I would have loved to know more about the schoolteacher who looked down to see her estranged identical twin untarped at a morgue. Like there is so much there
I'm glad to hear someone articulate exactly what I was feeling after I watched Glass Onion. Like you said, watching the film was such a great experience, but I couldn't help but compare it to Knives Out and favor Knives Out in the process. And I thought, 'maybe it's because the aesthetics of the movies are different, and I prefer Knives Out's' but thinking about it, I realized that Knives Out gave out a certain 'warmth' to me that Glass Onion just missed. I loved Marta, and I watch Knives Out for the intricate storytelling, yes, but also just for Marta.
Yup. Knives Out, I was emotionally invested in. Glass Onion, I had fun, but my investment was mostly just intellectual. After the halfway point, my feelings were more along the lines of "oh, those are interesting choices. I wonder were they are going with this." Instead of "What will happen next? I need to know! I hope things turn out ok." However... I think this video articulates the reasons why much better than I could.
Of course you loved Martha. She was an unrealistic and patronizing character and made you feel a good person cause of course you arent as racist as those guys
I do feel like it’s the sister twist and reveal that become the turn of the table, and in order for this reveal to work, the use of a trick story that kinda ‘fool’ the audience will be at the price of people’s empathy, which is kinda like in order for the structure to work, the price would be people’s emotional investment in the character. Which would be instantly in comparison with how Marta and how invested people were in her and how great that works. I guess this is why Rian Johnson hated ‘the knives out mystery’ thing, cuz it absolutely stirred up how people are going to view and compare the plots.
I think this is why the movie focused more on Benoit than in Helen, which i DID like but yeah it creates this disconnection. In retrospective its almost funny because Helen is the only one who we dont see more of. Like, part of what made us connect to Marta and even the other characters in glass onion was that we saw their job, their family, their friends, etc; which even applies to Benny, but not her. And it does work for the whole twist and all but it creates this issue. Although i personally didnt mind it, i liked this movie waaay more than knives out lol
Finally we have a review of someone who actually balance positives and negatives, who actually tell how he fell about a movie in a sincere way, that he doesn't feel the need to put 1000 jokes at second and doesn't need to be a snarky bitter guy who make the viewers that like the movie like idiots. Thanks you!
Agreed, I honestly feel that Ryan Johnson traded some much needed tension for a surprise twist. And I don’t think the twist paid off all that well, for reasons that you already outlined. But, regardless, I did enjoy the movie, and am glad that we have some new takes on the standard whodunit (or in this case, howdunit).
My friend stopped watching Glass Onion about an hour in, just before Helen's Introduction. I told her to stick with it, and she said "If I've already watched for an hour with no one to root for, what's the point?"
I was all ready to disagree with you, but man as an identical twin myself, that's absolutely, 100% the one thing that drew me out of the story - if I saw my twin under a tarp in a morgue and knew that she had been murdered, I don't know if I would be able to get out of bed for a month, much less attempt to pull off some kind of extended cosplay with all of the people I suspected of committing the act. (...also, admittedly, that the window for life-swapping shenanigans closed when I came out as trans. The differences would be, um, obvious lmao.) Nice review, +1 subscriber for ya!
But as son of a twin mom and best friends that were twins, I always could tell the difference. Once you get close to a twin you can't be fooled by the other twin. Spend enough time with a twin and you'll notice the slightest difference.
But what if your only choice was to do the extended cosplay in order to find justice for your twin? Not everyone is going to sit back paralyzed in grief.
Wow, this was incredibly insightful. I came into this film wanting to like it far more than I did. And other reviews have done a great job exploring the layers of allegory (though I'm still curious to see one that tackles it as an allegory to the movie industry.) But there's definitely a great big hole in the middle of the film, where you only learn about the key character seconds after she's been shot dead, leaving a hollowness where the movie wants us to feel the true connection. We're then asked to invest in a character we've just seen die, knowing that, as she rises to the moment, that moment will come to nothing. This is why the coincidence that the notebook stopped the bullet feels a little contrived. The story has come to a dead stop the moment this character is shot. And the longer the film spends explaining who she really was and what she was doing there, the deeper the film buries itself in the dead-end of her death. It's asking me to invest in a character that I know is going to lose, and I found myself reluctant to do so. It's too painful, too hopeless. I disengaged from the story just when I was supposed to engage the most. Had Helen been saved by something that, in hindsight, couldn't have gone wrong, that would have been one thing. But the sheer odds against that bullet hitting just the right spot felt a little too contrived to save a film that had deliberately put itself this much trouble just to play bait and switch games. I had to backtrack through what I remembered to re-invest in Helen now I know she'd made it, and might somehow win out over Miles and the shitheels. And in the end, the triumph was mostly intellectual, unlike the triumph I felt on behalf of Marta. In short, the plot was too concerned with playing mind games on me to truly win my heart over. I felt exactly the way you did about it. This isn't the first time I felt this way about Rian Johnson. I think all directors have a fatal flaw, and this seems to be his. He can become too clever for his own good. I came away from Looper feeling similarly, that I'd been asked to invest in characters for the wrong reasons, and that too many plot games were being played for me to actually invest in anyone. His Star Wars film happens to be my second favorite in the entire film canon, after the original. I've no complaints there. And of course, Knives Out is a masterpiece by any standard. But I think there's something that can happen with film stories that don't quite get enough time to... mature, perhaps. Everyone loves to hear the tale of a master auteur cranking out a masterpiece in a weekend. But I find far more often, it's the film idea that's been percolating for years that really comes together, smooths out into a singular, unified flavor, like a fine wine. This one had a nice nose, complex notes, and a fantastic fireworks finish. But its body was missing something essential.
I loved Knives Out for that reason. I felt hollow watching the movie . I got disconnected the moments when ironically Blanc solved the “mystery “ within 10 minutes. But then got engaged again when I realized that there might be a killer on the island (which I already knew if you ever read and then there was none) but when David bapista actually died I was like wait a minute! Hold up. What’s going on? Then we meet Helen . And this entire time I was convinced we were following Blanc so I was just so confused. Also we do meet Helen at the beginning we just assumed it was Andy the whole time 😂
Thank you so much for putting words where I had none! For me, I really liked the movie but I just didn't feel anything at that dramatic ending scene... with the slow motion and the excessive destruction of his art, it just felt like it was dragging on and I couldn't connect to it and I did not really know why until I heard the quote you played and your deliberations on that. The mystery and how it is constructed is just great, the cinematography is stunning and I absolutly loved the characters and how there was more complexity to the easier overlooked characters (Honey and Poppy) and even though these characters are very simplistic they still feel very real, but still, the ending threw me right off. I think you are 100% right that if we felt with helen the whole film, saw her struggle, feared for her, etc, the ending would have been deserved but like this I as a viewer was more engaged in that problem-solving way. So yeah, thank you again and somehow I knew coming here that this wasn't gonna be unnecessary rian johnson bashing but a critical engagement with the material, which is great because the film was doing something bold and it is interesting to talk about it without having to whine about how bad everything one doesn't like is and it's sad not more people can engage with it this way.
My main issue was the lack of anything going on in the first half. There wasn't a mystery in the first hour. There was plenty of setup and motives for a murder, but who cares about the potential murder when everybody is an asshole and no one except Andi (Helen) is making any threats. I care that Miles is in danger when he's such an asshole.
Yesss, I was sitting thinking “I can predict everything for the first 50 or so mins” because nothing is being introduced to conjure a mystery or to surprise. And once it is introduced, it sloppily asks me to invest into a character who I never get to understand for more than two short scenes outside of the active clue-hunt.
The first half almost posits us, the viewer, as another member of the Disruptors. We’re with them solving the box, we’re getting fooled by Helen too, and we have no idea why Benoit is there with us (though we are delighted to be in his company).
I was personally very invested in her. I think the movie relies on us caring about Andi because she’s the only one that’s a little likable out of all the characters (because Janelle Monae is a likable actress in general but also because she’s the one who points out how awful everyone else is, and she was treated so unfairly by her friends and business partner). When we think she dies we’re absolutely gutted even though we don’t know her that much, and the reveal later that all this time she was actually an even more innocent person, Ellen, makes her even more likable. I personally did feel sad when we see Ellen look upon her sister’s body, because I don’t need to know much about their relationship : they’re sisters. It’s inferred that this is extremely sad, and it’s easy to put yourself in her shoes if you have siblings.
