Glass Onion: Chewing on the layers

Some impressions on Rian Johnson’s whodunit series, fresh out of the cinema

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Knives Out was a film where the conversation surrounding the film seemed to have as many layers as the story shown in the picture itself. After a reasonably well-liked cult director had (quote, unquote) “killed Star Wars”—a franchise that had, for the record, killed itself from the start—he came along to write and direct an original IP critical darling. Largely as a continuation of the controversary surrounding The Last Jedi, the film did have its detractors. However, the overall reception of the film was somewhere between it being a pleasant watch all the way to unending praise. This made for an amusingly paradoxical situation where the “popular consensus” wanted to maintain some antagonism for Rian Johnson without disregarding the plain enjoyment of Knives Out that had become commonplace.

For the record, while this blog did technically exist during the original release of Knives Out, it was barely active, and so I did not cover it. Since then, an extended run of sequel films has been greenlit, turning what was a singularly noteworthy and somewhat original whodunit film into a potential touchstone franchise in the medium budget film arena. As I just exited a cinema where I saw the first of these sequels, Glass Onion, it would be an appropriate time to both revisit the earlier film and also offer something of a more detailed consideration of the new entry than one might expect in the largely spoiler-free land of on-release film reviews.

So, to be clear, this post will be extensively spoiling both Knives Out and its follow-up Glass Onion. It will also spoil crucial aspects of the 1973 film The Last of Sheila. Make sure you watch all three before reading this post.

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A rather late review of Knives Out

Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson, and released in 2019, is a double-inverted murder mystery whodunit film. To explain some jargon, an inverted mystery refers to a kind of thriller story where the identity of the culprit is known early on in the story. By revealing something so crucial, the story becomes centred on the drama of whether or how the culprit will be caught rather than on the mystery of the crime. This style is most closely associated with the TV crime drama Columbo, but it has shown up in everything from classic whodunit to modern procedural dramas like Law and Order or Criminal Minds, where it is common to show the culprit long before they are caught. Taking the logic of this structure further, by a double-inverted mystery, I mean that an inverted mystery is itself inverted again. The result is something akin to the old 4chan meme where one walks into a room, turns 360 degrees, and walks out. The inverted mystery is itself a narrative trick that conceals the identity of a completely separate culprit, who is revealed at the end of the story in classic whodunit fashion.

Johnson himself described this double-inverted structure as an idea that came on the back of the three-act-structure that is considered conventional in Hollywood scriptwriting. Johnson wanted to create a film that had one genre in the first act, only to shift in genre for the second, and shift once more in the third. More specifically, he wanted a whodunit with a thriller in-between; a thriller sandwich with whodunit bread, for those that prefer food metaphors. The particular emotional effect intended by this structure is to allow the layered narrative structure inherent to a conventional mystery story to co-exist with the momentum and danger of a Hitchcock-style thriller. He has made his inspirations behind this idea rather plain, especially in his references to the two-act play Deathtrap by Ira Levin.

When it comes to the quality of the film itself, the overwhelming praise is well warranted. From the cast to the cinematography and even the soundtrack and sound design, it is a delight to watch. This is an example of each element in the art of filmmaking combining beyond the sum of their parts to present something truly special. In its just over two-hour runtime, I cannot say it has the depth to really compare to the transformative works of mystery fiction that are out there, but one struggles to find something more compelling in the realm of regular length films.

Its particular inspiration from Agatha Christie is worn proudly, and it is the origin of much of its particular character. Perhaps better than any case where Christie has been brought to screen directly, Knives Out understands the irreverence and scepticism that defines the novels that made her the Queen of Crime. However, this Christie-like style of characterisation is also where the film loses some viewers. It prefers the broad and the symbolic over the introspective approach that is typical of what we sometimes call “novelistic” characters. Of course, this label is a misnomer, and represents a fairly controvertible trend in literary theory rather than any objective notion of “good” characterisation. Those that call the characters in Knives Out “caricatures” generally fail to notice that this is the point: The familiarity of the social roles that these characters play is a piece of context that should and does inform how the audience thinks of them when they leave the cinema. The particular psychology of Meg’s relationship with Marta cannot be understood as a pure interaction of individuals—Meg is also a symbol for rich, white, social liberalism, to contrast Marta’s pragmatic and economic concerns as an immigrant.

The other possible chink in the film’s armour is its mystery writing—a rather important feature, given the genre. To be clear, it is good: Probably one of the few demonstrations of just how compelling good mystery plotting can be which will reach mass audiences. But what Johnson demonstrates is mostly awareness of exactly the kind of psychological mystery elements that were typical in the works of his main inspiration, the many times mentioned Dame Agatha Christie. On the whole this means that while Knives Out is able to conjure sufficient drama to make for a good feature length romp, Johnson’s hand is not gifted enough to reach the much-lauded appeal of Christie’s own best work which is able to consistently have the least likely suspect be the culprit in a manner that seems so, so obvious in retrospect.

The double-inverted mystery here is fun, but ultimately operates on machinery that is simple enough that the vast majority of suspects can be eliminated very early on. If you are taken in by the essential narrative trick of believing that the film is a thriller, that is one thing, but once that is seen through there really is no other possible culprit next to Ransom. Even without guessing the means, the rest of the cast is effectively sidelined by the insular focus on Marta during the second act, and most of the family had effective alibis throughout the night of Harlan’s death, making any meddling in the story that we think we know the sole domain of Ransom.

