If you’re new here, check out some of my other content! 😍🎬✨ - My 4-part Knives Out Video Essay: "Knives Out is the PEAK Whodunit" ua-cam.com/play/PLo_swXTJGbwVkBwiMLN0xNTaaCKUIKWFi.html - Only Baz Luhrmann Could Make An ELVIS Biopic ✨CINEMA✨ (Video Essay - Starring Austin Butler) ua-cam.com/video/Q_j8M4tok98/v-deo.html - Glen Powell + Sydney Sweeney ANYONE BUT YOU Interview on Rom Coms and Shakespeare! (+ Will Gluck!) ua-cam.com/video/MjXMatL4M74/v-deo.html - Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney's "ANYONE BUT YOU" and the Modern Literary Adaptation (Video Essay) ua-cam.com/video/L-9HYwLKBKw/v-deo.html - Anyone But You (Starring Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney): The Perfect Rom Com for Shakespeare Girlies ua-cam.com/video/fMh1AlREMO4/v-deo.html - Anyone But You, Natasha Bedingfield, and the Art of the Rom Com Musical Needle Drop 🥰💋🎶🎞✨ ua-cam.com/video/NinueP59Big/v-deo.html - Dead Boy Detectives SPOILERS Interview: George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri, Kassius Nelson, Yuyu Kitamura ua-cam.com/video/S86XVqe-GDU/v-deo.html - THE CROW (starring Bill Skarsgård & FKA Twigs) is a Romantic Tragedy (2024 Movie Trailer Reaction) ua-cam.com/video/VXqBgZEof3c/v-deo.html - What Bridgerton Should Have Learned from Brandy & Paolo Montalban’s CINDERELLA ua-cam.com/video/twHP0Lt-Djg/v-deo.html - Karen Fukuhara Interview on The Boys Season 4, Kimiko Speaking, Kimchie Romance, Season 5 Finale ua-cam.com/video/EsFvRcsv8u0/v-deo.html
Another thing no one seems to have picked up on is the notion of disrupters. If you look carefully there’s a shot of the book” the innovators dilemma”, (when Andy destroys her bookshelf) which is about how disrupters and destroy and take over established innovation and technology. Andy being the victim of disruption. There’s a lot more if you read the book. I only noticed because I am writing a report on the book for uni!! I highly recommend you add this to your analysis!
I don’t know if this will sound too geeky, but I am sincerely hoping that if this movie gets released for digital sale, that there will be a directors commentary audio option like there was on Knives Out. 😁
This video being recommended to me was how I learnt Glass Onion was coming. I didn't watch it then. I just finished watching the movie and I'm coming back to the video now! I've never heard of ou before, so congrats on the algorithm!
One thing I realized after rewatching is that Miles Bron got the idea of hosting a murder mystery for his friends from murdering one of his friends. Because Miles is too stupid to think of an original idea
You just made me notice something I hadn't seen anyone say but maybe it's just super obvious: Blanc overlooks Miles as a suspect for Andi's murder because "it would be too stupid to put himself that close to the murder, especially right after a huge court case". Blanc was getting so frustrated about how dumb Miles actually is so it makes perfect sense that is exactly what he did. Edit: nvm I finished the video and she literally mentions this🤣
@@doatmidnight8540 I also like the little touch of when Helen says that Blanc must be very good at Clue he says he's very bad at 'dumb things', which is why he initially rules out Miles as a suspect.
My favorite “OMG he hid it in plain sight” clue watching the second time was that before you even know Helen exists, you see Benoit call Andi “Helen”, just before she’s shot. That’s some ballsy writing.
Mine was Duke’s “remember when you almost pancaked me” casual line in the pool which at first plays like a “haha good times” nostalgia thing, but in reality is a “let me remind you, I know what you did” said in front of everyone
Thank you, I was looking for this comment! After Helen is revealed I was like Wait, I'm sure someone said the name Helen before but when/who... I want to wait a little longer before watching it again so now that's cleared up haha.
I felt so proud of myself bc as Miles was saying “look at that dress! Look at that spin!” I made it a point to look at anything BUT the dress and caught him handing over the glass lol
I caught it the first time without looking but then when they did the “replay” of Duke grabbing the wrong drink my mind instantly flipped out trying to recount what actually happened like in the movie 😂 felt so gaslit for a hot second
I love that you can actually see it happening if you were paying attention. In these kinds of movies, most of the key clues are completely hidden from the viewer. This movie manages to be smart and surprising, even when it is possible for the viewer to discover the killer (to a certain extent). Of course, the writers *have to* keep some details away from the viewer until the end, that's imperative in this genre of movies. But I like how this one doesn't do that as much as the majority
@@LadyJenevia If you really looked at Miles during the movie, you can see him steal Duke's gun (caught on first viewing) after he's told to look at the numbers, and when he goes to get the drink for Duke, you can see the gun in the back of his pants and you can LITERALLY see him dump the gun into the ice bucket.
After this, my biggest takeaway was the desire to have Marta, Helen, and Blanc in a book club/group chat. It's just funny to me that, amidst the shitty people surrounding each case, he latches onto the one decent person and decides that they're his new best friend.
@@EmeraldAshesAudioExcept that each time, the “Watson” is the true protagonist and the one who brings about the villain’s downfall. Blanc may put the pieces together and give the protagonist a nudge, but they’re ultimately the one who takes the villain down in their own way.
I really like how both Knives Out films have very satisfying but polar opposite endings. I still find Marta drinking out of the ‘My House, My Rules, My Coffee’ cup at the end of knives out just as cathartic as Helen burning down the Glass Onion
Something about the mug in the original Knives Out First time we see it is Harlan putting down the mug and we can clearly see the three line "my house, my rules, my coffee" Then when the will is read and Marta doesn't yet feel like taking it all, she has the mug in her hand with a finger over each line Finally when the whole family is out and she's on the balcony, only "My house" isn't covered The attention to detail in those films are top notch
Marta wins because she's legally right. She didn't kill anyone, and the will says everything is hers. Helen wins because she burned the Mona Lisa and gets people to lie in court. Both of these are good endings that they deserve.
@@genericname2747 you're right but more essentially both women succeed in the end because they didn't play the game like the others. In the end they decided that all that crap wasn't for them and stayed true to their own personalities even if it meant risking a bad outcome for them personally. Thankfully it turned out for both of them to be just what they needed.
My favourite 'glass onion' obvious clue is when the lights go out and Miles explains he was supposed to say something dramatic at 10pm and then the power would cut out for his mystery game, but he was supposed to be murdered at dinner at 8pm. He retroactively set up the light scenario after getting the idea from Benoit Blanc.
hm, but he himself states that he'll still be speaking to them normally for the rest of their stay, even if not about the murder mystery he could have planned on saying something dramatic
Another great bit of planting an idea up front and telling you what's goihg to happen in plain sight is the Among Us gag at the start with Blanc, which you think is just a throwaway joke, but then the whole time on the island Helen is literally an imposter
Or lines said by other characters that we took figuratively but were very literal. Like Hahn’s character observing “Andi” and saying “Something’s changed, she’s not herself” - she’s LITERALLY not herself 😂 really excellent!
_And_ it introduces Blanc's weakness at solving dumb things. It works just as a joke, the kind only Knives Out is hip enough to pull off, but it comes packed with layers too!!
SPOILERS Watched it last night and my favorite part is the breaking of Andi’s box. That’s the true onion here, and it’s such a delight to watch it peeled. You see it the first time and are like “Wow, that lady’s angry.” And you find out Andi has every right to be angry, cool. Then you peel back another layer and that lady’s still angry, but it’s Helen, who arguably has even more of a reason to be angry. And then you peel back another layer and realize she’s not just breaking it because she’s angry, she quite literally doesn’t know how to open it, and doesn’t care to figure it out. And then you find the center and you realize Helen is the only true disruptor of the bunch, willing to burn everything down so it can start again, and someone else can do it right this time. Also oh my God the twins’ names were Cassandra and Helen, one the prophetess who no one believed and the other the woman responsible for the burning of an empire. Shit, Rian, give me a minute to breathe here.
SO GOOD, and the more you rewatch it, the more details you notice. That's why I saw it as many times as I could during its limited theatrical run (which ended up being six). 😂
When I watched it the first time, I was expecting Knives Out, so I was like oh she doesn't play the game by Miles' rules, and tbh I think that still kinda applies but it's probably not the main goal of the scene
That scene was so funny to me because we just saw an entire group struggle to open the box and then it cuts to Helen doing it easily with just a hammer. Work smarter not harder.
My favorite parallel of Glass Onion was when miles made his big speech by the pool about how to be a disruptor and how you have to start with one thing and then build up. Andi (Helen) does that EXACT thing at the end. Starting with the glass sculptures and waiting for everyone to join in. Miles said by the pool “people will tell you to stop” and then he told Helen to stop repeatedly. Miles also said “then go for that big thing that no one would ever touch” Helen did that exact thing by destroying the Mona Lisa. I loved how she did everything that he said to screw him over.
And the last part about Miles speech about breaking the one thing no one wants you to break and having no one on your side after it. He foreshadowed his entire downfall.
One of my favorite details is Blanc disliking basic detective games (ie. clue, among us, etc.) at first it is a funny gag. “The ace detective is bad at mystery games” but then in the scene where Blanc unfolds it all it’s revealed that this whole thing was basic like the games and he’s angry at it LIKE THE GAMES. idk if i explained this well lol
Yes and he also says that he doesn't like Clue and that he himself is bad at doing things like running around and checking rooms and so it's Helen that gets to do all of that on Miles' compound. 😁
It works when you remember that in Knives Out, he didn’t accuse Marta despite knowing that she was involved in Harlan’s death because he wanted the full picture, as well as him fixating on who hired him.
My favourite detail was Helen being in the Mona Lisa pose in the final shot. She hand placement, her smile, the tilted body, the light of the fire behind her. It was magnificent!
What I love it Birdie's introduction with not being allowed on twitter for saying "a word that she thought meant cheap" and didn't know was a slur or whatever and I think most people thought is that "oh she's lying, she knew what it meant and is trying to cover her own ass" because that's what everyone says who gets caught saying a slur. they didn't know what it mean, they didn't know it was derogetory, they grew up using it. And then you get to the scene where she shows an email about sweat shops and you just realize "oh she wasn't lying at the start, she's just fucking stupid"
I think that was honestly why Birdie was my favourite out of the disruptors. She was the one who clued in and plotted the least, because she couldn't. She's still a terrible person as she was written, but I loved that they genuinely made her that clueless and stupid in a mystery. Nice change of pace from "The idiot is actually a genius tricking you all" kind of twist that got really popular
I'm a bit ashamed to say that my first response to her not knowing what a sweat shop was was 'awww. it was an innocent mistake'. But I think it's less about her being dense and more about her being selfish and not caring enough to learn about serious issues and the lives of other people. People SHOULD know what a sweat shop is. ESPECIALLY someone involved in fashion. I think it was a very wilful ignorance.
Some of my favorite moments were little things Peg was doing in the background. Like using the magic marker to put her name on the plastic cup that _no one_ would think belonged to anyone but her.
I loved that bit. I think she might be putting her name on it because all the other drinking glasses have names embossed in gold, even Andi's (except for Blanc of course). Also it is very telling that she gets a shitty red solo cup while 90% of the entire place they are in is made of glass lol.
@@Tactical_Buttcheeks exactly. It feels like he bought this cup just for Peg the same way he had the glasses commissioned for his "friends". He is such a shithead lmao I love this movie
Aesthetic vibes, I love how different this movie is. If Knives Out has big autumn vibes, then Glass Onion has very summer vibes. Can't wait to see Blanc's winter fashion in the next movie
How much do you want to bet that if blanc hadn't called the puzzle box "simple children's puzzels" he would have taken credit for it. Like for the murder mystery, he didn't want to toot his own horn until blanc solved it, then we learn he hired someone to write it
It's so hilarious because when Blanc "ruined" his little murder mystery game, he mentioned a giant "B" in the garden being an obvious, tacky clue. And it cuts to Miles for brief second. And you just KNOW he PERSONALLY added that in there just because he couldn't help himself by trying to be "innovative". And then there's later on when he hides the original napkin in _plain sight_ RIGHT next to his desk instead of BURNING IT. Which is pretty much his character in a nutshell: An obvious fool who can't get out of his way long enough because he wants to feel clever.
One of my favorite things about this movie and the vibe of it compared to Knives Out is that this movie screeeeaaaammms new money. It stood out to me immediately with all the flashy high-tech versus the wealth of the mahogany home in Knives Out. ALSO the masks perfectly encapsulate the character just an excellent move on the costumer's part. Rian Johnson Director of Details
@@thumpted8417 I think they mean that they presented themselves as old money with the manor and the decorations to the way they dress and talk, even calling it their ancestral home
Spoiler: Something I noted. When I saw Helen destroy the box, I automatically assumed that someone else had to have invited Blanc. His partner said that there was someone with a box at the door. Blanc said he got the box and there were some simple children's puzzles. So I automatically ruled Helen/Andi out of the running. Completely fooled lol
So I’ve noticed each heroine of the Knives Out movies also have some physical oddity, Marta of course vomits when she lies, and Helen only seems to get bolder from alcohol consumption but never gets dumber or less observant as you’d expect someone who never drinks would get from pounding back several of Jared Leto’s 18 Proof Hard Kombuchas.
@@jeremyrosenberger8535 I assume that was a reference to the fact Jared Leto also owns a private island but populates with with a creepy semi-religious cult dedicated to him (kinda like how Musk collects a bunch of weirdo followers for his cult of personality).
That didn't really seem that odd to me though, I think a lot of people who aren't very confident talking around others really do just get bolder/more confident without having their intellectual capabilities impacted yet in any significant way up to a certain point of intoxication. Obviously not anymore when they are just completely drunk, but Helen just never seemed that level of completely drunk to me
At first I was absolutely devastated when Miles burned the napkin, but in retrospect, that's such a nice and witty touch to defining Helen's character, story and reasons. She doesn't seem the type to want to gain any material goods or compensation for her sister's death, especially in court, so avenging her and making sure Miles is stopped seems a dignified and appropriate consensus for her story.
@@Pookiepantsmcpoo I swear, Miles as a character is so comedic in the way he's written and portrayed. I absolutely lost it when Blanc realised he stole the light switch idea from him as well!
@@candiedoe848Blanc being more angry at the fact that Miles is a moron than he is at Miles being a murderer is the best. Could hear his brain going “I once had a guy with a near fool-proof plan to murder his grandfather and pin it on the nurse so she wouldn’t get the inheritance, which only failed because he underestimated how good of a nurse she was, and THIS is what I was up against?!”
Also the fact that Among Us has thematic relevance to the entire movie is a fact that I cannot get over. That’s amazing and it only goes deeper the more you think about it. It wasn’t just a pop culture nod, it’s legitimately the whole plot summed up in one scene.
Plus, it was just a thing the characters were doing. They weren’t acting like it was the gospel or something, they were just playing a game that fit with both the story and the time period.
I noticed that Helen and Cassandra are named after the Illiad characters, with Helen being the "face that launched a thousand ships" (she set the fire that brought the rescue boats) and Cassandra was the prophetess that was cursed so that no one believed her. Andi is exactly the same, she tells the truth but isn't believed.
Also, Helen is brought to an unfamiliar place (troy/the glass onion) by a man she trusts (paris/benoit), but returns home at the end of the war, and Cassandra is forced to move from her comfortable place (troy/the world of the rich) to an unfamiliar place (agamemnons palace/ousted by her friends) and is killed as a result. The parallels are EVERYWHERE!
There's also mythos about Helenus, Cassandra's twin brother, who was also a seer! According to some writers, Helenus was the one who thought of the Trojan Horse, which led to the sacking and fall of Troy, while Helenus watched on.
I love the ways Rian tells you the movie will end from the heroine introductions. Marta wins the game of Go by playing it her way, not by Harlan’s rules. She beats Ransom because she stays true to herself, not playing into his or Harlan’s scemes. All of the core cast of glass onion play along with the puzzle box to get the invitation. Helen doesn’t play the game, she breaks it with an axe. In the end, she doesn’t play the legal game, the takes a torch to the mansion and the wealth and burns it to the ground. She doesn’t play the game, she breaks it.
My addition to the pile of little cool details is that the chess puzzle at the start is the Fool’s Gambit, in which the Queen puts the king in checkmate and it only works if your opponent is an idiot
I noticed on my second watch that when we first see "Andi" come out of the car to the boat, Benoit isn't looking at her, but at everyone else on the dock to see their reactions. The first time watching, I was like "why isn't he looking at miss Janelle???" and the second time made waaay more sense.
I do think Birdie's scream was performative, but just because she felt she was _supposed_ to scream with more feeling than she actually had. Very Jenna Maroney.
I don't know if you saw the movie Clue but she reminded me of a more modern day Mrs. Peacock. In that movie Mrs Peacock was known for being over the top and screaming hysterically.
Honestly, I love that Rian realizes that a good mystery SHOULD BE SOLVABLE if you pay attention to the clues. Knives Out and Glass Onion do what BBC's Sherlock could not. (to be fair, though, Death on the Nile did that too and it's not as good as the Knives Out franchise... but it's still nice.)
RIGHT? That’s also part of what makes these movies so rewatchable! I hope Netflix extends the theatrical release for the next one because I think they’re seriously underestimating how much people will show up to play detective. 😂🔎
@@jackainsley4365 If that was legitimately its aim, then it didn't understand its source material. But it seems to me more that it woefully missed the mark it was trying to hit.
