for shows/movies about rich assholes.

 

...Ignore me!

...Don't mind me!

 

when she barges into his room:

“…did you wanna hang out orrrrrr….”