Of course, as with most interesting examples of storytelling, the flaws associated with any idea are not entirely separate from the charm of its originality. While the double-inverted mystery structure on display here weakens its potential as a truly open-ended closed circle mystery, Knives Out offers a particularly compelling emotional story that would only be possible with this structure: For much of the film, the audience is meant to believe they are rooting for the culprit to get away with it. While there are plenty of more masterful examples of how to use the machinery of the whodunit to obscure a solution, there are few that are able to so effortlessly twist the assumed moral framework of the genre. For that on its own, Knives Out is a memorable entry in the genre. Given all of its additional strengths, it should be a must-watch, and it is maybe even the best single starting point for anyone interested in mystery fiction.

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Glass Onions, like ogres, have layers

So, then, what about the newest whodunit created by Johnson, Glass Onion? To cut right to the chase, it is certainly less original than Knives Out. However, in the security of unoriginal inspiration, it finds some stable qualities that allow it to stand up at least as much as its predecessor as a matter of pure entertainment. And given that its inspirations will have long been lost to the sands of time among much of its contemporary target audience, it offers enough of a facsimile of originality that I fully expect it to enthrall many. Of particular note is how the film confronts the limits of the first film by attempting to be more direct with its own identity. But that is getting ahead of things a touch, we should discuss the essential structure of this film in comparison with Knives Out.

I mentioned that the first film is a double-inverted mystery, but there is nothing, double nor singular, of the classic structure of Columbo to be found in Glass Onion: While there is a return of some non-linear narrative elements, there is no early solution given. Knives Out also centred on a locked room mystery, and part of the point of Glass Onion is that it is anything but. This is not some kind of finely constructed locked room puzzle. The central death occurs in clear view of all, with a murder weapon that was available to just about anyone. The surface details of the death in Knives Out were engineered by a mystery novelist in order to fool most observers, but the methods used in Glass Onion are intentionally blunter and cruder.

This shift in approach centres the drama on the kind of psychological storytelling that was Johnson’s strength in the original, and away from the kind of mechanical storytelling that narrowed the suspects too quickly in that title. Right up until the big reveal, the means available in Glass Onion to narrow the suspects down to the eventual culprit require enough attentive deductions that it requires some thought to exclude anyone. However, this is not to say that the puzzle is overwhelmingly impressive or complex. Among the not-so-representatively-random sample of the those that I went to the cinema with, it seems as though most people guessed the culprit. Of course, I am a constant advocate of the position that mysteries should tend towards simplicity and a lower difficulty approach when they do not have grand deconstructive ambitions. On that front, Glass Onion is a fairly interesting little puzzle box that measures up to my hopes.

Moreso than as a mystery, I think the film shines as, well, a film. The cast and crew both seemed to chew up the elaborate and interesting scenery of a remote Greek island. And on the whole, it is noticeably better made than Knives Out while still being a continuation of the exceptional filmmaking that made it so compelling in the first place. If this franchise did nothing more than offer this quality of filmmaking with these stacked casts in unique locales, that would be enough to justify its existence, as similar qualities did for prior whodunit classics. Of particular note is how the particular features of the mystery here rely on elements specific to cinema in direct homage to the clearest inspiration of this film, the 1973 whodunit film classic The Last of Sheila.

One of the most memorable trademarks of The Last of Sheila is that the essential solution to the mystery is shown on-screen early on in the story, but the audience is expected to lack the context and attentiveness to notice these blatant clues for what they are. The central narrative trick in Glass Onion is precisely the same—an incredibly ballsy and surprisingly effective decision given how obvious it makes its lineage to the classic film. The murder, among other key clues, is shown on-screen, but in a context where the audience is not primed to find any of the clues particularly suspicious. Of course, if I were to compare them, The Last of Sheila’s use of this technique is the more impressive of the two. Leaving aside the originality of doing it first, The Last of Sheila manages to be bolder with what it is willing to show while still making the clues more direct and impressively suspicious in retrospect. Glass Onion’s use of this technique is more restrained, and yet involves tropes that are easier to see through. Namely, any attentive reader of the many poisoning mysteries out there, including a key one penned by Agatha Christie herself, always watches the custody of glasses unrelentingly. Doing so here makes the mystery trivial to see through, but the boldness with which the attempt is made is admirable and a fun homage to a classic film.

As with the prior entry in this franchise, Glass Onion seeks to characterise through symbolism and caricature. While there is less of sincere emotional thrust to be found in the centre of this film, on the whole it improves on this tendency of Rian Johnson’s by leaning into it. In all manner of ways, Glass Onion is more comedic than Knives Out, which was already a pretty humour-centric film. The characters on display here are not just symbols of common archetypes, but also exaggerated to the clear and transparent point of parody. The less-than-subtle political subtext is all turned up to full in this case and turned into the direct text to be read from many of the characters. Given the disposability of these characters and the comedic tone that is clearly the target, it lands with what I found to be a more bold and interesting impact, but some may prefer the subtle sincerity of Knives Out. Although, there is still some room for that in Glass Onion, so I do not want to exaggerate this difference. It is just one of many ways that this film differentiates itself by being more boldly confident of its own voice. It wears its influences, its irreverence, and its fixations proudly on its sleeve.

I think I will need to watch the film another time before I decide if Glass Onion is better or worse than Knives Out. It is a case where a rewatch is sure to clarify just how well put together its puzzle is. This is is something I am a little unsure of now, having just watched the film for the first-time mere moments ago. What I can say is that Rian Johnson has succeeded in offering a different experience from Knives Out without the end product being notably worse. This is a great sign for those that want a new and decidedly modern take on whodunits in English, since English-language offerings in this genre have up until now been left behind in this century.