Watching your video made me realize something. I'm pretty sure Gillian Flynn did a crappy job writing the murder mystery, Miles is just to stupid to realize that it isn't clever. and isn't interesting that Miles takes the credit for a woman's work but throws he under the buss once it's shown to be not so difficult all while he thought it was briliant.
He does that with everything. He takes credit and gloats but as soon as someone points out a flaw, he’s quick to confess it wasn’t really his idea. The box, the murder mystery, hell he repeatedly throws birdie Uber the bus when you just KNOW he’d be stealing her ideas if she ever had any good ones. I kinda feel Andi should have just gone public with the safety issues with Klear, and he’d have backed down, rather than threatening to walk. He seems to have a major possessive streak, and blacklisting her was his punishment for her thinking she was his equal, rather than a crony to just do as he said.
Oh I heard a different interpretation, given because it was actually a well written mystery, that’s why he could solve it. It because miles crime is so stupid and half assed that he couldn’t solve it cause he hates dumb mysteries and needed help (we saw this with the among us earlier and his discussions about clue)
@@firefly4029 @nerfvideos96 I hadn’t even thought of that! My read was she did an adequate (not genius) job but miles thought it was genius (because he’s clever, not smart) and was convinced no one would be able to solve it hence the bragging. Benoit deliberately solves it before it even happens to rattle him, and then Miles lashes out and throws Gillian Flynn under the bus since the mystery was not as amazing as he thought. Blanc is usually an observer, and would have happily lounged all weekend for the others to try and solve the mystery before he explained it at the end. That’s literally what he does with Helen for the rest of the film. He seems more interested in solving the puzzle than showing people he’s solved it. I see a lot of hate for the “Miles is an idiot” storyline as a writing cop-out. Thing is, Miles is clever enough to produce results from other’s ideas, just not smart enough to generate his own (like some real world people). The issue wasn’t just that Blanc can’t solve dumb games (humans are normally complex so the human element automatically elevates a real world mystery for him). Blanc assumed Miles was a genius so he constantly overlooked him as the killer, despite how obvious it was. He had presumably never dealt with a human as transparent as Miles Bron (a real glass onion). Once that image was destroyed, the crime was solved before they even got to the island.
To add onto this, I got the vibe that for all his name dropping, Miles isn't well-liked by other celebrities. SPOILERS Between this and the fact that Serena Williams was reading a book and didn't bother telling Miles the stuff she overheard, as well as the fact that celebrities whose name dropping effects the plot are either unbearable IRL or insignificant outside of their star roles -Jared Leto's kombucha & the hot sauce guy respectively. No offense to the hot sauce guy, I genuinely can't remember his name 🥲 anyways, I fully believe Miles is just varying levels of tolerated instead of actually respected or treated like a peer. EDIT: I'm a lil convinced Serena's lack of care may have been influenced by the fact that Miles very recently shafted his business partner who was also a black woman. Iirc Serena married the founder of Reddit so she probably also can see through the tech bro 🐂💩 he puts on
I wanna say that "Andi's" speech about her life been taken away feels specially powerful, on rewatch it felt almost as if Andi took over her sister's body for a second and confronted the people whom she thought to be her friends.
[SPOILERS] The thing that tipped me off to something being off with Andie was her nails and hair. A super rich recently fired CEO would never have that imperfect tapered cut and poorly done gel nails. I just knew something was off in that moment
For me it was just Janelle Monae's acting. I spent the first 3rd desperately hoping she was faking something because she wasn't pulling off the sleek confidence / dangerous vibe the character was clearly supposed to have. Then the twist happened and I was so happy - it takes some talent to act like you're acting without being obvious about it.
@@ellencoleman4604 same!!! Her and Miles. Since Miles had been bigged up to be some eccentric genius and then he just seemed like some dumb asshole. It felt so weird and off, but when Blanc started pointing things out in the end it suddenly made so much sense and made everything so much more satisfying to have noticed from the start
It’s interesting how both Blanc and Helen slipped and blew her cover. Helen slipped when she screamed “I’m not trying to kill you, you crazy b--!” in her high pitched Alabama tone and Blanc called her Helen loudly. None if the characters even noticed. Makes me wonder how many loud and obvious things slip passed me…
When Blanc and Andi step off the boat, the first thing she notices is that Blanc's shoe is untied. The first thing Blanc noticed when meeting Marta in Knives Out was the blood on her shoe. That sets up her observation and snooping skills being on par with Blanc later. I think we may have found our Watson.
Honestly, I hope she doesn't stay simply because I like the though of Blanc picking someone related to the scene of the crime as his Watson in every case. I mean look at it, Marta with the blood on her shoe, Helen being Andi's sister.... Much cooler to have him take someone along with him for one case each
She also needed an excuse to keep him away from the others so she could talk to him privately (letting him know that Duke and Birdie were getting suspicious).
It’s also seems that the progression of violence in the final scene and how at first when it’s just some glass sculptures being smashed, everyone joins in briefly before Helen escalates to breaking more valuable things and setting fires. Miles thinks at first that no matter what, he is safe from actual consequence and the others are just venting but eventually will fall in line. It’s like when those in power see a riot and don’t feel a need to react because it’ll all blow over, but Helen doesn’t stop. Not until the entire system that miles sits atop is literally burned to the ground. The rest of miles gang doesn’t join in when they fun stops and actually damage to the system that they are complicit in begins to burn. Afterwards they finally do what is right because they’re no longer benefiting but are also free of that system. It’s seems to me like a very powerful metaphor about how we as a society have miss understood how actually systemic issues are solved. It’s not just acknowledging injustice, you have to destroy anything that allows that injustice to persist
Yes I loved that part! Helen was smashing things because she was genuinely extremely angry, whereas everyone else just thought it was for funsies. I like that Birdie, the overly dramatic and loud one, was the first one to join in, and with something completely out of place at the time - something that looked more like a neon bar sign than the simple glass sculptures Helen was smashing. I really appreciate how they actually *let* Helen be angry. She wasn't just an surrogate for audience catharsis, she didn't stop when the scene had "reached its end." I love the way that parallels the "Disruptors," as well: they say they want to break the system, but they'll only go so far before they start to turn back around and uphold the system again. Beautiful scene, loved it.
i completely agree! the only thing i'd like to point out is that I don't think they 'finally did what is right' as you put it. I think that the moment they saw that Miles was doomed, they immediately jumped to the safer ship. If they side with Helen, their asses are less on the line. I don't think it had anything to do with any of those characters finally feeling free to do the right thing, or anything like that. The scene in which they all finally admit the truth, where they put their hands up saying 'yeah we saw Miles burn the napkin' was such an interesting one to watch because they all so very clearly were still only doing it out of selfishness. The fact that this action benefited Helen - her seeking Justice for Andi - was only a secondary outcome to them. None of them grew *at all* from what had happened on that island.
@@entitree. truee if they really wanted to do what was right they would have broken the system the first chance they got-- *not* lying for miles in court. So much for being disruptors.
Two of my favorite clues that I noticed in my first watch were that there’s a painting behind Blanc in the bathroom with Helen when they’re searching for the envelope. It’s the outline of a person with a red dot on their chest, which made me immediately remember the red center of the golden ratio in the frame. The hiding spot is also foreshadowed by Duke’s mom talking about the fibonacci sequence. The second thing I noticed was that Blanc claims that the puzzle box was full of easy “childrens’ puzzles.” Blanc admits that easy children’s games are his weakness-clue, among us, crosswords, etc. But Blanc doesn’t actually know what the puzzles were because Helen destroyed it.
I liked that it was the same painting that Blanc mentioned earlier in the movie, when he said "I can handle the Matisse in the bathroom, but a fax machine?" then we find out later that he had been in the bathroom with Helen scheming.
There’s even more relevance. That painting is Henri Matisse’s “Icarus.” A rendition of a famous character who used someone else’s creation to fly, grew prideful, ignored the warnings as he ascended higher, and then burned up and crashed down.
Spoilers! :D I think my favorite part of this movie was the scene where everyone is fighting after Benoit solves the mystery at dinner and the Mona Lisa guard keeps going up and down so loudly. It sounds like a guillotine. The whole scene is so anxiety-inducing and was also the point where I think we all realized that the Mona Lisa wasn't going to last through the credits. Also gotta love the beginning where Miles casually tosses Paul McCartney's guitar on the beach, again foreshadowing the Mona Lisa burning with how careless he is. Just like in the first movie, every detail was thought about in every single scene. Laziness is just not a word in this movie's vocabulary. I honestly like it just as much as the first.
God the guard was bothering me so much... I spent the entire movie wondering when the guard comes into play that I forgot the override button that Miles had installed. Only when everything was burning did I think "Oh wait! THE OVERRIDE!"
Blanc actually slips up and calls and calls Hellen by her name right before she gets shot which isn’t helpful as a clue but does plant the thought that something’s off if you caught it first time
I noticed it! And I was like: waaaait a minute, her name is not...?! And then I went "oooohhh, Benoit, you clever git..." I did not know yet -what- he did, but I knew then and there he orchestrated everything
SPOILER ALERT: A detail I noticed was that the cast list on the poster is arranged in a way that spoils the movie; similar to the poster for the first movie. 1st billing is Daniel Craig for obvious reasons. 2nd billing is the killer: Chris Evans & Edward Norton 3rd billing is the female lead: Ana De Armas and Janelle Monae The "and" billing is the murder victim: Christopher Plummer and Dave Bautista Also the fact that the 2nd act of the film is literally just the 1st act but from a different POV is crazy to me. I love it.
That's because of how movie contracts work. Dave Bautista's agent would have gotten him the "and" because he's a lead that doesn't get as much screen time or in the case of Kate Hudson you have the pull to be an "and". The order on the billing is all negotiated based on fame star power and how much screen time you get. Ryan would have had almost no control over it, it's all agents and legal teams. Unless he get's an actor that does what Keven Spacey did in Seven and insists he's not in the billing so he doesn't give away who the bad guy is. Billing is a big deal in movies and not an afterthought.
Almost like the murder victim usually isn't in the movie as long as the others and counts as a supporting character and the investigator gets top billing for being the Poirot equivalent, and then the people doing the heavy lifting for the plot. You could judge every movie this way, and it's a well known issue with police procedural TV shows that the guest star always did the crime.
I always think that the most famous actor will be the killer when I approach mysteries. I also think that the minority or gay person will not be the killer out of political correctness. We have a way to go in that regard.
I think the reason why Lionel and Claire felt kind of "boring" compared to the A-Team, is because they are, compared to the others, the left-leaning characters of the movie. On the one side we got the Men's rights activist who loves guns, the constantly ignorant and racist model turned fashion icon and so on. Big and loud and brash characters who don't really care about hurting others. Lionel is a scientist, he's smart. And he's black and has probably had his own struggles. Claire is a politician, a woman in politics strifing for a high position which is never easy, who doesn't want to be seen partying with Duke and has to keep up appearances with green deals. Her husband wears a Greenpeace shirt. Johnson calls them "the adults" even in his breakdown of the introduction scene. They are reasonable, progressive and liberal... and they still hang onto the golden tit. They know the fuel is dangerous but they don't confront Myles. They are cowards and don't want to give up their cushiony rich and successful lives. They perjure themselves for Myles. They are ready to cover up a murder for him without flinching. There are tons of real people like that. In politics and science and whatnot. And they are just as harmful as the loud rightwing manchildren with their "sorry feminists we love boobs" and their blackface minstrel bs, because they help the status quo and enable people like Elon Musk who will burn down the world if they want to. I like that they don't get exonerated and while they like to pettily smash Myles' things, they still try to stop Helen from burning the place down and only find it in themselves to backstab Myles after Helen had already destroyed the system and him. I like that they aren't exonerated because they aren't "as bad/as wild" as the rest. But you are right. Because they are in comparison more reasonable, they also come across as a little more muted.
This is a really good point. I think it's also difficult when their motives/backstories are not shown in-depth. In Knives Out, we see left-leaning characters that are still colorful and complicated (think Meg), and they remain that way for a multitude of reasons that just weren't fleshed out in Glass Onion. (I still love the movie, but I do agree that those two felt a little less colorful than some of the others.)
@@SolarisMusic Tbh I have to say that I recently rewatched Knives Out and I felt that Joni, Donna and Jacob were all "smaller" characters compared to the rest. They don't get much screentime or input. Sure, if you love the actor you probably pay more attention to them, but compared to the rest of the family, at least to me they tend to end up in the background.
Clair is not left-leaning. She is a centrist democrat who willingly and knowingly funds an unstable fuel source in order to secure her next election and maintain the status quo. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that democrats are left wing. THey'd be considered right wing lunatics in any other nation on earth.
I actually felt that they were a little centrist. While, pretty liberal, Claire, as a character, felt like she wasn't really left at all. And while Lionel may have had very progressive views, he wasn't really doing jack shit about it. But, Helen, the protagonist, was truly unique in that she's a black woman making very radical changes and literally smashing rich people property. She's the true leftist one tbh.
@@yukiandkanamekuran I mean, the term liberal essentially means centrist. It refers to someone who may be more socially progressive but still capitalist economically. Liberals just want things to stay comfortable and keep people quiet. Like the only MLK quote about the difference between a quiet peace vs. actual justice. Liberals historically end up siding with fascists cause they keep order and keep the trains running on time.
Spoilers below! Interesting to note that the during the beach scene when everyone is arriving on the island, Miles is surprised by both Benoit and Andi being there. At first I thought it was because there was bad blood between Andi and Miles, so he'd invited her without expecting her to show up. Later, I realized he was surprised because he'd only sent the invitation to Andi to cover his tracks (which is further confirmed when he mentions barely getting the last box in time, mostly likely because Andi's box was added to the order at the last minute). He also isn't smart enough to realize it isn't Andi at all, he thought he had failed at his attempted murder of Andi, which is why he shoots her later before 'Andi' can use the information against him; which just ends up incriminating him further. We didn't know about Andi having a twin sister, but Miles should have; and if he were smart, he should have burned the napkin the second he saw 'Andi' because recovering the napkin is her most likely motive for being there and he doesn't actually need it. But Miles is dumb.
One thing I really like is literally the title of the movie and the song it is based on. Glass onion is a famous song because John Lennon wrote it at a time of annoyance at critics, because he was writing simple lyrics yet these critics were reading into them with way too much effort and calling them genius. So John Lennon wrote glass onion, a song that was self contradictory and non-sensical, as well as being almost entirely based on references to previous Beatles songs. I think this perfectly encapsulates miles Bron’s character: someone who sees themself as genius and has convinced others of this fact as well, but at his core is just a complete joke who has never had an original thought
spoilers . . . . During the "Glass breaking" scene, i loved how the group was shocked at first, but then joined in for a shallow, performative protest. They were willing to break some decorative, easily replaceable trinkets to blow off some steam.... up until the system started ACTUALLY being threatened and "Disrupted". Helen wasn't blowing off steam. She was looking for justice in a broken system. Helen was willing to break something irreplaceable
One thing I noticed on a rewatch is that when the lights are out, Blanc calls out “Helen” instead of “Andi.” She responds so quickly it’s hard to notice plus it’s a name you haven’t been primed to hear for yet so it doesn’t go off with all the other tension in the scene. Also I gotta admit the points where “Andi” is confronting the group hurt on rewatch since you know that she isn’t “playing the victim” they are victim blaming when they perorated a crime by lying on the stand.
I’m gonna put two things I noticed here because nobody else I know has seen the movie: #1 the group calls themselves “the disrupters, but it was actually Helen, the only one who wasn’t part of the group who “disrupted” the pattern and simply smashed the box rather than putting in the effort to solve it. #2 Peg’s general character. I thought she was going to be a bigger character than she was and it was honestly pretty disappointing when she ended up playing a pretty minor part. She’s obviously been to several of these things before, but Miles doesn’t care about her at all. In the scene in which he gives out the personalised glasses, he gives one along with her exact drink order to Birdie, but hands her a cheap red solo cup without even looking at her. Reminds me of the scene in Knives out where one of the characters is making a point about immigration then hands Marta over his dirty plate so she can clear it without asking or anything, even though she isn’t even a maid, she’s a NURSE, that is NOT her job. Neither of those men care about Marta or Peg. Also, Peg writing her name on her cup with a marker, even though nobody could ever mistake her drink for theirs. It’s also maybe a sign about how badly she wants to be a Disrupter, because they all had personalised cups? And how she was the one to do most of the puzzle solving when it came to Birdie’s box?
You and anyone else is welcome to share their "nobody else I know has seen the movie" thoughts here! Welcome! 🤭 Peg desperately wanting to be a part of a group of terrible people that she very well knows are terrible just makes me not feel bad for her at all. 😂
Peg was so interesting to me because she was the sort of character that in a lesser movie would have been either a red herring who got accused at some point or the killer - she's overworked and under-appreciated, doesn't want to take the fall for bangledesh along with birdie, is skipped over as a suspect despite being in most of the scenes etc. But... this mystery is solvable, and a character without the presence the main group had would be so deeply unsatisfying as a killer anyway. Funnily enough that's what made the "ignore me" guy such a funny gag to me, it almost felt like a satire about lazily making background characters who Did It
A personal detail that made me laugh so hard on the ride home from seeing the movie was looking at the cast. I personally always get Edward Norton and Joseph Gordon Levit mixed up, so when Miles first appeared, I asked my dad if it was Levit. He corrected me that it was Norton, but on the way home I checked IMDB to see who else we missed in the cast and found Levit was the voice of the hourly dong. So he was actually in the movie without me knowing, but I was still right that he was there, which was just wild to see.
