Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Glass Onion (GO) review: This “Who-Dun-It?” is a well-made, intricate tale that retains attention. GO features Tech Giant billionaires, feminist politicians, bored glamour models, desperate scientists and wanna-be U-Tube stars; all have a motive for murder. Although no overt “God-thoughts” are here, there are morality points to ponder. Those with a spiritual lens know where morality comes from. Give it a whirl if you are looking for an out of the ordinary weekend movie.

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Gratefully missing in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” currently streamed on Netflix, are car chases (almost the entire setting is a small island), and there are no running gun battles. I believe a single shot is fired throughout the entire two hours. There is a brief “suggested sex” scene that figures into the plot latter and is more than it appears to be.

“Who is in-corruptable?” we wonder as the film progresses. There are a couple of twists at the end to keep us guessing. The expert acting, photography, and elaborate sets make this an A-list Daniel Craig (James Bond) detective movie that is more like Clue than Murder on the Orient Express. The action is generated through words, supposedly clever observations meant to be a mockery, and the mystery of a murder unsolved. “It’s mostly a mind-game,” one film-goer observed, and not a dark, depressing, cultish, horror one at that. What? No zombies? How refreshing And It IS clever how the film makers make this more than a single-murder mystery. Enough said about that.

The Caveats.

1. Though actual violence is kept to minimum, there is an unfortunate bent to vengeance that drives the story forward, the weakest of all motivations. We don’t need more vengeance anything in the 21st century.

2. Language: If films such as “Bullet Train,” (Brad Pitt) also on Netflix, are enough to terminate viewing early-on as a result of overt, incessantly foul language, then Glass Onion is a welcome relief. Though, right off the bat, the movie lets you know, “yes, we’re going there when we want.” But given who is saying it, maybe that’s the point.

3. Then there’s the “southern” detective, Daniel Craig. For those actually raised or who reside in the American South, Mr. Craig’s dialect may make them cringe. That said, it seems he has improved from his first “Knives Out” attempt. His effort will be able to be ignored by all but the most true-blood Southerners.

Inevitable comparisons of the film’s billionaire tech giant owner, Miles Bron (Edward Norton) to Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk may be made, but the film clearly disavows any similarity to persons living or dead. Never mind. There are more than a few real life characters we could imagine being Mr. Bron, who is symptomatic of the condition of American 21st century life.

In conclusion; GO is a more restrained presentation that none-the-less makes it point about a generation consumed with conspicuous consumption (and solves a clever murder in the process). “More” is never enough, and we’re never sure the characters are ever going to come out of their day-dream reality. Will they? Do they? How?

At the satisfying end, we can only imagine in the after-glow, if the film’s social commentary will actually be heard in our 2023 society, which seems hopelessly similar to the lost characters in Glass Onion. One can only hope and pray.