Even tho I really love this film with all my heart!! I watch it in theaters and just watched it again on Netflix the beginning of the movie is probably one of my favorite starts to any movie ever!!😂😂 but I feel like there was one really big plot hole in the movie which made it very hard not to ignore Miles Should have known right away that Helen was not Andi and I really wish they handle that this aspect of the movie better…even tho this is a flaw I personally feel like the positives of this movie still very much out Weigh negatives and I think the most important part is I still found it to be extremely entertaining 👌✨✨✨:)
*SPOILERS* I also thought about that, but I kind of rationalized it by saying that Miles was so stunned when Andi arrived because he thought she somehow survived...because he's an idiot lmao.
@@meeptopknow this is probably true this was the same realization I came too on my second viewing but really wish they put more of a definitive reason why he didn’t act right away because what ended up happening was the people I when to go watch this movie with were all a lil confused 🫤 I still love this movie but it felt a lil messy when it came to that part. I feel like this is something knifes out did flawlessly make the facts of the death solid and everything else about the mystery up to interpretation
@@milktea6676 Again, *SPOILERS* I think the reason he didn't act up right away, is because then he would have to admit that he killed Andi (or attempted to, at the least). How else would he know that she's dead if wasn't yet public knowledge? Again, he was able to see what was right in front of him but too stupid to think it through to the end. I do agree though, it's definitely a bit sloppy and requires a bit of mental gymnastics to fully justify. Glad it didn't impede on either of our enjoyments of the film though!
Spot on. exactly what my gf and i thought after watching this. in my opinion, it makes the whole movie a 3-star movie at best. I was not invested in what was happening at all :/
the biggest problem with the movie for me was its structure, a good chunk of the second half is just an uninteresting retelling of the first half and the whole anti-twist aspect of it just feels like a wet fart to me
Movie plot twists are incredibly hard to pull off. The few that work are phenomenal. The rest undecut the emotion of the whole film; Jacob's Ladder, Identity, Serenity (2019), this movie...
...Just one more thing Fixing on the structure is very telling, as is Rian Johnson's words about the audience wanting to have a character to identify with rather than be wowed by the clues and the deduction. It also point to the subtle way both films have shown an evolution of the detective genre which as Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, happens when a previous form becomes "impossible," such as the Watson type witness who is supposed to stand in for the reader's idea of commonsense. With the exception of The Brother's Bloom (2008) which points to the deconstruction of con films and thus can get much darker, these new detective films have a tendency to undermine the enjoyment of the mystery by focusing on the eccentricities exhibited by the other characters rather than their place in the social fabric. The pleasure one gets from a twist in expectations is not the same as the Columbo tension of watching the interactions to see how the murderer will slip up. Tellingly, to rewatch the stories is to see that because everything is accounted for there is a strange sense of confinement rather than in an Agatha Christie novel where characters seem to have other parts of their lives not part of the story. When heard that dip Ben Shapiro complain about how switching characters undermined the film I actually wondered if this might actually point to how those who identify with the characters find it satisfying as a character-based film and not a mystery, while others sense their is something off about how it portrays mysteries. Loved your MAINSTREAM essay, keep it up.
Love the film, but agreed: Plot twists are genuine and effective when they are a surprise to the main character at the same time as the audience. It cements our empathy with protagonists, as we all go on the same rollercoaster ride together. Bruce Willis doesn’t know he’s dead in Sixth Sense. Ed Norton doesn’t know he’s Tyler Durden in Fight Club. But when they find out… we find out. We discover the truth about the matrix at the same time as Neo. When we’re all on the same journey, so we care what happens. Twists that are only surprising to us, but not the protagonist, have the opposite effect; detaching us from even riding in the same car as them, anymore. The worst are the twists that don’t organically emerge out of a story, but are achieved merely by reshuffling the timeline of events with clever editing, which always comes across as an unearned gimmick; cheap tricks done by the filmmakers by just denying the audience information until it’s the most shocking time to reveal it. Glass Onion might have gotten away with their twist so long as Benoit Blanc was not also in on it, thus *he* could have been the audiences vehicle. The fact that she hired him prior means that both main protagonists were already in-the-know, which treats the audience the same as the ignorant antagonists. But, joke should be on the villains… not us!
I love this video even if I’m in the same in that I loved it anyway for intellectual value, but it’s the reason i couldn’t quite pick as for why I prefer the first movie. What I will say is that coming into this one Benoit Blanc felt like the protagonist and that’s exactly what I was picking up on at the start and feeling kind of excited about to get more of this strange character, because we actually saw his inner workings a lot more even through his putting on an act stuff, but he doesn’t work as a protagonist when you find out where it’s going and therefore if it’s going to be Helen, it’s incredibly odd that Benoit has more inner working development stuff etc than Helen does that isn’t just in flashback shown through Benoits perspective and then her backstory also told within his flashback of his perspective of a conversation with her. I was more invested actually in Andi, who I felt was more the protagonist in a way and I felt really upset for her, and I felt she was our protagonist when we didn’t know andi wasn’t Helen, but then I was still happy for it to be her because that acting of her plus backstory made it feel like we know her, and a twist of her actually surviving, some kind of triple twist actually would have been super cathartic or if she had some kind of victory from the grave that she had known she was going to get with help so she wasn’t just a victim of her demise without revenge and instead they gave her that win like in a promising young woman which was such an awesome bittersweet ending would have also been cool. It kind of felt like the protagonist thing where it’s Helen who I still did care about and wanted to win regardless just still doesn’t work as well if I’m rooting first for Benoit to always come out on top, then andi, then Helen last… like I was disappointed when Benoit got all helpless and had nothing up his sleeve and couldn’t help anymore even though it ended up having an intellectually satisfying pay off which I saw coming with how he handed her stuff and spoke as we all probably did, (they should have seen the rich guy burning that napkin coming) but it would have been even cooler if having a protagonist emotional arc structure was this important to them to see them invest into it in a little bit of a cooler way toward the end while still having basically the same pay off including the Mona Lisa destruction of course and everyone turning against him and his reputation being destroyed etc but with some extra/different really smart routes to it like I suggested and otherwise. I hope you come across my comment, I really enjoy your takes and videos and I’m a somewhat new subscriber here to stay and binge through your content!
I like this movie. But I was just thinking about the fact that once you get close to a twin, you can't be fooled by their twin. Other than that it was great!
I very much struggled to enjoy any of this movie. But particularly the first half. It felt like such a pathetic montage of "boy rich people sure are stupid and mean huh?" Which really doesn't hit right, when everyone in this movie is famous and rich. Hollywood's new trend of pretending to join us in the croud to make fun of them, is extremely obnoxious to me. They have no intention of changing the awful culture they all contribute to. Helen absolutely was the best part of it to me and she at least got me to finish the movie. I'd have much preferred being in on the "mystery" from the start. To me it was just such a mess. They couldn't even come up with a clever way to do something else beyond "boy, I sure am happy that bullet proof object was in my front pocket directly over my heart!" And even that was where I started not-Hating the movie. Definitely one of the first reviews I've seen from you I don't agree with.
I do agree that this trend of "rich making fun of the rich" can be transparently hypocritical and that this film isn't likely to change the status quo. I know Rian Johnson has stated before that these Knives Out films are a way for him to analyze and contend with his own privilege, which I want to believe is genuine. I agree it's a bit one dimensional at the end of the day, but I still find the caricature fun and amusing at the very least. Plus, to me the film just plainly has a lot more going on than just that singular aspect. The attention to detail, setups and payoffs, the cinematography, the performances, the construction of each individual scene...I don't know, I just see the pros outweighing the cons in this instance (even if I spent 25 minutes complaining about the structure and the way it robs investment lmao). However, I think it's great that you disagree! I definitely don't want this channel to be a space where everyone who watches me blindly follows every opinion I have.
@@meeptop Thanks for the reply and info! I had no clue he had directly addressed it so that's definitely helpful perspective. Keep up the great work man.