I was thinking about Peg and Whiskey, and now Duke's Mom (thanks to you!). I felt like one of the themes of the movie was how we quash who we are to be near the famous, the wealthy, to be liked, to win votes, or to stay in someone's good graces long enough to become famous or wealthy ourselves. Peg and Whiskey are minimal characters, but they are also On the Path of eliminating the best of who they are in order to "improve their brand" (Whiskey) or move up a Peg (Peg). (Oh god, I just realized that Miles and Duke "shared" Whiskey, and as a drink in the glass.) Duke's Mom is the Only person (outside of Helen, Andi and Benoit) who is willing to be themselves and show all they know. Duke's Mom lives with someone who doesn't respect women at all. She doesn't care. She doesn't hide her intelligence to make Duke feel better and she slaps Duke when he tells her to shut up. She's the first hero! Peg and Whiskey are better than this, but they have subjugated themselves in order to gain something from the famous people they are in service to--- in the same way that, farther along and deeper in the game, all the main "friends" group have already buried who they are in order to make Miles, their benefactor happy. (I even think Larry, the island-couch surfer, keeps making comments about his "invisibility" in order to keep living on the island off of Miles. He "doesn't exist" in order to survive.... neither, really, do any of the friends or their employees. They've all made themselves merely glass so you can see Miles through them.
SPOILERS (not big one but don't want to ruin it for anyone) one of my favorite costume and character scenes is when they are all enter with their masks. The way each character wears/which kind of mask they wear. Lionel wears a N95 mask because he is a scentist, Claire wears a fabric mask that is too big for her that keeps falling, obviously whiskey/duke wear none, and birdie wears that lana del rey mask and blanc wears a mask that is fashionable. I was very suprised on how well they handled COVID in this film. Ive seen a lot of media fail and this film actually understood what it was like to be in quarantine.
The masks part at the beginning was my favorite part (other than Janelle Monae because why wouldn't she be!) Each one outlined their personalities fantastically. And leave it to Miles to find and different alternative for COVID instead of just wearing a mask. It's crazy to me how media fumbles COVID and Quarantine, as if it wasn't something the ENTIRE WORLD experienced! But they handled it very well in the movie, and it wasn't triggering either.
I really like the fact that the film is organized in a very different way from Knives Out - we essentially watch the same series of events to occur twice, but the second time we are shown more critical pieces of information that help the story makes sense. The mystery is presented in such a unique way, with the narrative jumping back and forward in time
YES, EXACTLY! Also it shows that the rest of those people (the "disruptors" 🤡) are perfectly willing to keep playing Miles' silly games (that he didn't even create himself) whereas Helen will just get to the point in order to secure justice for Andi. 🥹❤️✨
yes and also they were all doing it together, none of them would have gone to that island if they werent a group solving that puzzle, they are all co-dependent and play Miles‘ games because „the others do it too“
SPOILERS! But I also like that when she burns it all down, she used his own stupidity to do it. The message is clear: we can destroy the system by simply creating the amber that will feed on what those in power created. It's satisfying for an ending. I think the ending was better than in Knives Out because it pointed out how ineffective the court system is and how cops are not there to give justice but there to maintain the system. I think it makes Benoît Blanc the only good detective in a murder mystery by understanding where the system fails and by giving the tools to those who deserve justice to take it themselves. Really loved the film.
Have you seen/read Murder on the Orient Express? Hercule Poirot does something similar there. I don't want to spoil it if you aren't familiar with the story, but while he doesn't necessarily give tools to allow justice to happen, he does realize that there are some things that the justice system can't take care of and acts accordingly.
@@classicceleste Yep. I loved how the detective handled finding out who did it and why in Murder on the Orient Express. Also, it was just incredibly done.
@user-sz2tw2or9s There's a lot of people who spent time and energy thinking about the modern justice system and tracking it across the ages to explain why the system is not working for anyone but those who write and upholds the law. Cops have an inherent impact in the way justice will look because they get to decide who is even brought to court. They are technically supposed to arrest anyone they think has committed a crime, but in actuality that is not how it looks and they have a larger impact in who will have to defend themselves in court. There is also something that people forget and that's the fact that simply because a law exist doesn't make it moral. Plenty of people in history have fought against immoral laws by committing the crime the law created. Justice is an incredibly nuanced topic that is hard to dive into in a UA-cam comment but my experience and knowledge has led me to see that the police and justice system do not offer real justice and I am simply glad that this was reflected in some ways in the movie. Especially when a movie centres a black woman victimized by a group of mostly white people, historically that never goes well even just as we saw in the movie in the earlier court scenes.
@Sanctus Paulus 1962 Laws are controlled by rich assholes, and we see the results with policing in america. Many police offices that are still active today began as slavecatching militia. They are still collecting checks for the same job.
@user-sz2tw2or9s you can stop purposefully misunderstanding their point. The cops do not serve justice, as in: they are not on the side of justice. The courts uphold the system, as in: the system of inequality that is not only present but *inherent* to the way the courts work. The only thing that police enforce is violence.
[SPOILERS] . . . . . I also love the fact that Miles' description of a "Disrupter" ends up being what Helen is in the end. She was willing to destroy what everyone says must not be, and she ends up destroying the Mona Lisa. Everyone else was too tied into Miles' work or were too fearful of him to step out of line. They were keeping the status quo. Instead Helen ends up burning everything, including a priceless work of art, to the ground.
Yes especially when miles says that people don’t really want the status quo to be disrupted and then when Helen was about to destroy the status quo (the Mona Lisa) he ran to stop her because as much as he loves disrupters, he falls right into the role that he himself tries to criticize.
I legit cheered when I realized she was going for it, didn’t even realize that every other character is trying to stop her from burning the painting, not trying to evacuate or anything at all (again they’re all so dumb), but I made the connection of Miles and the Mona Lisa and was just like HELL YEAH BURN IT ALL DOWN So cathartic.
Spoilers: One thing that I realized right after my first watching-the Mona Lisa is famously painted on a wood panel. The Louvre fully sold Miles a framed poster like it was mentioned when we see the painting for the first time. Wood doesn’t burn like canvas!
And also this would make the end of the movie moot, because the whole reason his company would be ruined is his new invention destroyed the world's most famous painting.
@@razk9231 He's still getting in trouble for Klear. He was selling it as a fuel even though it was super deadly. Also, he THOUGHT he had the real Mona Lisa. Nobody will EVER want to do business with a man who is too incompetent to keep the Mona Lisa safe!
It clicked for me when Helen didn't need their bracelets to enter their rooms, since he gave them to everyone claiming they had some sort of biometrics security
SPOILERS one of my favorite little moments is the Fibonacci sequence being mentioned in the intro puzzle and then being revealed as the hiding spot of the real napkin. not sure if that's another reference to miles not coming up with anything on his own or just a fun little easter egg, but either way I loved it.
i think its a cool call back to the idea of the glass onion, something with layers that points to the truth at the center. literally, as the smallest point of the frame showed part of the red envelope. i think it also reflect the group and miles influence and how he sees himself and the moving forcw behind each of the members. in reality, they were a group bonded by andy, but in his point of view, he was the multiplying benefactor that led them to reach their career goals. 1,2,3,5,8 and so on. rapidly gathering success. and while his money and connections were a great asset. he still knew, at the center of it all, it was all Andi's doing. pardon the long rambling response, this is something that really stuck with me on the second rewatxh. as well as the bit of dukes mom pointing it out lol.
I also like the Fibonacci sequence as a recurring theme, since it's become something of a meme - people like to throw it into places it doesn't belong to come across as intelligent and esoteric, but a lot of the time it's totally meaningless, like the words Miles makes up to appear ~disruptive~
@@margaretcummings4146 the fibonacci sequence DOES appear everywhere but at the same time, that's partially because we're prone to putting it everywhere
I don't usually pay attention to fashion in a film, but did you notice in the flashback when Myles asks what she's writing on that napkin, as he's shooting pool, he's wearing the exact same outfit, down to the hairstyle, Tom Cruise wore on Mangnolia? I haven't seen the movie but that image is famous. The description of that character, Frank TJ Mackey is 'a speaker whose main objective is to 'Seduce and Destroy'. Basically, that's what Myles did when introduced to the group.
I actually saw milles hand duke his glass the first time I watched but when they did the flashback shot, I was like was I mistaken so when blanc comments about how we all saw it and still believed it really hit me hard.
The movie does the same thing with Miles as a character, as LadyJenevia mentioned: we are shown that Miles is an idiot, but then through Blanc's own self admitted blindness to the stupid, we are directly told something else. I don't know if it is the right way of saying it, but basically, the movie gaslights the audience, and then shames itself for doing exactly that XD I can't help but love that.
i think glass onion will be funny to watch again in 10/20/30 years because it’s such a great encapsulation of the time. i think kids might watch it and find some parts over the top but then look into the time period and say ‘wow! that time was weird’. birdie’s lace mask on the dock is a scene that comes to mind.
@@morganburt2565 hell, it already had this effect on me when watching it on Christmas. I saw the dumb lace mask and was like "Oh shit, those were some really weird times 2 years ago, eh?"
Spoilers! One thing that I love in the glass smashing scene is the disruptors try and stop Helen destroying the Mona Lisa. We all know they weren't doing that for the painting, it was to help Miles. They only turn against him after Helen reveals his image and company are destroyed. They are still awful self-serving people, they've learnt nothing- and Miles is now faced with the reality he forced Andi to experience. They're all s***heads.
About the towel thing you said around 27:49, it’s more than that!!! It’s not just hiding Helen’s hair, it’s a hint towards her identity since that kind of towel thing is something you do when you have long curly hair not the short hairstyle Andi has. I instantly knew there was something weird about her just based on that towel.
One of my favorite little clues that my girlfriend pointed out is that when Duke first mentions Miles almost pancaking him on the way from Andi's house, Miles says deflects it by saying it was Anderson Cooper's party. As if he was referring to Anderson as Andi. Absolutely genius
I loved this movie so much! Rian Johnson just absolutely understands the Agatha Christie spirit with Knives Out and Glass Onion. It makes me so so so happy to see someone who /gets/ it making films like this for mystery lovers to enjoy. Benoit Blanc is also such a refreshing character! ❤It's so nice to see an 'eccentric and very clever but kind-hearted' detective in the vein of Poirot or Columbo (or even Holmes a la Jeremy Brett) after so many years of the 'super smart complete a-hole who gets away with being wretched to people because omg they're so smart!' model that has been so prominent for so many years 😩 Can't wait for the next one!
SPOILERS!!! I'm actually so SO proud of myself for catching the drink handoff the first time I watched it. While I still didn't know motive, I KNEW Miles killed Duke, and I knew it was especially important when we got the fakeout flashback. AND THEN, I didn't notice him in the initial run-up to everyone seeing "Andi"'s death at the top of the stairs [like a "who's missing here- YOU" sort of thing, biased because I'd managed to figure out Duke died], so clearly he killed her too! Admittedly I think this kinda ruined my investment in the movie because I could write off the rest of the characters, but it was still great watching the context as we followed Blanc and Helen. My running theory for motivation before everything played out was he was still salty about Blanc ruining game night. He wanted a mystery at the sacrifice of his friends, he wanted to be the one that came out on top, be smarter than Blanc. Guess I'm still in a Sherlock/Moriarty mindset, which tbf plays into the "giving Miles too much credit as a mad genius" theme.
I loved how despite me being able to guess major plot points (Ed Norton was behind the attempted/murder of Dave Batista and Janelle Monae, pineapple allergy behind the death, explosion caused by the made up fuel, etc) the movie still entertained me all throughout. It's probably funnier than Knives Out though I think Knives Out had a much tighter script.
Spoilers: On my first rewatch, I was amazed by how Miles’s speech about what being a “Disruptor” means is an EXACT description of what Helen does in the climax. Down to “breaking the thing that no one wants you to break” and “no one will be on your side”. When Helen starts breaking the bar and the piano, the group stop helping her, thinking she’s gone too far. But when she goes for the painting, they are actively running to stop her. I would love to see an edit with that speech over the climax!
As someone with an extreme pineapple allergy, I LOVED that addition to Duke’s character. Its a pretty rare allergy but is a serious one. Even a little bit can cause a full scale reaction, and its a small thing to mention in the beginning but is SUCH interesting foreshadowing, cause it makes you question Duke’s murder even more, cause you could easily think “oh it was an accident” and it throws you off for a bit! Its just a cool addition and I also think Duke’s death scene was well done cause the timing was even perfect for a serious reaction.
I was completely bamboozled by the movie tbh and I wanted to go back and look at past scenes but I couldn't. When the mystery was solved it made me really happy and satisfied even though I didn't have a clue on who was responsible. I could've tried harder but I wanted to give my complete attention to the movie and enjoy the ride, which I believe is a strength of the Knives Out series, whether you want to play detective or not it's a grand time watching!
11:10 (SPOILERS) This specific scene stood out to me on second watch. It seems a conscious choice that, even after Lionel counts down a time, all four members flick their switches out of sync. From the start, even as they’re built up as friends and compatriots, they’re not coming together.
I knew from the moment that Duke hit the ground that it was the pineapple that did it! It seemed so obvious to me but that was like the only thing I really figured out. Everything else I just tried to pick up as many clues as possible and noted that those details would pay off. For example: I noted that it was suspicious that we never saw Blanc's box invitation so we don't actually know what it looks like, I did pick up on the double 'pancaked' mention but didn't connect them to the same instance, I knew from the moment the car on the roof was first shown that it was some kind of chekovs gun, I noticed Claire and Lionel talking in the background of the pool scene looking kinda suspicious, I knew from the beginning of the whole arson scene that the line about Miles' name being mentioned in the same breath as the mona lisa was going to be said at some point, and finally (at least with what I can think of for now) though I didn't fully connect the dots to any logical conclusion, all of "Andy's" costumes having stark contrasts that separated the colours in the middle made me think she was styled very intentionally to indicate something and now I feel like the costuming was meant to show the split in her personality as she wasn't Andy as well as to show how her and her sister were complete opposites like the contrasts she was sporting
Yeah the pineapple was clearly set up in advance but I suppose the big question was WHO was going to use it against him and why. 🍍 👀 The car was a clue but more importantly, the fact that they say that it's a one-of-a-kind, meaning that if that car gets spotted somewhere it can only be his car as opposed to the same make/model belonging to some other person. 🚙💨
I loved the scene of Claire and Lionel talking because they set up the body language, angles to look like maybe they were flirting or attracted to each other.
Johnson had said that Knives Out was inspired in part by the 1970s film The Last of Sheila. After seeing Knives Out, I bought a copy of Sheila & was surprised to learn that it was co-written by Sondheim & Anthony Perkins. So Sondheim’s cameo made me especially happy (and that adds additional meaning to having Lansbury in the film - some argue that she’s the quintessential Sondheim leading lady…). Because of shows like Murder She Wrote, I don’t try to figure out the end of mysteries as I go along. I am pleased that Rian Johnson played fair & showed us what we needed to know, if we were so inclined. Jessica Fletcher pulled out clues the audience never saw…
SPOILERS After I saw this movie the first time, I immediately bought another ticket to see it the next night, and one thing that blew me away is how brilliant the writing structure for this story is. The idea of using a fugue as a story device is so smart, and it's used so many times in different levels of the plot structure. We are repeatedly shown things reoccurring but they are different the second time we see them. The most obvious/biggest way it's used is that the movie opens on a black screen while playing Little Fugue in G minor and then after Helen gets shot, we are given another black screen playing a different, more complicated, part of the Fugue. We are then shown previous events again but given their full context: what really happened when Benoit got the box, the reason why "Andi" tightened her fingers around the railing on the boat, why "Andi" was stumbling around, and the fact that Helen is the person who made the noise that Duke heard when he was watching Miles and Whiskey through the window just to name a few. But it's also used in smaller ways. Helen breaks apart the box and the small representation of the Glass Onion in it at the beginning of the film, and at the end of the film she breaks the real Glass Onion. Miles gets shot with a fake crossbow bolt and is covered in fake blood, and then later Helen is shot with a real bullet but also covered with fake blood. It even works in just one scene when Helen is breaking all the glass. The mood and tone change several times throughout the scene as Helen continually breaks things over and over and over again going from serious to jovial to serious again. We see the same things happening, but we feel differently about them and/or they have different consequences to the story each time we see them. This is the kind of movie I feel like I could watch ten times and still see something or connect something that I hadn't realized before. The biggest "duh" moment for me the second time I saw it was the fact that after playing Among Us, Benoit straight up says that he doesn't want to play games, he wants to work on a dangerous case. So the fact that he shows up on the island and acts eager to help Miles with his game should have been immediately suspicious. I've seen a lot of comments on other videos talking about Glass Onion saying that the writing is bad or "cheating" because it doesn't show us everything or give us enough clues to figure things out, which I strongly disagree with. Everything is there if you're looking for it.
Absolutely! I’ve seen it four times now and it’s extremely rewatchable. The more you rewatch, the more details you pick up on (like how they say the month the story is introduced in) which relates to the astrological sign of the necklace and how that fits into the timeline of events. If people think you can immediately understand all of the moving parts of what’s in the film from watching it once and then want to claim it’s not as good as Knives Out, they’re not equipped to be an informed commentator of this type of entertainment fiction. At the bare minimum you should feel compelled to watch it again to see if Miles really handed Duke his own glass out in the open the way he did.
