Netflix’s Christmas gift to its subscribers is what you hope for: a sparkling,labyrinthine, and slightly nonsensical murder mystery in the spirit of AgathaChristie. Director Rian Johnson made no secret of the fact that he honors,modernizes and plunders the most printed writer of all time. Freelance sleuthBenoit Blanc (Daniel Craig with a goofy southern accent) is the Americanversion of Christie’s eccentric Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot: a bit clownish,so that the villains underestimate him. With that in mind, Craig wears astriped blue and white jumpsuit as a summer outfit in this part.
Surprise hit Knives Out from 2019 Agatha Christie was without Brits; awhodunit in which Craig as Benoit Blanc unraveled the death of the wealthycrime writer Harlan. Anyone in his parasitic entourage could be the culprit,of course Blanc gathered them all in the front room to point out the killerafter many flashbacks.
The unexpected great success of Knives Out one of Kenneth Branagh’s dazzlingversion of Agatha Christies Murder on the Orient Express convinced the filmindustry that the whodunit – relegated to TV series for decades – is back.Netflix paid no less than $ 468 million last year for the rights to more_Knives Out_ movies; Rian Johnson directs at least two. That deal earned him,actor Daniel Craig and producer Ram Bergman many tens of millions of dollars.
Agatha Christie plots typically revolve around a murder within an elite familyor entourage settled in a lavish, closed location: mansion, train, cruiseboat. In this case, that is the Greek island where tech billionaire andslimeball Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has built a modernist monstrosity ofconcrete and glass as a James Bond villain, the Glass Onion. The Mona Lisathat hangs there on a rental basis completes the megalomaniac picture. Everyyear he invites his old friend group of ‘beautiful disruptors’ there, thistime for a murder mystery in which he himself will be the corpse. Such athing, of course, is requesting the gods.
Bron’s friends turn out to be shady or spoiled creeps: a scientist, socialite,macho influencer and Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), the partner who swindled Bronout of his company Alpha. Everyone needs Source and holds a grudge. BenoitBlanc is also invited: we meet him when he is restless in his bathtub waitingfor action during a lockdown. But his invitation does not come from Bron, itturns out. From whom?
Glass Onions shuffles his cards in the mind of notorious cheater AgathaChristie: with her, the narrator could be the killer. The plot twistsunpredictably, the star-studded cast gleefully jerks off while the most staletricks are played without embarrassment: doppelgängers, bullets ricochetingoff cigarette cases, flashbacks and repetitions with advanced insight. Don’tgo looking for cunningly hidden hints about the true story; rather, the funlies in unexpected – and not always logical – twists in this refreshinglyrelaxed film that doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Whether the intrigueis watertight I doubt, but Glass Onions is such a pleasant ride that I wouldlike to check it again later.
One thing you immediately know for sure: the gaudy glass sculptures on plinthsof the tech billionaire have to die. Whoever peels a glass onion layer bylayer – Blanc’s ambition – ends up between shards. The final of _Glass Onions_is much rowdier than you would expect from a whodunit.
Murder mystery
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery Directed by: Rian Johnson. Starring:Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, David Bautista, Janelle Monae.Length: 139 minutes. To be seen on Netflix
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