I agree with your thoughts here. I can't wait to see which Marvel actor they will bring for the 3rd movie. First was Captain America, and this time it was Drax.
My 2 Fatal Flaws of Glass Onion: 1) From the first on screen murder onward it was incredibly obvious who the murderer was. 2) The ending was badshit insane and nonsensical
The film bored me once the twist of the twin occurred. I rolled my eyes so fucking hard and was out of it for most of the rest if it. The humor was too much man, idc if I agree with the message, it was like a caricature.
Rian Johnson has actually sited Deathtrap (In my top 10 films of all time) and Sleuth as inspirations for knives out and I like both of them more than Knives Out and his comment about the detective and the Protagonist isn't some necessary formula for Mysteries both those films that were inspirations have a completely different structure and detective "protagonist" relationships. I think he should go for something different, movies don't have to be use the winning formula and it can get extremely repetitive. It's crazy how in the interview it shows he's going for the same protagonist thing but just failing it and I feel like it might be because he wants break from that formula and do something different but he is still handicapping himself with the formula anyways.
Maybe I'm biased against it because Pretty Little Liars ruined it for me ages ago, but the twin sister trope/plot-twist is soooo lame for me, it cracks my suspension of disbelief and I start over-analyzing and finding plot-holes right away. For starters, I doubt two people who live in completely different social and economic circles, eating drastically different diets, having different access to skincare, different sleeping patterns, different levels of stress due to their line of work and economic status, etc. etc., would look the exact same (except for the hairstyle... *eyeroll*) regardless of how much genetic material they share. Lifestyle has an impact on your body, specially at a certain age. Not to mention the ability (of a school teacher, nonetheless) to mimic perfectly the accent, tone of voice and mannerisms of another person coming naturally enough to fool people who were close to her. I don't know, it doesn't seem remotely realistic to me. Maybe the movie is self-aware of these facts and I just missed it? Added to all that (and this is 100% just personal opinion, no hate) I don't find Janelle Monae that believable as an actress, specially when acting against people I find incredibly good at it (like Daniel Craig). I enjoyed the movie, I thought it was rather well-written, but it wasn't remotely as engaging as Knives Out was.
The accent thing…….I’m a southern black girl who moved up north. My accent is THICC but due to bullying I’ve been taught to hide it very well. Same thing with AAVE in the black community. We turn it off when we need to blend in in social situations. It’s really not that difficult to do. I kinda agree with you on everything else tho 😊
One of the funny things about re-watches is that Helen actually slips up on her accent and mannerisms a couple of times, but the shit-heads don’t really notice it. The point is not that she’s a skilled actress or that she can copy her sister exactly, it is that her supposed friends don’t actually know her that well. Hell, it’s reinforced when she reveals who she really is and birdie goes “oh, you did mention you have a sister! …wait”
Well she does slip up quite a bit when playing her sister. So it's not really a good criticism when the movie kinda agrees with your point about her playing her sister not perfectly... Also, I think you're making a lot of assumptions about how living in different areas of a country would really influence how similar you look to your twin. There are non twin siblings who look remarkably like each other and aren't twins. I feel this is a heavy nitpick here cuz you're basing this on a lot of assumptions. Why do you think they don't have access to the same skin care? This movie takes place in a world were online shopping is commonplace. I can move across the country and have access to a lot of the same things I currently have access to. You're also assuming they would handle stress differently when how a person reacts to stress is partially influenced by genetics, something they both share. I only watched the movie once but I'm pretty sure the movie doesn't go into all that detail anyway, so why bring it up as if it's a flaw of the movie? All the writer/director would have to say is "actually they do have the same ____." I mean if you spend a lot of your life growing up close to your twin, even if you move away are you really gonna not like the same foods anymore? If they both loved chicken fried rice, you think onentwin wont be able to find/cook her favorite dish to eat just because she moved across the country? Are you really gonna change that much? For some, yes. For some, no. It's not like one of these twins was addicted to drugs, which would drastically change someone's appearance. There are many celebrities who are twin actors, many acting for decades, and they look the same essentially.
I feel the exact opposite, actually. I felt much more of a connection to Helen than I did to Marta. I think it's because Marta is just kinda...boring? And I totally get that's just my opinion, but I felt Helen had more of a personality. Helen is more of a hothead, has more quirks, and most importantly, *_has more flaws._* Marta just stayed the same wide-eyed, innocent, in over her head deer in headlights mode most of the film. She is portrayed as this lawful good person with hardly any flaws. She's too perfect, and that's just not as interesting to me.
This is a good movie and I haven't seen Living yet but if its anywhere near as good as the Kurosawa movie its based on it'll be my pick for best adapted screenplay.
I agree. Except for me it really did ruin the film. It felt empty and pointless. And then the twin surprise felt totally unimaginative and therefore uninteresting.
Spoilers for Captain Marvel in this comment: I get what you're saying because I enjoyed Captain Marvel as a whole, but because she spends the first half of the movie with severe amnesia we don't get to see the love and friendship she shares with Maria Rambeau and her daughter, Monica. This means that we only intellectually know that these characters in any sort of danger matters to her, but doesn't matter the same to us as the audience because we've had no time to care about the characters. I'm not sure if I would change the way Glass Onion plays out, though I do see your point.
You know, this is the first criticism of this movie that doesn't amount to, either being as stupid as Miles, or the next attempt to say how much that person wants to shove Musk down their own thought.
meeptop is one of my favorite youtubers because he doesn’t just say bs to get a reaction out of viewers. it’s refreshing to see a creator be authentic.
This is very interesting, and I’m gonna think about it further. My current leaning is to disagree with you. It’s probably because I am a huge fan of series like Colombo and Murder She Wrote, in which (to me) the protagonist is the detective, even though the emotional stakes of the mystery are with other characters. To me, BB is the real protagonist, who is helping Janelle Monet’s character(s) get justice.
But he lacks any real narrative arc, which I find essential in a protagonist. An arc doesn’t have to mean a complete transformation, just that Blanc feels out of place here, if this is indeed ‘his’ story as far as perspective goes. And once the middle twist occurs, his importance as the emotional center is completely removed for an under-explored sub-in protagonist. I don’t get the sense that he’s been on a journey that gets him truly invested in Helen, because we get so little time for them to bond before we’re hurled back into the shitshow cat-and-mousecapade.
I felt emotionally betrayed coming out of glass onion, and my gut reaction was to blame it on the reveal at the midpoint, were you get the recontextualization of the previous scenes with the reveal. But when I thought about it, I realized that knives out did the exact same thing, yet I didn't felt the same, I loved the movie and the hole experience. It wasn't until this video that I realized that I felt that way because my protagonist was Blanc, and when the reveal happened, I didn't have the information, but he knew it from the start. And even though this happens in knives out, the information given is also different, were in knives out it give me a new perspective on the present, and the stackes, in glass onion it felt like it undid the first half of the movie. I really liked both films, the setups and pay offs were great and so much fun to watch, but yet I felt like glass onion didn't reach the same hight. I can't articulate why, but this video has helped me put some reason behind my feelings, even if it's still shaky reasoning.
You know I think there’s something to be said about how these movies kinda miss the mark for their satire and especially in glass onion I think it’s very ironic that in a movie trying to criticize the wealthy in favor of acknowledging unheard perspectives, the movie inadvertently gives more time and effort characterizing the villain Elon musk stand in more than it ever does the actual woman of color.(which knives out does too a certain extent too imo) It all just feels like when these movies try to have something to say it just devolves into back patting for the writers in knowing what to say to seem progressive but not understand why to say it.
At this point you are probably my favorite reviewer on the entire platform. I love how careful and through you are in your break downs while not just ripping things apart like others are so quick to do. Whenever I see negativity and tearing down things on the platform i’m so excited in the moment when the dust settles I feel kind of empty. Like what’s the point of it all? And now whenever I see that kind of content it gets me a little less excited every time. But whenever your videos come up I always just feel so good watching them. There’s something so special about them that gives me hope for the future of film criticism, and makes me fall in love with movies all over again. And that’s pretty special. Never stop.