@@LadyJenevia "If people think you can immediately understand all of the moving parts of what’s in the film from watching it once and then want to claim it’s not as good as Knives Out, they’re not equipped to be an informed commentator of this type of entertainment fiction." You've stated this perfectly. I can understand someone not liking a film's style or saying it's just not for them, but it's incredibly frustrating when people automatically say a movie is "bad" just because they're unwilling to look at it for what it is instead of what they wanted it to be. I was so glad to find your video because I loved the movie and was starting to despair at finding anyone who would go into more depth than just saying they thought it was okay or they hated it. (Though to be fair, I'm sure a huge part of that has to do with how new the movie is and the fact that it had a limited theatrical release. I'm sure a lot more people will be talking about it in more depth in a month.) And yes! Miles handing Duke the glass was the biggest thing I watched out for the second time, and I'm so impressed with Rian Johnson's skill as a writer and director to pull that off.
@@classicceleste I’ve seen people on social media who are diehard horror fans complaining when people who don’t like horror are the ones being assigned to review horror films professionally for major outlets. I have similar complaints about people who don’t like rom coms or romance stories being the ones to review new releases in those genres. You’re all entitled to like what you like but it doesn’t mean people are required to listen to your take on something or find it valuable. 😂🤷🏻♀️ I think at this point I’ve been able to pick up on a lot of the major clues of Glass Onion but there are still little details I pick up on with each new rewatch. I didn’t figure out in the first two watches that JGL is the voice of the hourly dong. 🤣
@@LadyJenevia Yeah, it's almost like you should have people who know what they're talking about be the ones to professionally comment on stuff... who could have foreseen that? My biggest issue with a lot of the negative comments against Knives Out and Glass Onion is that a big chunk of it is people who don't like Rian Johnson because they didn't like The Last Jedi. It's completely fair to not like The Last Jedi (although let me out myself as someone who thoroughly enjoyed that movie), but to then say that anything that director makes must be bad is so ridiculous I have to laugh at it or be horrified by how far someone is willing to let their hate blind them. (Especially since I thought that was supposed to be a bad thing in the Star Wars universe but... oh well.) Also... I'm ashamed to say that I didn't recognize the vast majority of the cameos by myself. I think I only recognized Angela Lansbury, Hugh Grant, and Serena Williams on my own. My inner theater kid's shame will be endless for not knowing what Stephen Sondheim looked like. 😅
@@classicceleste If you don’t like a director, don’t watch their new films when you already know you’re going to complain about them. (If your whole shtick as a creator or commentator is to to be snarky and bash things, that’s a different story. 😂) People constantly do that to M. Night Shyamalan when they have completely reduced what he does down to a very small idea. 😆 And I will admit it took me a few seconds longer to see who else was on the Zoom call when they first showed it because my brain was so fixated on seeing ANGELA LANSBURY making an appearance. 🥰
This film really took the "Hitchcock thriller inserted into a whodunnit" to the next level. I imagine some people will play around with this film in their editing software like they do with "Memento." Making it more chronological and understanding how it affects the experience. I genuinely hope this film gets a nomination for best editing at the Oscars because I could not fathom arranging all this footage so seamlessly.
To be completely honest I was dead set on the killer being Kathryn Hahn. I just had an odd feeling that Rian Johnson would want to continue the “It was Agatha all along…” meme into his own franchise. When she drank room temperature white wine that’s when I was 100% convinced that she was the killer. And meanwhile no one had even died yet. 😂😅 Also I literally cried when Angela Lansbury had her cameo. ❤
I love how at the end, Blanc chides Miles for stealing his offhand "lights out" ideafor himself, because he's so unimaginative. And then Miles later burns the tissue...but ONLY after he was asked why the hell he didn't burn it in the first place. He couldn't even think of his big table- turning villain move by himself!
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was at a family reunion and we wanted to watch a movie in theaters as a group. I didn’t know anything about the movie the others picked out beyond the title and the fact that it was related to Knives Out (which I haven’t seen). I went into it with few expectations and almost literally no information, and let me tell you, I was incredibly happy I did. It was the best movie I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching in theaters (which isn’t hard, I don’t go to theaters often). I found myself invested the whole time and highly recommend the movie if you haven’t seen it. You don’t need to have seen Knives Out to understand the plot.
Regardless of the context (and I loved the context) I loved Edward Norton getting to portray someone reacting to a priceless work of the most famous piece of art getting destroyed right in front of him. It was such an extremely unique specific thing he had to portray and I thought he nailed it.
i loveee that miles' monologue on breaking things literally foreshadows that whole sequence, down to the whole "break the thing no one wants you to break" being burning the mona lisa, it was so cathartic to watch that scene
My favorite thing about both of these movies is how they introduce information at the beginning of the second act that completely turns everything on its head. But watching it again, you pick up on all of the clues that are now obvious given your new information. Andi being "different", suspicious, and aloof and Miles being really surprised she's there. The dogs loving Marta but attacking Ransom. It's the little details you know?
That’s so funny in terms of the characters, because I feel the exact opposite @8:40 - I felt like some of the characters in the first Knives Out blended in for me bc they all represent privileged nepotism - but the Glass Onion characters were all so different in terms of life, style, etc, that they felt x 10 times more interesting
Same! I enjoyed Knives Out, but some of the Thromby’s kind of blended together for me. The Glass Onion characters were more colorful and memorable imo.
a trend that i've noticed in this and the previous movie is that you think you know what's going on, but then act 2 retcons everything you thought you knew, while making you feel stupid about not noticing the foreshadowing and i hope this trend continues in the third sequel (i really really hope we get another one)
As integral as Angela Lansbury’s career was to the whodunit genre (Death on the Nile, The Mirror Crack’d, Murder, She Wrote), Stephen Sondheim’s was even more so- especially considering the nearly endless homages in this film to The Last of Sheila.
[Spoilers] Meta: remember how with the first knives out we found out that Apple has a funny rule where "evil" characters can't be shown using thier products? This ends up also becoming it's own glass onion because the only character who we see use Apple is Benoit Blanc so it feeds into the idea that anyone could be guilty. Until you remember Miles exclusively uses analogue so by Apple rule standards, he must be extra guilty
Finally got around to watching Glass Onion, so even though I’m a couple of weeks late to the party and others have probably pointed this out already, I absolutely loved the setup! Right from the very start with the puzzle boxes we were told what had happened. The characters, and by extension the audience, was there to solve Miles’ murder. He brought everyone together to see if any of the Disruptors had figured it out, not realizing that the death wasn’t public since he didn’t have a phone. Just like how the first movie showed us exactly how Harlan died to take us away from the whodunnit aspects to make the reveal that Ransom did actually try to kill him still a twist to people who figured it out early, Glass Onion sets up the murder mystery premise, destroys it in one monologue from Blanc, and then reveals that there actually is a murder and a mystery, and that the guy behind it all was the guy behind it all. I still like Knives Out more, but Glass Onion is incredible and I can’t wait for the inevitable third film!
Spoilers!!! 1) I finally realized on my 3rd watch that we had so much foreshadowing in the script. The fake blood splatter on Miles for his murder mystery- Helen’s hot sauce blood. 2) the invention has a version of the Evil Eye- I think this may be a nod to how Miles’s friends protect him and ‘Ward off evil’ (ironic lol) 3)one of the books in Benoit’s bathroom is ‘Cain’s Jawbone’ which besides having an AMAZING title, it a famous book that doesn’t tell its story in a chronological order 4)I have a theory that Duke is mainly inspired by Keemstar since it was filmed prior to the whole Andrew Tate era. Duke rides a motorcycle, handles firearms irresponsibly, has a VERY young blond girlfriend, and films in his mom’s basement (Keemstar had a podcast called ‘mom’s basement’) lol 5)the cast kept referring to ‘pancake’ description of Duke’s almost car crash a lot, and it’s referring to one particular night, but the continued repeated use of it tells us it’s important, we just don’t realize until rewatch 6)Miles hired Gillian Flynn to write his murder mystery/ she wrote Gone Girl. A story about a women who disappears into another identity, just like Helen does 7) THE SISTERS NAMES- Cassandra is Greek, the ancient myth Cassandra was never believed!! Just like Andi wasn’t in court. AND Cassandra predicted that Helen would bring the downfall of Tory in the Trojan War. Sound FAMILIER???!! 8) the paintings in the backgrounds!!! They have soooo much symbolism. *art history nerd here*, and in the scene where Helen is told she’s been drinking alcoholic kombucha? There’s a painting o ICARUS falling from the sky. I think it’s foreshadowing Miles’ fall from grace! I love this movie lol
That's what's so fun about these whodunits! You can rewatch them over and over and find new clues, not to mention the like-minded people who like to look for the clues sharing them with each other so they can compare notes. 🥰🔍👀
theres more about cains jawbone! it was published in 1934 and is considered one of the hardest puzzles out there. the idea is that you have to put the scenes back in chronological order and say who the killer is. the solution has never been publicized and only three people in history have managed it, two in 1935, and one in 2019, during lockdown! there was a competition for it. maybe the book being on blancs shelf meant that he had also taken a try at the competition. either way its pretty cool + a sick title
SPOILERS !! - I've been bothered by this plot hole: if Miles knew Andy was dead, why would he have his puzzle guy send her a puzzle? Even if he was trying to keep up appearances, why send Andy a box when they are post-trial and not on speaking terms? Besides that, I loved this movie! I think the first one was funnier, but the mystery of this one was more engaging. I especially love that Benoit got to be part of the who-done-it aspect ! ALSO! I just remembered: Rian Johnson was the one who spilled the beans that Apple doesn't let the villain use their products, which is another clue that Chris Evans is the villain of Knives Out. So... I was watching EVERYONE'S phones in this! But everyone was using a different brand from each other, and none of them were Apple. So I think it's ingenious that the villain in this one doesn't have a phone, so you don't know if he's the villain or not based off of that detail. F-ing genius! 4D chess move right there !
Two possible options. If she turns up dead and he has sent her a box, he can use the box to try to claim that he was trying to make amends. However, since the whole point being repeatedly presented is that he’s an idiot, I would guess that he sent the box before finding out about the email. If I remember the timeline correctly, he murdered her the day after the email got sent because he drove straight to her house (which is the more reckless course of action for him to take).
The puzzles were sent way before he murdered her and it would be in character to leave it there as kind of a lazy alibi. Also, when they all arrive at the pier, (I think) they say that Andi was invited to all prior events but never showed up.
@@SmellsLikeBrass I'm just confused because of the falling out after the trial. Regardless of the murder, why would he want her there? But I guess none of the characters actually like each other so 🤷🏽♀️
One of the best things about this movie is that when I watched it the first time with my fiancé in our living room we were constantly pausing it to explain our theories to each other and any little guess we got right felt like a huge win.
I LOVED the Gillian Flynn detail because because she doesn’t pronounce “Gillian” with the soft G sound… she famously pronounces it with a hard G. Yet another thing he got wrong.
Something I really like and hope is continued in the next movie is the food analogies/monologues that blanc has in the movies, with glass onion being the aforementioned glass onion, and with knives out the donut monologue
And now that I think about it, his husband/partner/boyfriend Hugh Grant answered the door with flour(??) on his face. Maybe he's either a chef, or just a food/cooking enthusiast, and Benoit often has food on the brain as a result (that, or food was part of what drew them together...) MUCH to consider! ✨
@@LadyJenevia although I don’t belive that personally (a lot of people got into sourdough because of quarantine and I think that was just a tongue and cheek nod to that), that would be a super neat way of tying it together, all I know that is consistent in these two movies is the food monolauges and the fact that a line from earlier in the movie always comes back to kick the antagonist in the ass, with [SPOILERS FOR BOTH MOVIES TO ANYONE READING] Knives out it’s “Playing life like a game without consequence, until you can’t tell the difference between a stage prop and a real knife.”, and with Glass onion it was the whole thing about disruptors pushing, which makes other people motivated to push, until you push the one thing that nobody wants to push
SPOILER The Duke's death I realised was Myles, because when the Duke said he took my glass, and they showed that flashback, I thought 'that was lazy storytelling, we didn't need that flashback' and it felt out of place with how smart the rest of the movie was, then remembered that the shot was different and the 'flashback' was there as a red herring. Plus I love that Miles being the killer is just so obvious but perfect. Also, is a sweatshop where they make sweatpants?
SPOILERS In my opinion one of the things that stood out to me in a negative way compared to the first movie is that they do way more short flashbacks to things characters said that ended up being clues when the first movie did perfectly fine without that. For example they don’t do a flashback to when Harlan says that Random is unable to tell a real knife from a prop; in this movie there’s a flashback to when duke announces his pineapple allergy, when he mentions driving to andi’s house, they even do a flashback to blanc telling Helen he would give her a reminder of why her sister left in the first place when that scene happened like 5 minutes ago. I love this movie but in terms of structuring it just feels a bit insecure.
The thing that made me realize that the island was going to burn was Helen and Cassandra's names. The movie takes place in Greece, and both Helen and Cassandra are prominent figures in the Iliad. Cassandra prophecies that Troy will be destroyed but no one believes her (like Andi warning that the hydrogen energy is unsafe but getting ignored and silenced), and it's Helen's arrival in Troy which causes the eventual destruction (Helen burns the island). Add to the metaphor that the invitations arrived in a wooden box, which could arguably be a loose Trojan horse reference. I've only seen the movie once so I'd love to go back through and see if there are more details I missed!
Some randoms thoughts I had about the movie: 1) Wasn't it hilarious how Benoit Blanc solves the party murder mystery even before it begins? 2) What was the meaning of that random guy walking around the estate, saying, "Don't mind me"? 3 Wouldn't a more rational person have protected such a fragile object as the napkin? It was obvious that Miles would snatch it away and destroy it. 4) Loved all of the behind-the-scenes running about by Benoit and Andi. 5) It seemed obvious to me that all of those absurd glass sculptures were going to get smashed. They are all in the way on those precarious pedestals and not fastened down. 6) The twists in the movie were delicious. Especially Andi not really being shot. 7) The geeky way Miles acts when the action starts getting dangerous reminds me of Ransom in Knives Out sort of doing the same thing. And they are both the villains! 8) I was very curious to try and see what was actually written on the napkin. 9) Burning down the Mona Lisa? Really? unforgivable. 10) I figured out two of the puzzles in the puzzle box instantly. The stereogram and the chess board. How did Ma Cody see so well across the room like that?
The random guy walking around is Noah Segan, Rian's friend who was also in Knives Out as Trooper Wagner. He's in there just for fun. 😂 She's not entirely in a "rational" state of mind. She's extremely emotionally upset and devastated by the loss of her sister. Also she might not assume his inclination towards destroying evidence because he had it in his possession for all that time and kept it intact. You'll be able to better read the napkin after it comes out on Netflix, when you can simply press pause. That's another reason why I feel strongly that this needed to be played as a cinema release. There's too many things you'll catch on a first watch if you keep pausing or rewinding to see what really happened (which is NOT the way a story like this is intended to play out). 😆
I like that the random guy also plays into the Glass Onion concept, they tell you to ignore him because he's not part of it, but you don't because it surely there are more layers to it, but there isn't. Like with everything else, the answer was there from the begining and any complexity was purely from your own assumptions.
Actually, regarding your 2nd question, I have a slight theory on it! (i've only watched the movie once so im not entirely sure but if my memory serves me correctly) I noticed that Derol (the random guy) walked across the screen 3 times. The first time he walked from left to right, behind Miles (who was in the foreground) during that scene when the cast first arrived on the island. The second time he walked from left to right again behind Miles. The third time he walked from right to left, but this time behind "Andi". In stage plays, villains would most commonly exit stage left (our right), whereas heros would exit stage right (our left). So as my theory, I would say that Derol's role is to help us highlight who are the villains and heros in the way he exists the "stage" or screen!
Someone might have already mentioned it but I really love the scene where Helen mirrors the face of the mona Lisa as Miles describes her as enigmatic. It both foreshadows how Andi is not as she seems with her being Helen and also how she goes on to destroy the mona lisa due to their connection to eachother. I also liked how you can see Helen stumbling very early before the " there's something different about her" line like you mentioned foreshadowing her not being Andi but also how she uses alcohol as a crutch for confidence.
I haven't seen really anyone commenting on it either but yeah it wasn't even subtle. I remember turning to my friend and being like "wow that lady really sticks to that one angle, huh? Shall we call her Lisa now or something? "
Another note! Another reason why I don’t think audiences would have caught Miles having the phone in his pocket at first watch is despite us being told earlier that he doesn’t have phones, we’re just so subconsciously used to seeing phones in pockets now a days that we probably thought nothing of it if we forgot a detail or two and saw the phone. This movie totally slayed! Janelle Monet looked FIERCE I was in full fangirling mode over the costumes, Jenny the costume designer did SO GOOD! I’m defo gonna rewatch the movie and see if I can catch any of the clues I missed
What's wild was that my brother was the only one in the room who noticed this, picking up on it right away. But being on the autism spectrum I've noticed he picks up on things I don't think to look for. It was my second watch, so I knew Miles had the phone, but I didn't bother to look for it even. The level of detail blew my mind. "He's got the phone in his back pocket, I saw it! He doesn't even have a phone!"