Yeah I totally agree. I just didn't enjoy this movie anywhere near as much as I did the first. The movie's premise just wasn't as interesting - on paper I can see how it would be, but the way it was enacted just... seemed so bland and uninspired. Once they brought in the twin sister, I literally began looking around my room for something else to do while I watched the movie because I got so bored during her introduction and exposition. Idk. I can see how it is an easy and enjoyable watch, to just turn your brain off and watch an ok movie. What bothers me is how interesting it COULD have been.
Twin twists make me want to blow my brains out. It’s like, you’d better use this piece of the plot REALLY well, or else I’m gonna roll my eyes like a goddamn bowling ball. When it happened I was genuinely so dissapointed that this was the direction they were going with for the story. I couldn’t give a shit about any of the characters, and the attempted shooting scene would’ve been much more effective if I cared about the character before I saw it. Also, cliche “book in breastpocket stops bullet” except how the HELL am I supposed to believe a thin journal would stop that bullet?
If the movie was going to put so much emphasis on the mystery over the characters and emotions, I wish it would’ve been an interesting and well-told mystery.
Very well said. I find myself agreeing with how you frame the intentions and structure of the movie, but for me it works, since this is the kind of movie that focuses on the villain as if they were the main character of sorts (see also: Infinity War). So am I bothered as much as you are about the lower focus on Helen? Not personally, no. But agree or not, I cannot overstate how refreshing it is to see a critique of a Rian Johnson film that isn't coming from a place of anger and/or mockery of the man. The dude's work is honestly really inspiring to me, but having Rian Johnson as one of your favorite filmmakers is... tiring, to say the least.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that motivations were clear. In both this and Knives Out, "he has a lot of money" is a major source of motivation for the characters, but running the business and having someone pay for college are blunt and relatable. In Glass Onion, they mention he's paying for stuff, but never get more concrete than looking vaguely in the direction of the camera and shrugging. They all knew that his money was benefiting them in some way, but it never felt tangible to me. It functioned more like a McGuffin - "hey, look, everybody wants it ~~~MOTIVATION~~~" with a wave of a magic wand.
What if Andi is the actual protagonist? That’s whose story we followed. That’s who we watched, as Helen spent most of the movie playing her. It’s Abdi’s revenge, ANSI’s victory over Miles. Helen is the weapon of the protagonist. Andi is the protagonist
But the story isn’t told from her perspective there, she’s a background character in a story told from the perspective of Blanc for the entire first half. We don’t see the story from her perspective until the twist, and by then, it’s not Andi’s story, it’s Helen’s. In conclusion, hard disagree.
@@SirArthurTheGreat Le Blanc and Helen were both acting on behalf of Andi. Andi also had the character arc in the story (from a smart caring leader that lacks confidence to a independent shark willing to break the loyalty to her friends and career to bring down Miles). The decision to use the new fuel source was between Andi and Miles. Miles was Andi’s antagonist. Le Blanc is not the main character of the Knives Out series. In the first one it was Marta. This time you’d have an argument it’s Helen, but what is Helen’s motivation? Get Andi’s revenge. Who is Helen? Andi’s sister. What role is Helen playing? Andi. Le Blanc and Helen are the weapons of the main character, but not full characters in themselves. Helen’s arc was to keep doing what she’s been doing since the first time we saw her, breaking Miles’ plans. Andi grew. Andi faces danger. Andi overcame her own death to get revenge. Andi kept and revealed the napkin (postmortem). Helen makes such a weak main character because she’s not the main. At the end of the day this is subjective so I’m not saying your position is invalid. I think it’s possible Helen is the main, but Andi’s case is so much stronger.
@@dwizzi1724 Andi literally did not have a line in the movie outside of the one flashback scene. Literally nor functionally is she the protagonist. There’s a difference between topic and protagonist. Is she arguably the lynchpin of the story? Of course. But she was not the protagonist, i.e., the main perspective character, or the character with the most screen time, or the character that is even followed at all for more than 1 minute of screentime. I think you’re fundamentally just misusing the word protagonist. I don’t really disagree with your analysis outside of that, but the protagonist as I said above is not just the lynchpin, just like how Leia isn’t the protagonist of Star Wars 1977, or how the old dude in Knives Out (forget his name rn) and Ransom are not the protagonists. Because we aren’t experiencing the story of Andi, we’re experiencing the story resulting from the mostly off-screen actions of Andi.
What if she actually died due to that shot? It gives Blanc the perspective again as he now has to solve the rest of the mystery, and grapple with how he played a part in her death.
I had the same problem when watching Glass Onion! Loved both movies, but Knives Out was so much more impactful. The sad thing is that it’s an easy fix. Instead of the twin sister being the twist, have her cooperation with Benoit Blanc be the twist. Follow her perspective from the death of her sister, to her receiving the box, too pretending she’s her sister, switch to Blanc where the movie proceeds as is, then we spend our time until the reveal anxious that he’s gonna catch on that she’s hiding something. Then the huge relief when we find out that they’re working together.
Your point of view is certainly valid, but I look at it differently. Like you said, when we first see Helen she smashes the puzzlebox because she doesn't have time for the bs of rich people. She is uninterested in money, status, and fancy puzzles. She just wants to know who took her identical twin away from her and why. At the end, after solving the 'mystery', destroying everything Miles holds dear, and knowing justice will be served, she looks into the camera like a living, breathing Mona Lisa. Unknowable. Unreadable. Is it a victorious smile, a fake smile, a grimace right before she bursts into tears? Does she, inside herself, feel like she's on fire too? I can't imagine losing someone who is literally THAT close to me, through an act of violence committed by someone THAT asinine, over nothing. I don't need to know more about Helen, or Andi, or their relationship. I already know all I need to know to make this movie work for me. P.S. It's not really a whodunit of course, that's why Rian fought so hard to keep the tagline 'a Knives Out mystery' of the movie posters. Unfortunately he lost, because the bigwigs only want franchises these days. I think that's one of the main reasons certain people were so angry, they expected a mystery but got something else entirely.
After watching both of the movies for myself I completely agree with you. Knives out was a lovely movie that made me feel what she felt immensely so, while Glass Onion felt more like watching a production of clue from every angle and could be hard to follow but was a great movie to think on. Thanks for sharing this video and creating
great video. you really nailed it when you explained how you felt all the same things malta felt, as I did too, but did not share those feelings with helen.
I really just don't like Rian Johnson's sense of humor, and to me the worst kind of film I can sit through is a comedy I don't find funny. I also don't enjoy Rian's way of storytelling. He likes to point out exactly where everything's going while hinting that he's going to surprise you, but then doesn't surprise you in an attempt to surprise you. He's used this form of storytelling three filma in a row now, and I have no interest in it.
I would have loved to know more about the schoolteacher who looked down to see her estranged identical twin untarped at a morgue. Like there is so much there
I'm glad to hear someone articulate exactly what I was feeling after I watched Glass Onion. Like you said, watching the film was such a great experience, but I couldn't help but compare it to Knives Out and favor Knives Out in the process. And I thought, 'maybe it's because the aesthetics of the movies are different, and I prefer Knives Out's' but thinking about it, I realized that Knives Out gave out a certain 'warmth' to me that Glass Onion just missed. I loved Marta, and I watch Knives Out for the intricate storytelling, yes, but also just for Marta.
Yup. Knives Out, I was emotionally invested in. Glass Onion, I had fun, but my investment was mostly just intellectual.
After the halfway point, my feelings were more along the lines of "oh, those are interesting choices. I wonder were they are going with this." Instead of "What will happen next? I need to know! I hope things turn out ok."
However... I think this video articulates the reasons why much better than I could.
Of course you loved Martha. She was an unrealistic and patronizing character and made you feel a good person cause of course you arent as racist as those guys
Knives out is plot hole filled to a point that is unbearable
I do feel like it’s the sister twist and reveal that become the turn of the table, and in order for this reveal to work, the use of a trick story that kinda ‘fool’ the audience will be at the price of people’s empathy, which is kinda like in order for the structure to work, the price would be people’s emotional investment in the character. Which would be instantly in comparison with how Marta and how invested people were in her and how great that works. I guess this is why Rian Johnson hated ‘the knives out mystery’ thing, cuz it absolutely stirred up how people are going to view and compare the plots.