I love the detail of miles not having a phone because it was a great was to throw in the reasoning of why he wouldn’t have an iPhone. In a vanity fair video breaking down a scene from Knives Out, Rian Johnson explained that the villain in any movie isn’t allowed to have an iPhone, after saying he would be shooting himself in the foot if he ever wanted to write another mystery. Very clever
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Another thing no one seems to have picked up on is the notion of disrupters. If you look carefully there’s a shot of the book” the innovators dilemma”, (when Andy destroys her bookshelf) which is about how disrupters and destroy and take over established innovation and technology. Andy being the victim of disruption. There’s a lot more if you read the book. I only noticed because I am writing a report on the book for uni!! I highly recommend you add this to your analysis!
I don’t know if this will sound too geeky, but I am sincerely hoping that if this movie gets released for digital sale, that there will be a directors commentary audio option like there was on Knives Out. 😁
This video being recommended to me was how I learnt Glass Onion was coming. I didn't watch it then. I just finished watching the movie and I'm coming back to the video now! I've never heard of ou before, so congrats on the algorithm!
One thing I realized after rewatching is that Miles Bron got the idea of hosting a murder mystery for his friends from murdering one of his friends. Because Miles is too stupid to think of an original idea
You just made me notice something I hadn't seen anyone say but maybe it's just super obvious: Blanc overlooks Miles as a suspect for Andi's murder because "it would be too stupid to put himself that close to the murder, especially right after a huge court case". Blanc was getting so frustrated about how dumb Miles actually is so it makes perfect sense that is exactly what he did.
Edit: nvm I finished the video and she literally mentions this🤣
@@doatmidnight8540 I also like the little touch of when Helen says that Blanc must be very good at Clue he says he's very bad at 'dumb things', which is why he initially rules out Miles as a suspect.
@@ondatheworld ahhh that's great! I definitely didn't catch that. Dang. I'm going to watch it again tomorrow.
but why would he invite her to the murder mystery AFTER murdering her?
@@qwerty687687 because why would a murder invite someone they know is dead? Big brain
My favorite “OMG he hid it in plain sight” clue watching the second time was that before you even know Helen exists, you see Benoit call Andi “Helen”, just before she’s shot. That’s some ballsy writing.
Mine was Duke’s “remember when you almost pancaked me” casual line in the pool which at first plays like a “haha good times” nostalgia thing, but in reality is a “let me remind you, I know what you did” said in front of everyone
@@Rilofusbut duke didn’t know andi was dead at that time
Thank you, I was looking for this comment! After Helen is revealed I was like Wait, I'm sure someone said the name Helen before but when/who... I want to wait a little longer before watching it again so now that's cleared up haha.
Same! I thought it was bad captioning or something.
I need to watch it again?
I felt so proud of myself bc as Miles was saying “look at that dress! Look at that spin!” I made it a point to look at anything BUT the dress and caught him handing over the glass lol
Miles: h-
Us: SILENCE, DEMON!
😂🙉
I caught it the first time without looking but then when they did the “replay” of Duke grabbing the wrong drink my mind instantly flipped out trying to recount what actually happened like in the movie 😂 felt so gaslit for a hot second
@@PukingPanda yo i literally remember him handing the glass but assumed i was wrong. I let myself feel gaslit lol.
I love that you can actually see it happening if you were paying attention. In these kinds of movies, most of the key clues are completely hidden from the viewer. This movie manages to be smart and surprising, even when it is possible for the viewer to discover the killer (to a certain extent). Of course, the writers *have to* keep some details away from the viewer until the end, that's imperative in this genre of movies. But I like how this one doesn't do that as much as the majority
@@LadyJenevia If you really looked at Miles during the movie, you can see him steal Duke's gun (caught on first viewing) after he's told to look at the numbers, and when he goes to get the drink for Duke, you can see the gun in the back of his pants and you can LITERALLY see him dump the gun into the ice bucket.
After this, my biggest takeaway was the desire to have Marta, Helen, and Blanc in a book club/group chat. It's just funny to me that, amidst the shitty people surrounding each case, he latches onto the one decent person and decides that they're his new best friend.
yeahyg its so nice, its a true alley of the unfortunate, that rise up like a phoenix
Assigned Good Person at Benoit Blanc
Blanc reminds me a lot of Poirot, and that seems to be one of his habits, as well. New murder? Better grab a Watson.
@@EmeraldAshesAudioExcept that each time, the “Watson” is the true protagonist and the one who brings about the villain’s downfall. Blanc may put the pieces together and give the protagonist a nudge, but they’re ultimately the one who takes the villain down in their own way.
@@EmeraldAshesAudioYeah, and that’s who ends up in physical danger and doing the grunt work.
He’s good at reading people and piecing things together.
I really like how both Knives Out films have very satisfying but polar opposite endings. I still find Marta drinking out of the ‘My House, My Rules, My Coffee’ cup at the end of knives out just as cathartic as Helen burning down the Glass Onion
Something about the mug in the original Knives Out
First time we see it is Harlan putting down the mug and we can clearly see the three line "my house, my rules, my coffee"
Then when the will is read and Marta doesn't yet feel like taking it all, she has the mug in her hand with a finger over each line
Finally when the whole family is out and she's on the balcony, only "My house" isn't covered
The attention to detail in those films are top notch
Honestly that attention to detail makes them soooo enjoyable! The viewer is being rewarded for paying attention, it's great!
Marta wins because she's legally right. She didn't kill anyone, and the will says everything is hers.
Helen wins because she burned the Mona Lisa and gets people to lie in court.
Both of these are good endings that they deserve.
@@genericname2747 you're right but more essentially both women succeed in the end because they didn't play the game like the others. In the end they decided that all that crap wasn't for them and stayed true to their own personalities even if it meant risking a bad outcome for them personally. Thankfully it turned out for both of them to be just what they needed.
@@GemR38 I didn't even realize that, you're right.
My favourite 'glass onion' obvious clue is when the lights go out and Miles explains he was supposed to say something dramatic at 10pm and then the power would cut out for his mystery game, but he was supposed to be murdered at dinner at 8pm. He retroactively set up the light scenario after getting the idea from Benoit Blanc.
Tbh I can still imagine him to say something like "And so the game begins!" even though he's supposed to be dead
@@CanelaAguila yeah I agree with this
hm, but he himself states that he'll still be speaking to them normally for the rest of their stay, even if not about the murder mystery he could have planned on saying something dramatic
I really badly want to believe thats the intention. Its so perfectly in character.
@@neveerland Yeah this is more likely it. Because if this is a clue, Benoit should have pointed it out.
Another great bit of planting an idea up front and telling you what's goihg to happen in plain sight is the Among Us gag at the start with Blanc, which you think is just a throwaway joke, but then the whole time on the island Helen is literally an imposter
Or lines said by other characters that we took figuratively but were very literal. Like Hahn’s character observing “Andi” and saying “Something’s changed, she’s not herself” - she’s LITERALLY not herself 😂 really excellent!
_And_ it introduces Blanc's weakness at solving dumb things. It works just as a joke, the kind only Knives Out is hip enough to pull off, but it comes packed with layers too!!
Also the importance of the vents, she uses the vents to wreck him!
The vents!! I didn’t even think of that! Good connection
And Benoit himself is an imposter.
SPOILERS
Watched it last night and my favorite part is the breaking of Andi’s box. That’s the true onion here, and it’s such a delight to watch it peeled. You see it the first time and are like “Wow, that lady’s angry.” And you find out Andi has every right to be angry, cool. Then you peel back another layer and that lady’s still angry, but it’s Helen, who arguably has even more of a reason to be angry. And then you peel back another layer and realize she’s not just breaking it because she’s angry, she quite literally doesn’t know how to open it, and doesn’t care to figure it out. And then you find the center and you realize Helen is the only true disruptor of the bunch, willing to burn everything down so it can start again, and someone else can do it right this time.
Also oh my God the twins’ names were Cassandra and Helen, one the prophetess who no one believed and the other the woman responsible for the burning of an empire. Shit, Rian, give me a minute to breathe here.
SO GOOD, and the more you rewatch it, the more details you notice. That's why I saw it as many times as I could during its limited theatrical run (which ended up being six). 😂
OMG the names!! I hadn't noticed!
Omg, yes, Cassandra's name!!!!!! I realized that as I was watching it how her name choice correlated to her situation
When I watched it the first time, I was expecting Knives Out, so I was like oh she doesn't play the game by Miles' rules, and tbh I think that still kinda applies but it's probably not the main goal of the scene
That scene was so funny to me because we just saw an entire group struggle to open the box and then it cuts to Helen doing it easily with just a hammer. Work smarter not harder.
My favorite parallel of Glass Onion was when miles made his big speech by the pool about how to be a disruptor and how you have to start with one thing and then build up. Andi (Helen) does that EXACT thing at the end. Starting with the glass sculptures and waiting for everyone to join in. Miles said by the pool “people will tell you to stop” and then he told Helen to stop repeatedly. Miles also said “then go for that big thing that no one would ever touch” Helen did that exact thing by destroying the Mona Lisa. I loved how she did everything that he said to screw him over.
And the last part about Miles speech about breaking the one thing no one wants you to break and having no one on your side after it. He foreshadowed his entire downfall.
One of my favorite details is Blanc disliking basic detective games (ie. clue, among us, etc.) at first it is a funny gag. “The ace detective is bad at mystery games” but then in the scene where Blanc unfolds it all it’s revealed that this whole thing was basic like the games and he’s angry at it LIKE THE GAMES.
idk if i explained this well lol
Yes and he also says that he doesn't like Clue and that he himself is bad at doing things like running around and checking rooms and so it's Helen that gets to do all of that on Miles' compound. 😁
Also the among us game in the beginning hints at there being an impostor in the movie: Helen
@@LadyJenevia oh my god I didnt even realize that. That's brilliant
It works when you remember that in Knives Out, he didn’t accuse Marta despite knowing that she was involved in Harlan’s death because he wanted the full picture, as well as him fixating on who hired him.
My favourite detail was Helen being in the Mona Lisa pose in the final shot. She hand placement, her smile, the tilted body, the light of the fire behind her. It was magnificent!
"Her smile's there, then it disappears. Is she happy? Is she sad?"
Well we can certainly say Helen is happy.
What I love it Birdie's introduction with not being allowed on twitter for saying "a word that she thought meant cheap" and didn't know was a slur or whatever and I think most people thought is that "oh she's lying, she knew what it meant and is trying to cover her own ass" because that's what everyone says who gets caught saying a slur. they didn't know what it mean, they didn't know it was derogetory, they grew up using it.
And then you get to the scene where she shows an email about sweat shops and you just realize "oh she wasn't lying at the start, she's just fucking stupid"
I think that was honestly why Birdie was my favourite out of the disruptors. She was the one who clued in and plotted the least, because she couldn't.
She's still a terrible person as she was written, but I loved that they genuinely made her that clueless and stupid in a mystery. Nice change of pace from "The idiot is actually a genius tricking you all" kind of twist that got really popular
Honestly half believed her the first time. Some people… some people are truly that dense.
@@DeathnoteBB yh some people.....🥲
I'm a bit ashamed to say that my first response to her not knowing what a sweat shop was was 'awww. it was an innocent mistake'. But I think it's less about her being dense and more about her being selfish and not caring enough to learn about serious issues and the lives of other people. People SHOULD know what a sweat shop is. ESPECIALLY someone involved in fashion. I think it was a very wilful ignorance.
Birdie’s my favorite, just because she’s obliviously evil
Some of my favorite moments were little things Peg was doing in the background. Like using the magic marker to put her name on the plastic cup that _no one_ would think belonged to anyone but her.
There was an interview clip of Dave Bautista talking about Jessica Henwick and how good she was at being a scene-stealer in the background.
Which interview? Btw she did Peg so well! Especially that scene she had with Birdie when they were speaking in her bedroom. Absolute GOLD.
I loved that bit. I think she might be putting her name on it because all the other drinking glasses have names embossed in gold, even Andi's (except for Blanc of course). Also it is very telling that she gets a shitty red solo cup while 90% of the entire place they are in is made of glass lol.
Also theres a scene breakdown that rian johnson just uploaded, katherine haan is great in thr background
@@Tactical_Buttcheeks exactly. It feels like he bought this cup just for Peg the same way he had the glasses commissioned for his "friends". He is such a shithead lmao I love this movie
Aesthetic vibes, I love how different this movie is. If Knives Out has big autumn vibes, then Glass Onion has very summer vibes. Can't wait to see Blanc's winter fashion in the next movie
He’s rolling up in houndstooth I just know it
Which aesthetic vibes?
oh it HAS to be a situation where theyre stuck indoors because of a snowstorm and then a murder happens. can't wait!!!
WAIT WAIT WAIT
One of Thrombys books was called "A kill for all seasons"
omg that makes me so excited, i truly do hope they make one for each season
How much do you want to bet that if blanc hadn't called the puzzle box "simple children's puzzels" he would have taken credit for it. Like for the murder mystery, he didn't want to toot his own horn until blanc solved it, then we learn he hired someone to write it
It's so hilarious because when Blanc "ruined" his little murder mystery game, he mentioned a giant "B" in the garden being an obvious, tacky clue. And it cuts to Miles for brief second. And you just KNOW he PERSONALLY added that in there just because he couldn't help himself by trying to be "innovative".
And then there's later on when he hides the original napkin in _plain sight_ RIGHT next to his desk instead of BURNING IT.
Which is pretty much his character in a nutshell: An obvious fool who can't get out of his way long enough because he wants to feel clever.
One of my favorite things about this movie and the vibe of it compared to Knives Out is that this movie screeeeaaaammms new money. It stood out to me immediately with all the flashy high-tech versus the wealth of the mahogany home in Knives Out. ALSO the masks perfectly encapsulate the character just an excellent move on the costumer's part. Rian Johnson Director of Details
Benoit Blanc being on Zoom to do online gaming! 😂
birdie’s lana del ray mask was my favorite it told me everything i needed to know about her character😂
@@micolea1569 the absolutely useless mask, and then her comment about being able to breathe again. Just a perfect one two punch
the thrombeys are also new money
@@thumpted8417 I think they mean that they presented themselves as old money with the manor and the decorations to the way they dress and talk, even calling it their ancestral home
Spoiler: Something I noted. When I saw Helen destroy the box, I automatically assumed that someone else had to have invited Blanc. His partner said that there was someone with a box at the door. Blanc said he got the box and there were some simple children's puzzles. So I automatically ruled Helen/Andi out of the running. Completely fooled lol
Exactly the same on my end. It was one of the misdirects that worked so well precisely because I had paid attention.
The balls on Blanc to refer to them as “simple children’s puzzles” to Miles’ face despite literally not knowing anything about them.
@@TheBasikShowTBF, what he saw of them in the debris would look like that. Tic-tac-toe, a slide puzzle, and pegs in a board.
I loved the touch that he didn’t think to burn the napkin until someone else brought it up
So I’ve noticed each heroine of the Knives Out movies also have some physical oddity, Marta of course vomits when she lies, and Helen only seems to get bolder from alcohol consumption but never gets dumber or less observant as you’d expect someone who never drinks would get from pounding back several of Jared Leto’s 18 Proof Hard Kombuchas.
That’s hard kombucha… that’s Jared Leto’s hard kombucha!
@@jeremyrosenberger8535 I assume that was a reference to the fact Jared Leto also owns a private island but populates with with a creepy semi-religious cult dedicated to him (kinda like how Musk collects a bunch of weirdo followers for his cult of personality).
That didn't really seem that odd to me though, I think a lot of people who aren't very confident talking around others really do just get bolder/more confident without having their intellectual capabilities impacted yet in any significant way up to a certain point of intoxication. Obviously not anymore when they are just completely drunk, but Helen just never seemed that level of completely drunk to me
At first I was absolutely devastated when Miles burned the napkin, but in retrospect, that's such a nice and witty touch to defining Helen's character, story and reasons. She doesn't seem the type to want to gain any material goods or compensation for her sister's death, especially in court, so avenging her and making sure Miles is stopped seems a dignified and appropriate consensus for her story.
Best part about it was that he only burned it after lionel called him out for keeping it and not burning it.
@@Pookiepantsmcpoo I swear, Miles as a character is so comedic in the way he's written and portrayed. I absolutely lost it when Blanc realised he stole the light switch idea from him as well!
@@candiedoe848Blanc being more angry at the fact that Miles is a moron than he is at Miles being a murderer is the best. Could hear his brain going “I once had a guy with a near fool-proof plan to murder his grandfather and pin it on the nurse so she wouldn’t get the inheritance, which only failed because he underestimated how good of a nurse she was, and THIS is what I was up against?!”
Also the fact that Among Us has thematic relevance to the entire movie is a fact that I cannot get over. That’s amazing and it only goes deeper the more you think about it.
It wasn’t just a pop culture nod, it’s legitimately the whole plot summed up in one scene.
Plus, it was just a thing the characters were doing. They weren’t acting like it was the gospel or something, they were just playing a game that fit with both the story and the time period.
I noticed that Helen and Cassandra are named after the Illiad characters, with Helen being the "face that launched a thousand ships" (she set the fire that brought the rescue boats) and Cassandra was the prophetess that was cursed so that no one believed her. Andi is exactly the same, she tells the truth but isn't believed.
Also, Helen is brought to an unfamiliar place (troy/the glass onion) by a man she trusts (paris/benoit), but returns home at the end of the war, and Cassandra is forced to move from her comfortable place (troy/the world of the rich) to an unfamiliar place (agamemnons palace/ousted by her friends) and is killed as a result. The parallels are EVERYWHERE!
Oh thats a really good comparison!
There's also mythos about Helenus, Cassandra's twin brother, who was also a seer! According to some writers, Helenus was the one who thought of the Trojan Horse, which led to the sacking and fall of Troy, while Helenus watched on.