I think this is why the movie focused more on Benoit than in Helen, which i DID like but yeah it creates this disconnection. In retrospective its almost funny because Helen is the only one who we dont see more of. Like, part of what made us connect to Marta and even the other characters in glass onion was that we saw their job, their family, their friends, etc; which even applies to Benny, but not her. And it does work for the whole twist and all but it creates this issue.
Although i personally didnt mind it, i liked this movie waaay more than knives out lol
Finally we have a review of someone who actually balance positives and negatives, who actually tell how he fell about a movie in a sincere way, that he doesn't feel the need to put 1000 jokes at second and doesn't need to be a snarky bitter guy who make the viewers that like the movie like idiots.
Thanks you!
Man's a gem ❤ the one movie reviewer I watch unironically these days.
Agreed, I honestly feel that Ryan Johnson traded some much needed tension for a surprise twist. And I don’t think the twist paid off all that well, for reasons that you already outlined.
But, regardless, I did enjoy the movie, and am glad that we have some new takes on the standard whodunit (or in this case, howdunit).
My friend stopped watching Glass Onion about an hour in, just before Helen's Introduction. I told her to stick with it, and she said "If I've already watched for an hour with no one to root for, what's the point?"
It only gets worse after the first hour
@@jamesoakes1819 Yes, thank you
I was all ready to disagree with you, but man as an identical twin myself, that's absolutely, 100% the one thing that drew me out of the story - if I saw my twin under a tarp in a morgue and knew that she had been murdered, I don't know if I would be able to get out of bed for a month, much less attempt to pull off some kind of extended cosplay with all of the people I suspected of committing the act. (...also, admittedly, that the window for life-swapping shenanigans closed when I came out as trans. The differences would be, um, obvious lmao.)
Nice review, +1 subscriber for ya!
But as son of a twin mom and best friends that were twins, I always could tell the difference. Once you get close to a twin you can't be fooled by the other twin. Spend enough time with a twin and you'll notice the slightest difference.
But what if your only choice was to do the extended cosplay in order to find justice for your twin? Not everyone is going to sit back paralyzed in grief.
@Pushkaraksh Tiwari I mean I just don't think it would be within the realm of choice for me or most twins 🤷♂️
Wow, this was incredibly insightful. I came into this film wanting to like it far more than I did. And other reviews have done a great job exploring the layers of allegory (though I'm still curious to see one that tackles it as an allegory to the movie industry.)
But there's definitely a great big hole in the middle of the film, where you only learn about the key character seconds after she's been shot dead, leaving a hollowness where the movie wants us to feel the true connection. We're then asked to invest in a character we've just seen die, knowing that, as she rises to the moment, that moment will come to nothing. This is why the coincidence that the notebook stopped the bullet feels a little contrived. The story has come to a dead stop the moment this character is shot. And the longer the film spends explaining who she really was and what she was doing there, the deeper the film buries itself in the dead-end of her death. It's asking me to invest in a character that I know is going to lose, and I found myself reluctant to do so. It's too painful, too hopeless. I disengaged from the story just when I was supposed to engage the most.
Had Helen been saved by something that, in hindsight, couldn't have gone wrong, that would have been one thing. But the sheer odds against that bullet hitting just the right spot felt a little too contrived to save a film that had deliberately put itself this much trouble just to play bait and switch games. I had to backtrack through what I remembered to re-invest in Helen now I know she'd made it, and might somehow win out over Miles and the shitheels. And in the end, the triumph was mostly intellectual, unlike the triumph I felt on behalf of Marta. In short, the plot was too concerned with playing mind games on me to truly win my heart over. I felt exactly the way you did about it.
This isn't the first time I felt this way about Rian Johnson. I think all directors have a fatal flaw, and this seems to be his. He can become too clever for his own good. I came away from Looper feeling similarly, that I'd been asked to invest in characters for the wrong reasons, and that too many plot games were being played for me to actually invest in anyone. His Star Wars film happens to be my second favorite in the entire film canon, after the original. I've no complaints there. And of course, Knives Out is a masterpiece by any standard. But I think there's something that can happen with film stories that don't quite get enough time to... mature, perhaps. Everyone loves to hear the tale of a master auteur cranking out a masterpiece in a weekend. But I find far more often, it's the film idea that's been percolating for years that really comes together, smooths out into a singular, unified flavor, like a fine wine. This one had a nice nose, complex notes, and a fantastic fireworks finish. But its body was missing something essential.
I loved Knives Out for that reason.
I felt hollow watching the movie . I got disconnected the moments when ironically Blanc solved the “mystery “ within 10 minutes. But then got engaged again when I realized that there might be a killer on the island (which I already knew if you ever read and then there was none) but when David bapista actually died I was like wait a minute! Hold up. What’s going on? Then we meet Helen . And this entire time I was convinced we were following Blanc so I was just so confused.
Also we do meet Helen at the beginning we just assumed it was Andy the whole time 😂
Thank you so much for putting words where I had none! For me, I really liked the movie but I just didn't feel anything at that dramatic ending scene... with the slow motion and the excessive destruction of his art, it just felt like it was dragging on and I couldn't connect to it and I did not really know why until I heard the quote you played and your deliberations on that. The mystery and how it is constructed is just great, the cinematography is stunning and I absolutly loved the characters and how there was more complexity to the easier overlooked characters (Honey and Poppy) and even though these characters are very simplistic they still feel very real, but still, the ending threw me right off. I think you are 100% right that if we felt with helen the whole film, saw her struggle, feared for her, etc, the ending would have been deserved but like this I as a viewer was more engaged in that problem-solving way. So yeah, thank you again and somehow I knew coming here that this wasn't gonna be unnecessary rian johnson bashing but a critical engagement with the material, which is great because the film was doing something bold and it is interesting to talk about it without having to whine about how bad everything one doesn't like is and it's sad not more people can engage with it this way.
My main issue was the lack of anything going on in the first half. There wasn't a mystery in the first hour. There was plenty of setup and motives for a murder, but who cares about the potential murder when everybody is an asshole and no one except Andi (Helen) is making any threats. I care that Miles is in danger when he's such an asshole.
Yesss, I was sitting thinking “I can predict everything for the first 50 or so mins” because nothing is being introduced to conjure a mystery or to surprise. And once it is introduced, it sloppily asks me to invest into a character who I never get to understand for more than two short scenes outside of the active clue-hunt.
You know when you upload my afternoon plans are definitely going to take a pause to watch! Keep up the good work!
That is incredibly flattering! Genuinely, thanks for the support. It means a ton. 💛
I absolutely live and breath for this channel. You have such a phenomenal way of thinking about things, thank you so much for sharing it with us!!!
i need more meeptop in my life. i love meep
The first half almost posits us, the viewer, as another member of the Disruptors. We’re with them solving the box, we’re getting fooled by Helen too, and we have no idea why Benoit is there with us (though we are delighted to be in his company).
I was personally very invested in her. I think the movie relies on us caring about Andi because she’s the only one that’s a little likable out of all the characters (because Janelle Monae is a likable actress in general but also because she’s the one who points out how awful everyone else is, and she was treated so unfairly by her friends and business partner). When we think she dies we’re absolutely gutted even though we don’t know her that much, and the reveal later that all this time she was actually an even more innocent person, Ellen, makes her even more likable. I personally did feel sad when we see Ellen look upon her sister’s body, because I don’t need to know much about their relationship : they’re sisters. It’s inferred that this is extremely sad, and it’s easy to put yourself in her shoes if you have siblings.
Been watching you for a while, I love how you are slowly getting more recognition that you definitely deserve, keep up the good work:)
Even tho I really love this film with all my heart!! I watch it in theaters and just watched it again on Netflix the beginning of the movie is probably one of my favorite starts to any movie ever!!😂😂 but I feel like there was one really big plot hole in the movie which made it very hard not to ignore
Miles Should have known right away that Helen was not Andi and I really wish they handle that this aspect of the movie better…even tho this is a flaw I personally feel like the positives of this movie still very much out Weigh negatives and I think the most important part is I still found it to be extremely entertaining 👌✨✨✨:)
*SPOILERS*
I also thought about that, but I kind of rationalized it by saying that Miles was so stunned when Andi arrived because he thought she somehow survived...because he's an idiot lmao.