Also, the painting in the bathroom Blanc and Helen spoke in was Henri Matisse’s “Icarus.” A character whose story matches very well with Miles’.
I love the ways Rian tells you the movie will end from the heroine introductions. Marta wins the game of Go by playing it her way, not by Harlan’s rules. She beats Ransom because she stays true to herself, not playing into his or Harlan’s scemes. All of the core cast of glass onion play along with the puzzle box to get the invitation. Helen doesn’t play the game, she breaks it with an axe. In the end, she doesn’t play the legal game, the takes a torch to the mansion and the wealth and burns it to the ground. She doesn’t play the game, she breaks it.
My addition to the pile of little cool details is that the chess puzzle at the start is the Fool’s Gambit, in which the Queen puts the king in checkmate and it only works if your opponent is an idiot
I noticed on my second watch that when we first see "Andi" come out of the car to the boat, Benoit isn't looking at her, but at everyone else on the dock to see their reactions. The first time watching, I was like "why isn't he looking at miss Janelle???" and the second time made waaay more sense.
I do think Birdie's scream was performative, but just because she felt she was _supposed_ to scream with more feeling than she actually had.
Very Jenna Maroney.
It could also be that she likes attention. She made a huge commotion when joining Helen's rampage of smashing things. 😂
I don't know if you saw the movie Clue but she reminded me of a more modern day Mrs. Peacock. In that movie Mrs Peacock was known for being over the top and screaming hysterically.
„IF (*minor inconvenience ad-lib*) I WILL KILL MYSELF!!”
Honestly, I love that Rian realizes that a good mystery SHOULD BE SOLVABLE if you pay attention to the clues. Knives Out and Glass Onion do what BBC's Sherlock could not. (to be fair, though, Death on the Nile did that too and it's not as good as the Knives Out franchise... but it's still nice.)
RIGHT? That’s also part of what makes these movies so rewatchable! I hope Netflix extends the theatrical release for the next one because I think they’re seriously underestimating how much people will show up to play detective. 😂🔎
Absolutely agree.
BBC Sherlock wasn't ultimately a mystery show though. It was a meta character study of Sherlock Holmes.
@@jackainsley4365 If that was legitimately its aim, then it didn't understand its source material. But it seems to me more that it woefully missed the mark it was trying to hit.
@@SonicTheHedgedawg It's a modern AU with changes that reflect that. To each their own.
Watching your video made me realize something. I'm pretty sure Gillian Flynn did a crappy job writing the murder mystery, Miles is just to stupid to realize that it isn't clever. and isn't interesting that Miles takes the credit for a woman's work but throws he under the buss once it's shown to be not so difficult all while he thought it was briliant.
He does that with everything. He takes credit and gloats but as soon as someone points out a flaw, he’s quick to confess it wasn’t really his idea. The box, the murder mystery, hell he repeatedly throws birdie Uber the bus when you just KNOW he’d be stealing her ideas if she ever had any good ones.
I kinda feel Andi should have just gone public with the safety issues with Klear, and he’d have backed down, rather than threatening to walk. He seems to have a major possessive streak, and blacklisting her was his punishment for her thinking she was his equal, rather than a crony to just do as he said.
Oh I heard a different interpretation, given because it was actually a well written mystery, that’s why he could solve it. It because miles crime is so stupid and half assed that he couldn’t solve it cause he hates dumb mysteries and needed help (we saw this with the among us earlier and his discussions about clue)
@@firefly4029 @nerfvideos96 I hadn’t even thought of that! My read was she did an adequate (not genius) job but miles thought it was genius (because he’s clever, not smart) and was convinced no one would be able to solve it hence the bragging. Benoit deliberately solves it before it even happens to rattle him, and then Miles lashes out and throws Gillian Flynn under the bus since the mystery was not as amazing as he thought.
Blanc is usually an observer, and would have happily lounged all weekend for the others to try and solve the mystery before he explained it at the end. That’s literally what he does with Helen for the rest of the film. He seems more interested in solving the puzzle than showing people he’s solved it.
I see a lot of hate for the “Miles is an idiot” storyline as a writing cop-out. Thing is, Miles is clever enough to produce results from other’s ideas, just not smart enough to generate his own (like some real world people). The issue wasn’t just that Blanc can’t solve dumb games (humans are normally complex so the human element automatically elevates a real world mystery for him). Blanc assumed Miles was a genius so he constantly overlooked him as the killer, despite how obvious it was. He had presumably never dealt with a human as transparent as Miles Bron (a real glass onion). Once that image was destroyed, the crime was solved before they even got to the island.
To add onto this, I got the vibe that for all his name dropping, Miles isn't well-liked by other celebrities.
SPOILERS
Between this and the fact that Serena Williams was reading a book and didn't bother telling Miles the stuff she overheard, as well as the fact that celebrities whose name dropping effects the plot are either unbearable IRL or insignificant outside of their star roles -Jared Leto's kombucha & the hot sauce guy respectively. No offense to the hot sauce guy, I genuinely can't remember his name 🥲 anyways, I fully believe Miles is just varying levels of tolerated instead of actually respected or treated like a peer.
EDIT: I'm a lil convinced Serena's lack of care may have been influenced by the fact that Miles very recently shafted his business partner who was also a black woman. Iirc Serena married the founder of Reddit so she probably also can see through the tech bro 🐂💩 he puts on
@@jojoslameerrand9305 Hot sauce guy was Jeremy Renner
I wanna say that "Andi's" speech about her life been taken away feels specially powerful, on rewatch it felt almost as if Andi took over her sister's body for a second and confronted the people whom she thought to be her friends.
[SPOILERS] The thing that tipped me off to something being off with Andie was her nails and hair. A super rich recently fired CEO would never have that imperfect tapered cut and poorly done gel nails. I just knew something was off in that moment
"Yo your haircut off, what's wrong?"
For me it was just Janelle Monae's acting. I spent the first 3rd desperately hoping she was faking something because she wasn't pulling off the sleek confidence / dangerous vibe the character was clearly supposed to have. Then the twist happened and I was so happy - it takes some talent to act like you're acting without being obvious about it.
@@ellencoleman4604 same!!! Her and Miles. Since Miles had been bigged up to be some eccentric genius and then he just seemed like some dumb asshole. It felt so weird and off, but when Blanc started pointing things out in the end it suddenly made so much sense and made everything so much more satisfying to have noticed from the start
Me too!!
It’s interesting how both Blanc and Helen slipped and blew her cover. Helen slipped when she screamed “I’m not trying to kill you, you crazy b--!” in her high pitched Alabama tone and Blanc called her Helen loudly. None if the characters even noticed. Makes me wonder how many loud and obvious things slip passed me…
When Blanc and Andi step off the boat, the first thing she notices is that Blanc's shoe is untied. The first thing Blanc noticed when meeting Marta in Knives Out was the blood on her shoe.
That sets up her observation and snooping skills being on par with Blanc later. I think we may have found our Watson.
Honestly, I hope she doesn't stay simply because I like the though of Blanc picking someone related to the scene of the crime as his Watson in every case. I mean look at it, Marta with the blood on her shoe, Helen being Andi's sister.... Much cooler to have him take someone along with him for one case each
She also needed an excuse to keep him away from the others so she could talk to him privately (letting him know that Duke and Birdie were getting suspicious).
It’s also seems that the progression of violence in the final scene and how at first when it’s just some glass sculptures being smashed, everyone joins in briefly before Helen escalates to breaking more valuable things and setting fires. Miles thinks at first that no matter what, he is safe from actual consequence and the others are just venting but eventually will fall in line. It’s like when those in power see a riot and don’t feel a need to react because it’ll all blow over, but Helen doesn’t stop. Not until the entire system that miles sits atop is literally burned to the ground. The rest of miles gang doesn’t join in when they fun stops and actually damage to the system that they are complicit in begins to burn. Afterwards they finally do what is right because they’re no longer benefiting but are also free of that system. It’s seems to me like a very powerful metaphor about how we as a society have miss understood how actually systemic issues are solved. It’s not just acknowledging injustice, you have to destroy anything that allows that injustice to persist
Yes I loved that part! Helen was smashing things because she was genuinely extremely angry, whereas everyone else just thought it was for funsies. I like that Birdie, the overly dramatic and loud one, was the first one to join in, and with something completely out of place at the time - something that looked more like a neon bar sign than the simple glass sculptures Helen was smashing. I really appreciate how they actually *let* Helen be angry. She wasn't just an surrogate for audience catharsis, she didn't stop when the scene had "reached its end." I love the way that parallels the "Disruptors," as well: they say they want to break the system, but they'll only go so far before they start to turn back around and uphold the system again. Beautiful scene, loved it.
i completely agree! the only thing i'd like to point out is that I don't think they 'finally did what is right' as you put it. I think that the moment they saw that Miles was doomed, they immediately jumped to the safer ship. If they side with Helen, their asses are less on the line. I don't think it had anything to do with any of those characters finally feeling free to do the right thing, or anything like that. The scene in which they all finally admit the truth, where they put their hands up saying 'yeah we saw Miles burn the napkin' was such an interesting one to watch because they all so very clearly were still only doing it out of selfishness. The fact that this action benefited Helen - her seeking Justice for Andi - was only a secondary outcome to them. None of them grew *at all* from what had happened on that island.
@@entitree. truee if they really wanted to do what was right they would have broken the system the first chance they got-- *not* lying for miles in court. So much for being disruptors.
Two of my favorite clues that I noticed in my first watch were that there’s a painting behind Blanc in the bathroom with Helen when they’re searching for the envelope. It’s the outline of a person with a red dot on their chest, which made me immediately remember the red center of the golden ratio in the frame. The hiding spot is also foreshadowed by Duke’s mom talking about the fibonacci sequence.
The second thing I noticed was that Blanc claims that the puzzle box was full of easy “childrens’ puzzles.” Blanc admits that easy children’s games are his weakness-clue, among us, crosswords, etc. But Blanc doesn’t actually know what the puzzles were because Helen destroyed it.
I liked that it was the same painting that Blanc mentioned earlier in the movie, when he said "I can handle the Matisse in the bathroom, but a fax machine?" then we find out later that he had been in the bathroom with Helen scheming.
There’s even more relevance. That painting is Henri Matisse’s “Icarus.” A rendition of a famous character who used someone else’s creation to fly, grew prideful, ignored the warnings as he ascended higher, and then burned up and crashed down.
Spoilers! :D
I think my favorite part of this movie was the scene where everyone is fighting after Benoit solves the mystery at dinner and the Mona Lisa guard keeps going up and down so loudly. It sounds like a guillotine. The whole scene is so anxiety-inducing and was also the point where I think we all realized that the Mona Lisa wasn't going to last through the credits. Also gotta love the beginning where Miles casually tosses Paul McCartney's guitar on the beach, again foreshadowing the Mona Lisa burning with how careless he is. Just like in the first movie, every detail was thought about in every single scene. Laziness is just not a word in this movie's vocabulary. I honestly like it just as much as the first.
The Mona Lisa's eyes being focused on made me think that was where the real napkin was hidden until the real hiding place was revealed haha
God the guard was bothering me so much... I spent the entire movie wondering when the guard comes into play that I forgot the override button that Miles had installed. Only when everything was burning did I think "Oh wait! THE OVERRIDE!"
Blanc actually slips up and calls and calls Hellen by her name right before she gets shot which isn’t helpful as a clue but does plant the thought that something’s off if you caught it first time
I caught it but chalked it up to a subtitle problem.
I guess I just flat-out missed it, but if I'd noticed I'd probably have thought "maybe 'Hell-ing' is a weird Benoit southern swear"
I noticed it! And I was like: waaaait a minute, her name is not...?! And then I went "oooohhh, Benoit, you clever git..."
I did not know yet -what- he did, but I knew then and there he orchestrated everything
Oh yeah totally. I turned to my friend who had already seen it and was like "wait who's Helen? If she's Helen then who is Andi actually??"
I had the movie up on imdb like I always do and spoiled it for myself because Janelle is listed as “Helen”
SPOILER ALERT:
A detail I noticed was that the cast list on the poster is arranged in a way that spoils the movie; similar to the poster for the first movie.
1st billing is Daniel Craig for obvious reasons.
2nd billing is the killer: Chris Evans & Edward Norton
3rd billing is the female lead: Ana De Armas and Janelle Monae
The "and" billing is the murder victim: Christopher Plummer and Dave Bautista
Also the fact that the 2nd act of the film is literally just the 1st act but from a different POV is crazy to me. I love it.
That's because of how movie contracts work. Dave Bautista's agent would have gotten him the "and" because he's a lead that doesn't get as much screen time or in the case of Kate Hudson you have the pull to be an "and". The order on the billing is all negotiated based on fame star power and how much screen time you get. Ryan would have had almost no control over it, it's all agents and legal teams. Unless he get's an actor that does what Keven Spacey did in Seven and insists he's not in the billing so he doesn't give away who the bad guy is. Billing is a big deal in movies and not an afterthought.
U know this is just coincidence right, it's based on contract... that's not gonna happen 3rd movie onwards....
Almost like the murder victim usually isn't in the movie as long as the others and counts as a supporting character and the investigator gets top billing for being the Poirot equivalent, and then the people doing the heavy lifting for the plot. You could judge every movie this way, and it's a well known issue with police procedural TV shows that the guest star always did the crime.
I always think that the most famous actor will be the killer when I approach mysteries. I also think that the minority or gay person will not be the killer out of political correctness. We have a way to go in that regard.
Just a quick side note that Janelle is not the "female lead" since they are non-binary. :)
I think the reason why Lionel and Claire felt kind of "boring" compared to the A-Team, is because they are, compared to the others, the left-leaning characters of the movie. On the one side we got the Men's rights activist who loves guns, the constantly ignorant and racist model turned fashion icon and so on. Big and loud and brash characters who don't really care about hurting others. Lionel is a scientist, he's smart. And he's black and has probably had his own struggles. Claire is a politician, a woman in politics strifing for a high position which is never easy, who doesn't want to be seen partying with Duke and has to keep up appearances with green deals. Her husband wears a Greenpeace shirt.
Johnson calls them "the adults" even in his breakdown of the introduction scene. They are reasonable, progressive and liberal... and they still hang onto the golden tit. They know the fuel is dangerous but they don't confront Myles. They are cowards and don't want to give up their cushiony rich and successful lives. They perjure themselves for Myles. They are ready to cover up a murder for him without flinching. There are tons of real people like that. In politics and science and whatnot. And they are just as harmful as the loud rightwing manchildren with their "sorry feminists we love boobs" and their blackface minstrel bs, because they help the status quo and enable people like Elon Musk who will burn down the world if they want to. I like that they don't get exonerated and while they like to pettily smash Myles' things, they still try to stop Helen from burning the place down and only find it in themselves to backstab Myles after Helen had already destroyed the system and him. I like that they aren't exonerated because they aren't "as bad/as wild" as the rest.
But you are right. Because they are in comparison more reasonable, they also come across as a little more muted.
This is a really good point. I think it's also difficult when their motives/backstories are not shown in-depth. In Knives Out, we see left-leaning characters that are still colorful and complicated (think Meg), and they remain that way for a multitude of reasons that just weren't fleshed out in Glass Onion. (I still love the movie, but I do agree that those two felt a little less colorful than some of the others.)
@@SolarisMusic Tbh I have to say that I recently rewatched Knives Out and I felt that Joni, Donna and Jacob were all "smaller" characters compared to the rest. They don't get much screentime or input. Sure, if you love the actor you probably pay more attention to them, but compared to the rest of the family, at least to me they tend to end up in the background.
Clair is not left-leaning. She is a centrist democrat who willingly and knowingly funds an unstable fuel source in order to secure her next election and maintain the status quo. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that democrats are left wing. THey'd be considered right wing lunatics in any other nation on earth.
I actually felt that they were a little centrist. While, pretty liberal, Claire, as a character, felt like she wasn't really left at all. And while Lionel may have had very progressive views, he wasn't really doing jack shit about it.
But, Helen, the protagonist, was truly unique in that she's a black woman making very radical changes and literally smashing rich people property. She's the true leftist one tbh.
@@yukiandkanamekuran I mean, the term liberal essentially means centrist. It refers to someone who may be more socially progressive but still capitalist economically. Liberals just want things to stay comfortable and keep people quiet. Like the only MLK quote about the difference between a quiet peace vs. actual justice. Liberals historically end up siding with fascists cause they keep order and keep the trains running on time.
Spoilers below!
Interesting to note that the during the beach scene when everyone is arriving on the island, Miles is surprised by both Benoit and Andi being there. At first I thought it was because there was bad blood between Andi and Miles, so he'd invited her without expecting her to show up. Later, I realized he was surprised because he'd only sent the invitation to Andi to cover his tracks (which is further confirmed when he mentions barely getting the last box in time, mostly likely because Andi's box was added to the order at the last minute). He also isn't smart enough to realize it isn't Andi at all, he thought he had failed at his attempted murder of Andi, which is why he shoots her later before 'Andi' can use the information against him; which just ends up incriminating him further. We didn't know about Andi having a twin sister, but Miles should have; and if he were smart, he should have burned the napkin the second he saw 'Andi' because recovering the napkin is her most likely motive for being there and he doesn't actually need it. But Miles is dumb.
At the point when he shoots Helen, he already knows she is not Andi. Duke has shown him the notification of her death earlier.
One thing I really like is literally the title of the movie and the song it is based on. Glass onion is a famous song because John Lennon wrote it at a time of annoyance at critics, because he was writing simple lyrics yet these critics were reading into them with way too much effort and calling them genius. So John Lennon wrote glass onion, a song that was self contradictory and non-sensical, as well as being almost entirely based on references to previous Beatles songs. I think this perfectly encapsulates miles Bron’s character: someone who sees themself as genius and has convinced others of this fact as well, but at his core is just a complete joke who has never had an original thought
Thank you so much for that detail! It makes so much sense!
spoilers
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During the "Glass breaking" scene, i loved how the group was shocked at first, but then joined in for a shallow, performative protest. They were willing to break some decorative, easily replaceable trinkets to blow off some steam.... up until the system started ACTUALLY being threatened and "Disrupted". Helen wasn't blowing off steam. She was looking for justice in a broken system. Helen was willing to break something irreplaceable
One thing I noticed on a rewatch is that when the lights are out, Blanc calls out “Helen” instead of “Andi.” She responds so quickly it’s hard to notice plus it’s a name you haven’t been primed to hear for yet so it doesn’t go off with all the other tension in the scene.
Also I gotta admit the points where “Andi” is confronting the group hurt on rewatch since you know that she isn’t “playing the victim” they are victim blaming when they perorated a crime by lying on the stand.
I’m gonna put two things I noticed here because nobody else I know has seen the movie:
#1 the group calls themselves “the disrupters, but it was actually Helen, the only one who wasn’t part of the group who “disrupted” the pattern and simply smashed the box rather than putting in the effort to solve it.
#2 Peg’s general character. I thought she was going to be a bigger character than she was and it was honestly pretty disappointing when she ended up playing a pretty minor part. She’s obviously been to several of these things before, but Miles doesn’t care about her at all. In the scene in which he gives out the personalised glasses, he gives one along with her exact drink order to Birdie, but hands her a cheap red solo cup without even looking at her.
Reminds me of the scene in Knives out where one of the characters is making a point about immigration then hands Marta over his dirty plate so she can clear it without asking or anything, even though she isn’t even a maid, she’s a NURSE, that is NOT her job. Neither of those men care about Marta or Peg.
Also, Peg writing her name on her cup with a marker, even though nobody could ever mistake her drink for theirs. It’s also maybe a sign about how badly she wants to be a Disrupter, because they all had personalised cups? And how she was the one to do most of the puzzle solving when it came to Birdie’s box?
You and anyone else is welcome to share their "nobody else I know has seen the movie" thoughts here! Welcome! 🤭
Peg desperately wanting to be a part of a group of terrible people that she very well knows are terrible just makes me not feel bad for her at all. 😂
Peg was so interesting to me because she was the sort of character that in a lesser movie would have been either a red herring who got accused at some point or the killer - she's overworked and under-appreciated, doesn't want to take the fall for bangledesh along with birdie, is skipped over as a suspect despite being in most of the scenes etc. But... this mystery is solvable, and a character without the presence the main group had would be so deeply unsatisfying as a killer anyway.
Funnily enough that's what made the "ignore me" guy such a funny gag to me, it almost felt like a satire about lazily making background characters who Did It
A personal detail that made me laugh so hard on the ride home from seeing the movie was looking at the cast. I personally always get Edward Norton and Joseph Gordon Levit mixed up, so when Miles first appeared, I asked my dad if it was Levit. He corrected me that it was Norton, but on the way home I checked IMDB to see who else we missed in the cast and found Levit was the voice of the hourly dong. So he was actually in the movie without me knowing, but I was still right that he was there, which was just wild to see.
I was thinking about Peg and Whiskey, and now Duke's Mom (thanks to you!). I felt like one of the themes of the movie was how we quash who we are to be near the famous, the wealthy, to be liked, to win votes, or to stay in someone's good graces long enough to become famous or wealthy ourselves. Peg and Whiskey are minimal characters, but they are also On the Path of eliminating the best of who they are in order to "improve their brand" (Whiskey) or move up a Peg (Peg). (Oh god, I just realized that Miles and Duke "shared" Whiskey, and as a drink in the glass.) Duke's Mom is the Only person (outside of Helen, Andi and Benoit) who is willing to be themselves and show all they know. Duke's Mom lives with someone who doesn't respect women at all. She doesn't care. She doesn't hide her intelligence to make Duke feel better and she slaps Duke when he tells her to shut up. She's the first hero! Peg and Whiskey are better than this, but they have subjugated themselves in order to gain something from the famous people they are in service to--- in the same way that, farther along and deeper in the game, all the main "friends" group have already buried who they are in order to make Miles, their benefactor happy. (I even think Larry, the island-couch surfer, keeps making comments about his "invisibility" in order to keep living on the island off of Miles. He "doesn't exist" in order to survive.... neither, really, do any of the friends or their employees. They've all made themselves merely glass so you can see Miles through them.
when you mentioned Duke and Miles sharing both Whiskey and whiskey my jaw dropped and it is still on the ground, oh my god
SPOILERS (not big one but don't want to ruin it for anyone)
one of my favorite costume and character scenes is when they are all enter with their masks. The way each character wears/which kind of mask they wear. Lionel wears a N95 mask because he is a scentist, Claire wears a fabric mask that is too big for her that keeps falling, obviously whiskey/duke wear none, and birdie wears that lana del rey mask and blanc wears a mask that is fashionable.
I was very suprised on how well they handled COVID in this film. Ive seen a lot of media fail and this film actually understood what it was like to be in quarantine.
AND Helen's mask is Andi!
The masks part at the beginning was my favorite part (other than Janelle Monae because why wouldn't she be!) Each one outlined their personalities fantastically. And leave it to Miles to find and different alternative for COVID instead of just wearing a mask.
It's crazy to me how media fumbles COVID and Quarantine, as if it wasn't something the ENTIRE WORLD experienced! But they handled it very well in the movie, and it wasn't triggering either.
I really like the fact that the film is organized in a very different way from Knives Out - we essentially watch the same series of events to occur twice, but the second time we are shown more critical pieces of information that help the story makes sense. The mystery is presented in such a unique way, with the narrative jumping back and forward in time
Also, the way that Janelle Monet smashed the box is parallel to how she dmeolishes everything at the end
YES, EXACTLY! Also it shows that the rest of those people (the "disruptors" 🤡) are perfectly willing to keep playing Miles' silly games (that he didn't even create himself) whereas Helen will just get to the point in order to secure justice for Andi. 🥹❤️✨
yes and also they were all doing it together, none of them would have gone to that island if they werent a group solving that puzzle, they are all co-dependent and play Miles‘ games because „the others do it too“
SPOILERS! But I also like that when she burns it all down, she used his own stupidity to do it. The message is clear: we can destroy the system by simply creating the amber that will feed on what those in power created. It's satisfying for an ending. I think the ending was better than in Knives Out because it pointed out how ineffective the court system is and how cops are not there to give justice but there to maintain the system. I think it makes Benoît Blanc the only good detective in a murder mystery by understanding where the system fails and by giving the tools to those who deserve justice to take it themselves. Really loved the film.
Have you seen/read Murder on the Orient Express? Hercule Poirot does something similar there. I don't want to spoil it if you aren't familiar with the story, but while he doesn't necessarily give tools to allow justice to happen, he does realize that there are some things that the justice system can't take care of and acts accordingly.
@@classicceleste Yep. I loved how the detective handled finding out who did it and why in Murder on the Orient Express. Also, it was just incredibly done.
@user-sz2tw2or9s There's a lot of people who spent time and energy thinking about the modern justice system and tracking it across the ages to explain why the system is not working for anyone but those who write and upholds the law.
Cops have an inherent impact in the way justice will look because they get to decide who is even brought to court. They are technically supposed to arrest anyone they think has committed a crime, but in actuality that is not how it looks and they have a larger impact in who will have to defend themselves in court. There is also something that people forget and that's the fact that simply because a law exist doesn't make it moral. Plenty of people in history have fought against immoral laws by committing the crime the law created.
Justice is an incredibly nuanced topic that is hard to dive into in a UA-cam comment but my experience and knowledge has led me to see that the police and justice system do not offer real justice and I am simply glad that this was reflected in some ways in the movie. Especially when a movie centres a black woman victimized by a group of mostly white people, historically that never goes well even just as we saw in the movie in the earlier court scenes.
@Sanctus Paulus 1962 Laws are controlled by rich assholes, and we see the results with policing in america.
Many police offices that are still active today began as slavecatching militia. They are still collecting checks for the same job.
@user-sz2tw2or9s you can stop purposefully misunderstanding their point. The cops do not serve justice, as in: they are not on the side of justice. The courts uphold the system, as in: the system of inequality that is not only present but *inherent* to the way the courts work. The only thing that police enforce is violence.
[SPOILERS]
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I also love the fact that Miles' description of a "Disrupter" ends up being what Helen is in the end. She was willing to destroy what everyone says must not be, and she ends up destroying the Mona Lisa. Everyone else was too tied into Miles' work or were too fearful of him to step out of line. They were keeping the status quo. Instead Helen ends up burning everything, including a priceless work of art, to the ground.
That intro of her with the box emphasises that she does not and will not play Miles' games. Love that about her. 🥰
Yes especially when miles says that people don’t really want the status quo to be disrupted and then when Helen was about to destroy the status quo (the Mona Lisa) he ran to stop her because as much as he loves disrupters, he falls right into the role that he himself tries to criticize.
I legit cheered when I realized she was going for it, didn’t even realize that every other character is trying to stop her from burning the painting, not trying to evacuate or anything at all (again they’re all so dumb), but I made the connection of Miles and the Mona Lisa and was just like HELL YEAH BURN IT ALL DOWN
So cathartic.
Spoilers: One thing that I realized right after my first watching-the Mona Lisa is famously painted on a wood panel. The Louvre fully sold Miles a framed poster like it was mentioned when we see the painting for the first time. Wood doesn’t burn like canvas!
It definitely was real you can see the wood splinter after it bubbles before it fully burns, thats not how canvas burns.
And also this would make the end of the movie moot, because the whole reason his company would be ruined is his new invention destroyed the world's most famous painting.
I assumed the paint just bubbled off the wood surface. But torching the Mona Lisa ripped my heart out!
@@razk9231 He's still getting in trouble for Klear. He was selling it as a fuel even though it was super deadly.
Also, he THOUGHT he had the real Mona Lisa. Nobody will EVER want to do business with a man who is too incompetent to keep the Mona Lisa safe!
It clicked for me when Helen didn't need their bracelets to enter their rooms, since he gave them to everyone claiming they had some sort of biometrics security
SPOILERS
one of my favorite little moments is the Fibonacci sequence being mentioned in the intro puzzle and then being revealed as the hiding spot of the real napkin. not sure if that's another reference to miles not coming up with anything on his own or just a fun little easter egg, but either way I loved it.
i think its a cool call back to the idea of the glass onion, something with layers that points to the truth at the center. literally, as the smallest point of the frame showed part of the red envelope.
i think it also reflect the group and miles influence and how he sees himself and the moving forcw behind each of the members. in reality, they were a group bonded by andy, but in his point of view, he was the multiplying benefactor that led them to reach their career goals. 1,2,3,5,8 and so on. rapidly gathering success. and while his money and connections were a great asset. he still knew, at the center of it all, it was all Andi's doing.
pardon the long rambling response, this is something that really stuck with me on the second rewatxh. as well as the bit of dukes mom pointing it out lol.
I also like the Fibonacci sequence as a recurring theme, since it's become something of a meme - people like to throw it into places it doesn't belong to come across as intelligent and esoteric, but a lot of the time it's totally meaningless, like the words Miles makes up to appear ~disruptive~
@@margaretcummings4146 the fibonacci sequence DOES appear everywhere but at the same time, that's partially because we're prone to putting it everywhere
I don't usually pay attention to fashion in a film, but did you notice in the flashback when Myles asks what she's writing on that napkin, as he's shooting pool, he's wearing the exact same outfit, down to the hairstyle, Tom Cruise wore on Mangnolia? I haven't seen the movie but that image is famous. The description of that character, Frank TJ Mackey is 'a speaker whose main objective is to 'Seduce and Destroy'. Basically, that's what Myles did when introduced to the group.
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
[Spoiler] Might also be that he just couldn't come up with a look on his own so he stole one from a movie he saw :D
I actually saw milles hand duke his glass the first time I watched but when they did the flashback shot, I was like was I mistaken so when blanc comments about how we all saw it and still believed it really hit me hard.
The movie does the same thing with Miles as a character, as LadyJenevia mentioned: we are shown that Miles is an idiot, but then through Blanc's own self admitted blindness to the stupid, we are directly told something else.
I don't know if it is the right way of saying it, but basically, the movie gaslights the audience, and then shames itself for doing exactly that XD I can't help but love that.
loved both glass onion & knives out i think knives out is more timeless and tight of a story but glass onion was beyond cathartic!
I will happily watch them both as a back-to-back double-feature! 🥰✨
i think glass onion will be funny to watch again in 10/20/30 years because it’s such a great encapsulation of the time. i think kids might watch it and find some parts over the top but then look into the time period and say ‘wow! that time was weird’. birdie’s lace mask on the dock is a scene that comes to mind.
@@morganburt2565 hell, it already had this effect on me when watching it on Christmas. I saw the dumb lace mask and was like "Oh shit, those were some really weird times 2 years ago, eh?"
Spoilers!
One thing that I love in the glass smashing scene is the disruptors try and stop Helen destroying the Mona Lisa. We all know they weren't doing that for the painting, it was to help Miles. They only turn against him after Helen reveals his image and company are destroyed. They are still awful self-serving people, they've learnt nothing- and Miles is now faced with the reality he forced Andi to experience. They're all s***heads.
Blanc's rant was utterly hilarious, he seemed so genuinely angry at how unoriginal Miles's plan was and I have to agree with everything he said
About the towel thing you said around 27:49, it’s more than that!!!
It’s not just hiding Helen’s hair, it’s a hint towards her identity since that kind of towel thing is something you do when you have long curly hair not the short hairstyle Andi has. I instantly knew there was something weird about her just based on that towel.
One of my favorite little clues that my girlfriend pointed out is that when Duke first mentions Miles almost pancaking him on the way from Andi's house, Miles says deflects it by saying it was Anderson Cooper's party. As if he was referring to Anderson as Andi. Absolutely genius
Claire's husband call, that she screens and declines, seems like a red herring initially, but in hindsight...
What do you think it means?
@@IndiaMyers The news of Andi just broke out and he wanted to talk to Claire
I loved this movie so much!
Rian Johnson just absolutely understands the Agatha Christie spirit with Knives Out and Glass Onion. It makes me so so so happy to see someone who /gets/ it making films like this for mystery lovers to enjoy.
Benoit Blanc is also such a refreshing character! ❤It's so nice to see an 'eccentric and very clever but kind-hearted' detective in the vein of Poirot or Columbo (or even Holmes a la Jeremy Brett) after so many years of the 'super smart complete a-hole who gets away with being wretched to people because omg they're so smart!' model that has been so prominent for so many years 😩
Can't wait for the next one!
The woman that played the mother is a great singer by the way. She’s big on Broadway. Absolutely hilarious as well.
When Helen started to break everthing, I knew exactly what it was about and I realized this movie is dangerous, and I love that.
SPOILERS!!!
I'm actually so SO proud of myself for catching the drink handoff the first time I watched it. While I still didn't know motive, I KNEW Miles killed Duke, and I knew it was especially important when we got the fakeout flashback. AND THEN, I didn't notice him in the initial run-up to everyone seeing "Andi"'s death at the top of the stairs [like a "who's missing here- YOU" sort of thing, biased because I'd managed to figure out Duke died], so clearly he killed her too! Admittedly I think this kinda ruined my investment in the movie because I could write off the rest of the characters, but it was still great watching the context as we followed Blanc and Helen.
My running theory for motivation before everything played out was he was still salty about Blanc ruining game night. He wanted a mystery at the sacrifice of his friends, he wanted to be the one that came out on top, be smarter than Blanc. Guess I'm still in a Sherlock/Moriarty mindset, which tbf plays into the "giving Miles too much credit as a mad genius" theme.
That could have been a funny motive, and would still show him as little more than a petulant child. 🤣
I loved how despite me being able to guess major plot points (Ed Norton was behind the attempted/murder of Dave Batista and Janelle Monae, pineapple allergy behind the death, explosion caused by the made up fuel, etc) the movie still entertained me all throughout. It's probably funnier than Knives Out though I think Knives Out had a much tighter script.
Spoilers:
On my first rewatch, I was amazed by how Miles’s speech about what being a “Disruptor” means is an EXACT description of what Helen does in the climax. Down to “breaking the thing that no one wants you to break” and “no one will be on your side”. When Helen starts breaking the bar and the piano, the group stop helping her, thinking she’s gone too far. But when she goes for the painting, they are actively running to stop her.
I would love to see an edit with that speech over the climax!
As someone with an extreme pineapple allergy, I LOVED that addition to Duke’s character. Its a pretty rare allergy but is a serious one. Even a little bit can cause a full scale reaction, and its a small thing to mention in the beginning but is SUCH interesting foreshadowing, cause it makes you question Duke’s murder even more, cause you could easily think “oh it was an accident” and it throws you off for a bit! Its just a cool addition and I also think Duke’s death scene was well done cause the timing was even perfect for a serious reaction.