@@meeptopknow this is probably true this was the same realization I came too on my second viewing but really wish they put more of a definitive reason why he didn’t act right away because what ended up happening was the people I when to go watch this movie with were all a lil confused 🫤 I still love this movie but it felt a lil messy when it came to that part. I feel like this is something knifes out did flawlessly make the facts of the death solid and everything else about the mystery up to interpretation
@@milktea6676 Again, *SPOILERS*
I think the reason he didn't act up right away, is because then he would have to admit that he killed Andi (or attempted to, at the least). How else would he know that she's dead if wasn't yet public knowledge? Again, he was able to see what was right in front of him but too stupid to think it through to the end.
I do agree though, it's definitely a bit sloppy and requires a bit of mental gymnastics to fully justify. Glad it didn't impede on either of our enjoyments of the film though!
Spot on. exactly what my gf and i thought after watching this. in my opinion, it makes the whole movie a 3-star movie at best. I was not invested in what was happening at all :/
the biggest problem with the movie for me was its structure, a good chunk of the second half is just an uninteresting retelling of the first half and the whole anti-twist aspect of it just feels like a wet fart to me
Movie plot twists are incredibly hard to pull off.
The few that work are phenomenal.
The rest undecut the emotion of the whole film; Jacob's Ladder, Identity, Serenity (2019), this movie...
always look forward to your uploads. great video!
I have arrived, very fast it seems, I am first, a god among men.
Big ups for the persona music btw, I be jamming
I feel like Knives Out gave me a chance to figure it out on my own, but Glass Onion I felt held my hand throughout the entire movie…
...Just one more thing
Fixing on the structure is very telling, as is Rian Johnson's words about the audience wanting to have a character to identify with rather than be wowed by the clues and the deduction.
It also point to the subtle way both films have shown an evolution of the detective genre which as Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, happens when a previous form becomes "impossible," such as the Watson type witness who is supposed to stand in for the reader's idea of commonsense. With the exception of The Brother's Bloom (2008) which points to the deconstruction of con films and thus can get much darker, these new detective films have a tendency to undermine the enjoyment of the mystery by focusing on the eccentricities exhibited by the other characters rather than their place in the social fabric. The pleasure one gets from a twist in expectations is not the same as the Columbo tension of watching the interactions to see how the murderer will slip up. Tellingly, to rewatch the stories is to see that because everything is accounted for there is a strange sense of confinement rather than in an Agatha Christie novel where characters seem to have other parts of their lives not part of the story.
When heard that dip Ben Shapiro complain about how switching characters undermined the film I actually wondered if this might actually point to how those who identify with the characters find it satisfying as a character-based film and not a mystery, while others sense their is something off about how it portrays mysteries.
Loved your MAINSTREAM essay, keep it up.
Love the film, but agreed: Plot twists are genuine and effective when they are a surprise to the main character at the same time as the audience. It cements our empathy with protagonists, as we all go on the same rollercoaster ride together. Bruce Willis doesn’t know he’s dead in Sixth Sense. Ed Norton doesn’t know he’s Tyler Durden in Fight Club. But when they find out… we find out. We discover the truth about the matrix at the same time as Neo. When we’re all on the same journey, so we care what happens.
Twists that are only surprising to us, but not the protagonist, have the opposite effect; detaching us from even riding in the same car as them, anymore. The worst are the twists that don’t organically emerge out of a story, but are achieved merely by reshuffling the timeline of events with clever editing, which always comes across as an unearned gimmick; cheap tricks done by the filmmakers by just denying the audience information until it’s the most shocking time to reveal it.
Glass Onion might have gotten away with their twist so long as Benoit Blanc was not also in on it, thus *he* could have been the audiences vehicle. The fact that she hired him prior means that both main protagonists were already in-the-know, which treats the audience the same as the ignorant antagonists. But, joke should be on the villains… not us!
I love this video even if I’m in the same in that I loved it anyway for intellectual value, but it’s the reason i couldn’t quite pick as for why I prefer the first movie. What I will say is that coming into this one Benoit Blanc felt like the protagonist and that’s exactly what I was picking up on at the start and feeling kind of excited about to get more of this strange character, because we actually saw his inner workings a lot more even through his putting on an act stuff, but he doesn’t work as a protagonist when you find out where it’s going and therefore if it’s going to be Helen, it’s incredibly odd that Benoit has more inner working development stuff etc than Helen does that isn’t just in flashback shown through Benoits perspective and then her backstory also told within his flashback of his perspective of a conversation with her.
I was more invested actually in Andi, who I felt was more the protagonist in a way and I felt really upset for her, and I felt she was our protagonist when we didn’t know andi wasn’t Helen, but then I was still happy for it to be her because that acting of her plus backstory made it feel like we know her, and a twist of her actually surviving, some kind of triple twist actually would have been super cathartic or if she had some kind of victory from the grave that she had known she was going to get with help so she wasn’t just a victim of her demise without revenge and instead they gave her that win like in a promising young woman which was such an awesome bittersweet ending would have also been cool.
It kind of felt like the protagonist thing where it’s Helen who I still did care about and wanted to win regardless just still doesn’t work as well if I’m rooting first for Benoit to always come out on top, then andi, then Helen last… like I was disappointed when Benoit got all helpless and had nothing up his sleeve and couldn’t help anymore even though it ended up having an intellectually satisfying pay off which I saw coming with how he handed her stuff and spoke as we all probably did, (they should have seen the rich guy burning that napkin coming) but it would have been even cooler if having a protagonist emotional arc structure was this important to them to see them invest into it in a little bit of a cooler way toward the end while still having basically the same pay off including the Mona Lisa destruction of course and everyone turning against him and his reputation being destroyed etc but with some extra/different really smart routes to it like I suggested and otherwise.
I hope you come across my comment, I really enjoy your takes and videos and I’m a somewhat new subscriber here to stay and binge through your content!
I like this movie. But I was just thinking about the fact that once you get close to a twin, you can't be fooled by their twin. Other than that it was great!
The way I would describe it is Knives Out is a film about it's protagonist but Glass Onion is movie about it's villain.
I very much struggled to enjoy any of this movie. But particularly the first half. It felt like such a pathetic montage of "boy rich people sure are stupid and mean huh?" Which really doesn't hit right, when everyone in this movie is famous and rich. Hollywood's new trend of pretending to join us in the croud to make fun of them, is extremely obnoxious to me. They have no intention of changing the awful culture they all contribute to.
Helen absolutely was the best part of it to me and she at least got me to finish the movie.
I'd have much preferred being in on the "mystery" from the start.
To me it was just such a mess.
They couldn't even come up with a clever way to do something else beyond "boy, I sure am happy that bullet proof object was in my front pocket directly over my heart!" And even that was where I started not-Hating the movie.
Definitely one of the first reviews I've seen from you I don't agree with.
I do agree that this trend of "rich making fun of the rich" can be transparently hypocritical and that this film isn't likely to change the status quo. I know Rian Johnson has stated before that these Knives Out films are a way for him to analyze and contend with his own privilege, which I want to believe is genuine. I agree it's a bit one dimensional at the end of the day, but I still find the caricature fun and amusing at the very least.
Plus, to me the film just plainly has a lot more going on than just that singular aspect. The attention to detail, setups and payoffs, the cinematography, the performances, the construction of each individual scene...I don't know, I just see the pros outweighing the cons in this instance (even if I spent 25 minutes complaining about the structure and the way it robs investment lmao).
However, I think it's great that you disagree! I definitely don't want this channel to be a space where everyone who watches me blindly follows every opinion I have.
@@meeptop Thanks for the reply and info! I had no clue he had directly addressed it so that's definitely helpful perspective.
Keep up the great work man.
I agree with your thoughts here. I can't wait to see which Marvel actor they will bring for the 3rd movie. First was Captain America, and this time it was Drax.
My 2 Fatal Flaws of Glass Onion:
1) From the first on screen murder onward it was incredibly obvious who the murderer was.
2) The ending was badshit insane and nonsensical
I simply thought of Miles as the 'protagonist' the whole time & it worked for me just fine
The film bored me once the twist of the twin occurred. I rolled my eyes so fucking hard and was out of it for most of the rest if it. The humor was too much man, idc if I agree with the message, it was like a caricature.
Thanks for putting into works why i didnt like glass onion as much as i loved knives out
Rian Johnson has actually sited Deathtrap (In my top 10 films of all time) and Sleuth as inspirations for knives out and I like both of them more than Knives Out and his comment about the detective and the Protagonist isn't some necessary formula for Mysteries both those films that were inspirations have a completely different structure and detective "protagonist" relationships. I think he should go for something different, movies don't have to be use the winning formula and it can get extremely repetitive. It's crazy how in the interview it shows he's going for the same protagonist thing but just failing it and I feel like it might be because he wants break from that formula and do something different but he is still handicapping himself with the formula anyways.
Maybe I'm biased against it because Pretty Little Liars ruined it for me ages ago, but the twin sister trope/plot-twist is soooo lame for me, it cracks my suspension of disbelief and I start over-analyzing and finding plot-holes right away.
For starters, I doubt two people who live in completely different social and economic circles, eating drastically different diets, having different access to skincare, different sleeping patterns, different levels of stress due to their line of work and economic status, etc. etc., would look the exact same (except for the hairstyle... *eyeroll*) regardless of how much genetic material they share. Lifestyle has an impact on your body, specially at a certain age.
Not to mention the ability (of a school teacher, nonetheless) to mimic perfectly the accent, tone of voice and mannerisms of another person coming naturally enough to fool people who were close to her. I don't know, it doesn't seem remotely realistic to me.
Maybe the movie is self-aware of these facts and I just missed it?
Added to all that (and this is 100% just personal opinion, no hate) I don't find Janelle Monae that believable as an actress, specially when acting against people I find incredibly good at it (like Daniel Craig).
I enjoyed the movie, I thought it was rather well-written, but it wasn't remotely as engaging as Knives Out was.
The accent thing…….I’m a southern black girl who moved up north. My accent is THICC but due to bullying I’ve been taught to hide it very well. Same thing with AAVE in the black community. We turn it off when we need to blend in in social situations. It’s really not that difficult to do. I kinda agree with you on everything else tho 😊
One of the funny things about re-watches is that Helen actually slips up on her accent and mannerisms a couple of times, but the shit-heads don’t really notice it.
The point is not that she’s a skilled actress or that she can copy her sister exactly, it is that her supposed friends don’t actually know her that well.
Hell, it’s reinforced when she reveals who she really is and birdie goes “oh, you did mention you have a sister! …wait”
Well she does slip up quite a bit when playing her sister. So it's not really a good criticism when the movie kinda agrees with your point about her playing her sister not perfectly...
Also, I think you're making a lot of assumptions about how living in different areas of a country would really influence how similar you look to your twin. There are non twin siblings who look remarkably like each other and aren't twins. I feel this is a heavy nitpick here cuz you're basing this on a lot of assumptions. Why do you think they don't have access to the same skin care? This movie takes place in a world were online shopping is commonplace. I can move across the country and have access to a lot of the same things I currently have access to. You're also assuming they would handle stress differently when how a person reacts to stress is partially influenced by genetics, something they both share. I only watched the movie once but I'm pretty sure the movie doesn't go into all that detail anyway, so why bring it up as if it's a flaw of the movie? All the writer/director would have to say is "actually they do have the same ____." I mean if you spend a lot of your life growing up close to your twin, even if you move away are you really gonna not like the same foods anymore? If they both loved chicken fried rice, you think onentwin wont be able to find/cook her favorite dish to eat just because she moved across the country? Are you really gonna change that much? For some, yes. For some, no. It's not like one of these twins was addicted to drugs, which would drastically change someone's appearance. There are many celebrities who are twin actors, many acting for decades, and they look the same essentially.
loved the video, would recommend changing the background music to something less instrumental
I feel the exact opposite, actually. I felt much more of a connection to Helen than I did to Marta. I think it's because Marta is just kinda...boring? And I totally get that's just my opinion, but I felt Helen had more of a personality. Helen is more of a hothead, has more quirks, and most importantly, *_has more flaws._*
Marta just stayed the same wide-eyed, innocent, in over her head deer in headlights mode most of the film. She is portrayed as this lawful good person with hardly any flaws. She's too perfect, and that's just not as interesting to me.
At the end of glass onion, I wasn’t satisfied that the protagonist won, I was satisfied when the antagonist got crushed
chips and ice cream
I love meeptop
Yes!! I 100% agree with you I loved knives out so much and had such hope for this movie but it just wasent the same
This video could start at 5 minutes
Yea, apologizing for having an opinion is annoying.
This is a good movie and I haven't seen Living yet but if its anywhere near as good as the Kurosawa movie its based on it'll be my pick for best adapted screenplay.
I agree. Except for me it really did ruin the film. It felt empty and pointless. And then the twin surprise felt totally unimaginative and therefore uninteresting.
you're so right meep
Spoilers for Captain Marvel in this comment:
I get what you're saying because I enjoyed Captain Marvel as a whole, but because she spends the first half of the movie with severe amnesia we don't get to see the love and friendship she shares with Maria Rambeau and her daughter, Monica. This means that we only intellectually know that these characters in any sort of danger matters to her, but doesn't matter the same to us as the audience because we've had no time to care about the characters. I'm not sure if I would change the way Glass Onion plays out, though I do see your point.
Commenting to say great vid! (And to boost your engagement... 😉)
chips ice cream
Cheers from Brazil
I completely agree
You know, this is the first criticism of this movie that doesn't amount to, either being as stupid as Miles, or the next attempt to say how much that person wants to shove Musk down their own thought.
6 minutes ago!
I enjoyed it much more than the first even.
a quarter of this video is you anxiously justifying making this video lmao
You say such insightful stuff, and then you say you like Glass Onion. Rian Johnson has never made a good movie. He's a hack.
The Fatal Flaw of Glass Onion
Frankly he was the best thing to happen to Star Wars and the cowards threw it all away.
I just can’t buy Daniel Craig’s accent.
Have you ever been to the deep South?
@@WobblesandBean yes it’s the fact that he’s British and I’ve seen him in James bond
Its a subversion on the classic grand mystery
It's better than knives out in my opinion
I hope they bring out more knives out movies and polish them more.
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The Fatal Flaw of Glass Onion
meeptop is one of my favorite youtubers because he doesn’t just say bs to get a reaction out of viewers. it’s refreshing to see a creator be authentic.
This is very interesting, and I’m gonna think about it further. My current leaning is to disagree with you. It’s probably because I am a huge fan of series like Colombo and Murder She Wrote, in which (to me) the protagonist is the detective, even though the emotional stakes of the mystery are with other characters. To me, BB is the real protagonist, who is helping Janelle Monet’s character(s) get justice.
But he lacks any real narrative arc, which I find essential in a protagonist. An arc doesn’t have to mean a complete transformation, just that Blanc feels out of place here, if this is indeed ‘his’ story as far as perspective goes. And once the middle twist occurs, his importance as the emotional center is completely removed for an under-explored sub-in protagonist. I don’t get the sense that he’s been on a journey that gets him truly invested in Helen, because we get so little time for them to bond before we’re hurled back into the shitshow cat-and-mousecapade.
I felt emotionally betrayed coming out of glass onion, and my gut reaction was to blame it on the reveal at the midpoint, were you get the recontextualization of the previous scenes with the reveal. But when I thought about it, I realized that knives out did the exact same thing, yet I didn't felt the same, I loved the movie and the hole experience. It wasn't until this video that I realized that I felt that way because my protagonist was Blanc, and when the reveal happened, I didn't have the information, but he knew it from the start. And even though this happens in knives out, the information given is also different, were in knives out it give me a new perspective on the present, and the stackes, in glass onion it felt like it undid the first half of the movie.
I really liked both films, the setups and pay offs were great and so much fun to watch, but yet I felt like glass onion didn't reach the same hight. I can't articulate why, but this video has helped me put some reason behind my feelings, even if it's still shaky reasoning.
You know I think there’s something to be said about how these movies kinda miss the mark for their satire and especially in glass onion I think it’s very ironic that in a movie trying to criticize the wealthy in favor of acknowledging unheard perspectives, the movie inadvertently gives more time and effort characterizing the villain Elon musk stand in more than it ever does the actual woman of color.(which knives out does too a certain extent too imo) It all just feels like when these movies try to have something to say it just devolves into back patting for the writers in knowing what to say to seem progressive but not understand why to say it.
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At this point you are probably my favorite reviewer on the entire platform. I love how careful and through you are in your break downs while not just ripping things apart like others are so quick to do.
Whenever I see negativity and tearing down things on the platform i’m so excited in the moment when the dust settles I feel kind of empty. Like what’s the point of it all? And now whenever I see that kind of content it gets me a little less excited every time. But whenever your videos come up I always just feel so good watching them. There’s something so special about them that gives me hope for the future of film criticism, and makes me fall in love with movies all over again. And that’s pretty special. Never stop.
Yeah I totally agree. I just didn't enjoy this movie anywhere near as much as I did the first. The movie's premise just wasn't as interesting - on paper I can see how it would be, but the way it was enacted just... seemed so bland and uninspired. Once they brought in the twin sister, I literally began looking around my room for something else to do while I watched the movie because I got so bored during her introduction and exposition. Idk. I can see how it is an easy and enjoyable watch, to just turn your brain off and watch an ok movie. What bothers me is how interesting it COULD have been.
Twin twists make me want to blow my brains out. It’s like, you’d better use this piece of the plot REALLY well, or else I’m gonna roll my eyes like a goddamn bowling ball. When it happened I was genuinely so dissapointed that this was the direction they were going with for the story. I couldn’t give a shit about any of the characters, and the attempted shooting scene would’ve been much more effective if I cared about the character before I saw it. Also, cliche “book in breastpocket stops bullet” except how the HELL am I supposed to believe a thin journal would stop that bullet?
If the movie was going to put so much emphasis on the mystery over the characters and emotions, I wish it would’ve been an interesting and well-told mystery.
Very well said. I find myself agreeing with how you frame the intentions and structure of the movie, but for me it works, since this is the kind of movie that focuses on the villain as if they were the main character of sorts (see also: Infinity War). So am I bothered as much as you are about the lower focus on Helen? Not personally, no. But agree or not, I cannot overstate how refreshing it is to see a critique of a Rian Johnson film that isn't coming from a place of anger and/or mockery of the man. The dude's work is honestly really inspiring to me, but having Rian Johnson as one of your favorite filmmakers is... tiring, to say the least.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that motivations were clear. In both this and Knives Out, "he has a lot of money" is a major source of motivation for the characters, but running the business and having someone pay for college are blunt and relatable. In Glass Onion, they mention he's paying for stuff, but never get more concrete than looking vaguely in the direction of the camera and shrugging. They all knew that his money was benefiting them in some way, but it never felt tangible to me. It functioned more like a McGuffin - "hey, look, everybody wants it ~~~MOTIVATION~~~" with a wave of a magic wand.
What if Andi is the actual protagonist?
That’s whose story we followed. That’s who we watched, as Helen spent most of the movie playing her. It’s Abdi’s revenge, ANSI’s victory over Miles. Helen is the weapon of the protagonist.
Andi is the protagonist
But the story isn’t told from her perspective there, she’s a background character in a story told from the perspective of Blanc for the entire first half. We don’t see the story from her perspective until the twist, and by then, it’s not Andi’s story, it’s Helen’s. In conclusion, hard disagree.
@@SirArthurTheGreat Le Blanc and Helen were both acting on behalf of Andi. Andi also had the character arc in the story (from a smart caring leader that lacks confidence to a independent shark willing to break the loyalty to her friends and career to bring down Miles). The decision to use the new fuel source was between Andi and Miles. Miles was Andi’s antagonist. Le Blanc is not the main character of the Knives Out series. In the first one it was Marta. This time you’d have an argument it’s Helen, but what is Helen’s motivation? Get Andi’s revenge. Who is Helen? Andi’s sister. What role is Helen playing? Andi. Le Blanc and Helen are the weapons of the main character, but not full characters in themselves. Helen’s arc was to keep doing what she’s been doing since the first time we saw her, breaking Miles’ plans. Andi grew. Andi faces danger. Andi overcame her own death to get revenge. Andi kept and revealed the napkin (postmortem). Helen makes such a weak main character because she’s not the main.
At the end of the day this is subjective so I’m not saying your position is invalid. I think it’s possible Helen is the main, but Andi’s case is so much stronger.
@@dwizzi1724 Andi literally did not have a line in the movie outside of the one flashback scene. Literally nor functionally is she the protagonist. There’s a difference between topic and protagonist. Is she arguably the lynchpin of the story? Of course. But she was not the protagonist, i.e., the main perspective character, or the character with the most screen time, or the character that is even followed at all for more than 1 minute of screentime. I think you’re fundamentally just misusing the word protagonist. I don’t really disagree with your analysis outside of that, but the protagonist as I said above is not just the lynchpin, just like how Leia isn’t the protagonist of Star Wars 1977, or how the old dude in Knives Out (forget his name rn) and Ransom are not the protagonists. Because we aren’t experiencing the story of Andi, we’re experiencing the story resulting from the mostly off-screen actions of Andi.
You don't know what a protagonist is.
What if she actually died due to that shot? It gives Blanc the perspective again as he now has to solve the rest of the mystery, and grapple with how he played a part in her death.
To quote Chapo, the biggest flaw with Glass Onion is that it can only regurgitate culture, where a film like Avatar 2 creates culture.
To me the fatal flaw was the underutilization of Katherine Hahn. But I bet editing was tight because in the end we got a lot of movie.
Was gonna simp you in the comments but it looks like you got plenty
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I had the same problem when watching Glass Onion! Loved both movies, but Knives Out was so much more impactful.
The sad thing is that it’s an easy fix. Instead of the twin sister being the twist, have her cooperation with Benoit Blanc be the twist. Follow her perspective from the death of her sister, to her receiving the box, too pretending she’s her sister, switch to Blanc where the movie proceeds as is, then we spend our time until the reveal anxious that he’s gonna catch on that she’s hiding something. Then the huge relief when we find out that they’re working together.
Your point of view is certainly valid, but I look at it differently. Like you said, when we first see Helen she smashes the puzzlebox because she doesn't have time for the bs of rich people. She is uninterested in money, status, and fancy puzzles. She just wants to know who took her identical twin away from her and why.
At the end, after solving the 'mystery', destroying everything Miles holds dear, and knowing justice will be served, she looks into the camera like a living, breathing Mona Lisa. Unknowable. Unreadable. Is it a victorious smile, a fake smile, a grimace right before she bursts into tears? Does she, inside herself, feel like she's on fire too? I can't imagine losing someone who is literally THAT close to me, through an act of violence committed by someone THAT asinine, over nothing. I don't need to know more about Helen, or Andi, or their relationship. I already know all I need to know to make this movie work for me.
P.S. It's not really a whodunit of course, that's why Rian fought so hard to keep the tagline 'a Knives Out mystery' of the movie posters. Unfortunately he lost, because the bigwigs only want franchises these days. I think that's one of the main reasons certain people were so angry, they expected a mystery but got something else entirely.
After watching both of the movies for myself I completely agree with you. Knives out was a lovely movie that made me feel what she felt immensely so, while Glass Onion felt more like watching a production of clue from every angle and could be hard to follow but was a great movie to think on. Thanks for sharing this video and creating
The fatal flaw in Glass Onion is that it as boring as fuck, and if you manage to stay awake to the 25 minute mark you're doing well.
great video. you really nailed it when you explained how you felt all the same things malta felt, as I did too, but did not share those feelings with helen.
already love this video
I gotta give props for that Uncharted edit. That was a nice touch. 😂
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I really just don't like Rian Johnson's sense of humor, and to me the worst kind of film I can sit through is a comedy I don't find funny. I also don't enjoy Rian's way of storytelling. He likes to point out exactly where everything's going while hinting that he's going to surprise you, but then doesn't surprise you in an attempt to surprise you. He's used this form of storytelling three filma in a row now, and I have no interest in it.
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