I was completely bamboozled by the movie tbh and I wanted to go back and look at past scenes but I couldn't. When the mystery was solved it made me really happy and satisfied even though I didn't have a clue on who was responsible. I could've tried harder but I wanted to give my complete attention to the movie and enjoy the ride, which I believe is a strength of the Knives Out series, whether you want to play detective or not it's a grand time watching!
11:10 (SPOILERS)
This specific scene stood out to me on second watch. It seems a conscious choice that, even after Lionel counts down a time, all four members flick their switches out of sync. From the start, even as they’re built up as friends and compatriots, they’re not coming together.
When I saw Angela Lansbury come up onscreen, I cried tears of joy. I'm so glad the legacy of Murder She Wrote was somehow included in this franchise.
I knew from the moment that Duke hit the ground that it was the pineapple that did it! It seemed so obvious to me but that was like the only thing I really figured out. Everything else I just tried to pick up as many clues as possible and noted that those details would pay off. For example: I noted that it was suspicious that we never saw Blanc's box invitation so we don't actually know what it looks like, I did pick up on the double 'pancaked' mention but didn't connect them to the same instance, I knew from the moment the car on the roof was first shown that it was some kind of chekovs gun, I noticed Claire and Lionel talking in the background of the pool scene looking kinda suspicious, I knew from the beginning of the whole arson scene that the line about Miles' name being mentioned in the same breath as the mona lisa was going to be said at some point, and finally (at least with what I can think of for now) though I didn't fully connect the dots to any logical conclusion, all of "Andy's" costumes having stark contrasts that separated the colours in the middle made me think she was styled very intentionally to indicate something and now I feel like the costuming was meant to show the split in her personality as she wasn't Andy as well as to show how her and her sister were complete opposites like the contrasts she was sporting
Yeah the pineapple was clearly set up in advance but I suppose the big question was WHO was going to use it against him and why. 🍍 👀
The car was a clue but more importantly, the fact that they say that it's a one-of-a-kind, meaning that if that car gets spotted somewhere it can only be his car as opposed to the same make/model belonging to some other person. 🚙💨
I loved the scene of Claire and Lionel talking because they set up the body language, angles to look like maybe they were flirting or attracted to each other.
Johnson had said that Knives Out was inspired in part by the 1970s film The Last of Sheila. After seeing Knives Out, I bought a copy of Sheila & was surprised to learn that it was co-written by Sondheim & Anthony Perkins. So Sondheim’s cameo made me especially happy (and that adds additional meaning to having Lansbury in the film - some argue that she’s the quintessential Sondheim leading lady…). Because of shows like Murder She Wrote, I don’t try to figure out the end of mysteries as I go along. I am pleased that Rian Johnson played fair & showed us what we needed to know, if we were so inclined. Jessica Fletcher pulled out clues the audience never saw…
SPOILERS
After I saw this movie the first time, I immediately bought another ticket to see it the next night, and one thing that blew me away is how brilliant the writing structure for this story is. The idea of using a fugue as a story device is so smart, and it's used so many times in different levels of the plot structure. We are repeatedly shown things reoccurring but they are different the second time we see them.
The most obvious/biggest way it's used is that the movie opens on a black screen while playing Little Fugue in G minor and then after Helen gets shot, we are given another black screen playing a different, more complicated, part of the Fugue. We are then shown previous events again but given their full context: what really happened when Benoit got the box, the reason why "Andi" tightened her fingers around the railing on the boat, why "Andi" was stumbling around, and the fact that Helen is the person who made the noise that Duke heard when he was watching Miles and Whiskey through the window just to name a few.
But it's also used in smaller ways. Helen breaks apart the box and the small representation of the Glass Onion in it at the beginning of the film, and at the end of the film she breaks the real Glass Onion. Miles gets shot with a fake crossbow bolt and is covered in fake blood, and then later Helen is shot with a real bullet but also covered with fake blood. It even works in just one scene when Helen is breaking all the glass. The mood and tone change several times throughout the scene as Helen continually breaks things over and over and over again going from serious to jovial to serious again. We see the same things happening, but we feel differently about them and/or they have different consequences to the story each time we see them.
This is the kind of movie I feel like I could watch ten times and still see something or connect something that I hadn't realized before. The biggest "duh" moment for me the second time I saw it was the fact that after playing Among Us, Benoit straight up says that he doesn't want to play games, he wants to work on a dangerous case. So the fact that he shows up on the island and acts eager to help Miles with his game should have been immediately suspicious. I've seen a lot of comments on other videos talking about Glass Onion saying that the writing is bad or "cheating" because it doesn't show us everything or give us enough clues to figure things out, which I strongly disagree with. Everything is there if you're looking for it.
Absolutely! I’ve seen it four times now and it’s extremely rewatchable. The more you rewatch, the more details you pick up on (like how they say the month the story is introduced in) which relates to the astrological sign of the necklace and how that fits into the timeline of events.
If people think you can immediately understand all of the moving parts of what’s in the film from watching it once and then want to claim it’s not as good as Knives Out, they’re not equipped to be an informed commentator of this type of entertainment fiction.
At the bare minimum you should feel compelled to watch it again to see if Miles really handed Duke his own glass out in the open the way he did.
@@LadyJenevia
"If people think you can immediately understand all of the moving parts of what’s in the film from watching it once and then want to claim it’s not as good as Knives Out, they’re not equipped to be an informed commentator of this type of entertainment fiction." You've stated this perfectly. I can understand someone not liking a film's style or saying it's just not for them, but it's incredibly frustrating when people automatically say a movie is "bad" just because they're unwilling to look at it for what it is instead of what they wanted it to be. I was so glad to find your video because I loved the movie and was starting to despair at finding anyone who would go into more depth than just saying they thought it was okay or they hated it. (Though to be fair, I'm sure a huge part of that has to do with how new the movie is and the fact that it had a limited theatrical release. I'm sure a lot more people will be talking about it in more depth in a month.)
And yes! Miles handing Duke the glass was the biggest thing I watched out for the second time, and I'm so impressed with Rian Johnson's skill as a writer and director to pull that off.
@@classicceleste I’ve seen people on social media who are diehard horror fans complaining when people who don’t like horror are the ones being assigned to review horror films professionally for major outlets. I have similar complaints about people who don’t like rom coms or romance stories being the ones to review new releases in those genres.
You’re all entitled to like what you like but it doesn’t mean people are required to listen to your take on something or find it valuable. 😂🤷🏻♀️
I think at this point I’ve been able to pick up on a lot of the major clues of Glass Onion but there are still little details I pick up on with each new rewatch. I didn’t figure out in the first two watches that JGL is the voice of the hourly dong. 🤣
@@LadyJenevia Yeah, it's almost like you should have people who know what they're talking about be the ones to professionally comment on stuff... who could have foreseen that?
My biggest issue with a lot of the negative comments against Knives Out and Glass Onion is that a big chunk of it is people who don't like Rian Johnson because they didn't like The Last Jedi. It's completely fair to not like The Last Jedi (although let me out myself as someone who thoroughly enjoyed that movie), but to then say that anything that director makes must be bad is so ridiculous I have to laugh at it or be horrified by how far someone is willing to let their hate blind them. (Especially since I thought that was supposed to be a bad thing in the Star Wars universe but... oh well.)
Also... I'm ashamed to say that I didn't recognize the vast majority of the cameos by myself. I think I only recognized Angela Lansbury, Hugh Grant, and Serena Williams on my own. My inner theater kid's shame will be endless for not knowing what Stephen Sondheim looked like. 😅
@@classicceleste If you don’t like a director, don’t watch their new films when you already know you’re going to complain about them. (If your whole shtick as a creator or commentator is to to be snarky and bash things, that’s a different story. 😂)
People constantly do that to M. Night Shyamalan when they have completely reduced what he does down to a very small idea. 😆
And I will admit it took me a few seconds longer to see who else was on the Zoom call when they first showed it because my brain was so fixated on seeing ANGELA LANSBURY making an appearance. 🥰
This film really took the "Hitchcock thriller inserted into a whodunnit" to the next level. I imagine some people will play around with this film in their editing software like they do with "Memento." Making it more chronological and understanding how it affects the experience. I genuinely hope this film gets a nomination for best editing at the Oscars because I could not fathom arranging all this footage so seamlessly.
I'm just going to assume that it WON'T get its fair share of nominations/awards because that's pretty typical for my favourites. 😆🤷🏻♀️
When you describe it as a Hitchcock thriller, now I wanna see a political Knives Out a la Notorious.
@@LadyJenevia Also getting golden rewards might be seen as a neutering of the point the film makes.
To be completely honest I was dead set on the killer being Kathryn Hahn. I just had an odd feeling that Rian Johnson would want to continue the “It was Agatha all along…” meme into his own franchise. When she drank room temperature white wine that’s when I was 100% convinced that she was the killer. And meanwhile no one had even died yet. 😂😅
Also I literally cried when Angela Lansbury had her cameo. ❤
I love how at the end, Blanc chides Miles for stealing his offhand "lights out" ideafor himself, because he's so unimaginative. And then Miles later burns the tissue...but ONLY after he was asked why the hell he didn't burn it in the first place. He couldn't even think of his big table- turning villain move by himself!
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was at a family reunion and we wanted to watch a movie in theaters as a group. I didn’t know anything about the movie the others picked out beyond the title and the fact that it was related to Knives Out (which I haven’t seen). I went into it with few expectations and almost literally no information, and let me tell you, I was incredibly happy I did. It was the best movie I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching in theaters (which isn’t hard, I don’t go to theaters often). I found myself invested the whole time and highly recommend the movie if you haven’t seen it. You don’t need to have seen Knives Out to understand the plot.
Regardless of the context (and I loved the context) I loved Edward Norton getting to portray someone reacting to a priceless work of the most famous piece of art getting destroyed right in front of him. It was such an extremely unique specific thing he had to portray and I thought he nailed it.
i loveee that miles' monologue on breaking things literally foreshadows that whole sequence, down to the whole "break the thing no one wants you to break" being burning the mona lisa, it was so cathartic to watch that scene
my favourite extra detail is the use of the face masks and how it tells you so much about the characters and what they believe
My favorite thing about both of these movies is how they introduce information at the beginning of the second act that completely turns everything on its head. But watching it again, you pick up on all of the clues that are now obvious given your new information. Andi being "different", suspicious, and aloof and Miles being really surprised she's there. The dogs loving Marta but attacking Ransom. It's the little details you know?
That’s so funny in terms of the characters, because I feel the exact opposite @8:40 - I felt like some of the characters in the first Knives Out blended in for me bc they all represent privileged nepotism - but the Glass Onion characters were all so different in terms of life, style, etc, that they felt x 10 times more interesting
Same! I enjoyed Knives Out, but some of the Thromby’s kind of blended together for me. The Glass Onion characters were more colorful and memorable imo.
a trend that i've noticed in this and the previous movie is that you think you know what's going on, but then act 2 retcons everything you thought you knew, while making you feel stupid about not noticing the foreshadowing and i hope this trend continues in the third sequel (i really really hope we get another one)
As integral as Angela Lansbury’s career was to the whodunit genre (Death on the Nile, The Mirror Crack’d, Murder, She Wrote), Stephen Sondheim’s was even more so- especially considering the nearly endless homages in this film to The Last of Sheila.
[Spoilers] Meta: remember how with the first knives out we found out that Apple has a funny rule where "evil" characters can't be shown using thier products? This ends up also becoming it's own glass onion because the only character who we see use Apple is Benoit Blanc so it feeds into the idea that anyone could be guilty. Until you remember Miles exclusively uses analogue so by Apple rule standards, he must be extra guilty
Finally got around to watching Glass Onion, so even though I’m a couple of weeks late to the party and others have probably pointed this out already, I absolutely loved the setup! Right from the very start with the puzzle boxes we were told what had happened. The characters, and by extension the audience, was there to solve Miles’ murder. He brought everyone together to see if any of the Disruptors had figured it out, not realizing that the death wasn’t public since he didn’t have a phone. Just like how the first movie showed us exactly how Harlan died to take us away from the whodunnit aspects to make the reveal that Ransom did actually try to kill him still a twist to people who figured it out early, Glass Onion sets up the murder mystery premise, destroys it in one monologue from Blanc, and then reveals that there actually is a murder and a mystery, and that the guy behind it all was the guy behind it all. I still like Knives Out more, but Glass Onion is incredible and I can’t wait for the inevitable third film!
Spoilers!!!
1) I finally realized on my 3rd watch that we had so much foreshadowing in the script. The fake blood splatter on Miles for his murder mystery- Helen’s hot sauce blood.
2) the invention has a version of the Evil Eye- I think this may be a nod to how Miles’s friends protect him and ‘Ward off evil’ (ironic lol)
3)one of the books in Benoit’s bathroom is ‘Cain’s Jawbone’ which besides having an AMAZING title, it a famous book that doesn’t tell its story in a chronological order
4)I have a theory that Duke is mainly inspired by Keemstar since it was filmed prior to the whole Andrew Tate era. Duke rides a motorcycle, handles firearms irresponsibly, has a VERY young blond girlfriend, and films in his mom’s basement (Keemstar had a podcast called ‘mom’s basement’) lol
5)the cast kept referring to ‘pancake’ description of Duke’s almost car crash a lot, and it’s referring to one particular night, but the continued repeated use of it tells us it’s important, we just don’t realize until rewatch
6)Miles hired Gillian Flynn to write his murder mystery/ she wrote Gone Girl. A story about a women who disappears into another identity, just like Helen does
7) THE SISTERS NAMES- Cassandra is Greek, the ancient myth Cassandra was never believed!! Just like Andi wasn’t in court. AND Cassandra predicted that Helen would bring the downfall of Tory in the Trojan War. Sound FAMILIER???!!
8) the paintings in the backgrounds!!! They have soooo much symbolism. *art history nerd here*, and in the scene where Helen is told she’s been drinking alcoholic kombucha? There’s a painting o ICARUS falling from the sky. I think it’s foreshadowing Miles’ fall from grace!
I love this movie lol
That's what's so fun about these whodunits! You can rewatch them over and over and find new clues, not to mention the like-minded people who like to look for the clues sharing them with each other so they can compare notes. 🥰🔍👀
I got Joe Rogan from Bautista
theres more about cains jawbone! it was published in 1934 and is considered one of the hardest puzzles out there. the idea is that you have to put the scenes back in chronological order and say who the killer is. the solution has never been publicized and only three people in history have managed it, two in 1935, and one in 2019, during lockdown! there was a competition for it. maybe the book being on blancs shelf meant that he had also taken a try at the competition. either way its pretty cool + a sick title
Glass Onion is one of the most impeccably structured films I've ever seen, and I adored every second of it!
SPOILERS !!
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I've been bothered by this plot hole: if Miles knew Andy was dead, why would he have his puzzle guy send her a puzzle? Even if he was trying to keep up appearances, why send Andy a box when they are post-trial and not on speaking terms?
Besides that, I loved this movie! I think the first one was funnier, but the mystery of this one was more engaging. I especially love that Benoit got to be part of the who-done-it aspect !
ALSO!
I just remembered: Rian Johnson was the one who spilled the beans that Apple doesn't let the villain use their products, which is another clue that Chris Evans is the villain of Knives Out. So... I was watching EVERYONE'S phones in this! But everyone was using a different brand from each other, and none of them were Apple. So I think it's ingenious that the villain in this one doesn't have a phone, so you don't know if he's the villain or not based off of that detail. F-ing genius! 4D chess move right there !
Two possible options. If she turns up dead and he has sent her a box, he can use the box to try to claim that he was trying to make amends. However, since the whole point being repeatedly presented is that he’s an idiot, I would guess that he sent the box before finding out about the email. If I remember the timeline correctly, he murdered her the day after the email got sent because he drove straight to her house (which is the more reckless course of action for him to take).
@@LadyJenevia That could explain it... I'm giving his character too much credit just like everyone else! 😂
Well, Miles did give Blanc an iPad.
The puzzles were sent way before he murdered her and it would be in character to leave it there as kind of a lazy alibi.
Also, when they all arrive at the pier, (I think) they say that Andi was invited to all prior events but never showed up.
@@SmellsLikeBrass I'm just confused because of the falling out after the trial. Regardless of the murder, why would he want her there? But I guess none of the characters actually like each other so 🤷🏽♀️
One of the best things about this movie is that when I watched it the first time with my fiancé in our living room we were constantly pausing it to explain our theories to each other and any little guess we got right felt like a huge win.
I LOVED the Gillian Flynn detail because because she doesn’t pronounce “Gillian” with the soft G sound… she famously pronounces it with a hard G. Yet another thing he got wrong.
Something I really like and hope is continued in the next movie is the food analogies/monologues that blanc has in the movies, with glass onion being the aforementioned glass onion, and with knives out the donut monologue
And now that I think about it, his husband/partner/boyfriend Hugh Grant answered the door with flour(??) on his face. Maybe he's either a chef, or just a food/cooking enthusiast, and Benoit often has food on the brain as a result (that, or food was part of what drew them together...)
MUCH to consider! ✨
@@LadyJenevia although I don’t belive that personally (a lot of people got into sourdough because of quarantine and I think that was just a tongue and cheek nod to that), that would be a super neat way of tying it together, all I know that is consistent in these two movies is the food monolauges and the fact that a line from earlier in the movie always comes back to kick the antagonist in the ass, with [SPOILERS FOR BOTH MOVIES TO ANYONE READING] Knives out it’s “Playing life like a game without consequence, until you can’t tell the difference between a stage prop and a real knife.”, and with Glass onion it was the whole thing about disruptors pushing, which makes other people motivated to push, until you push the one thing that nobody wants to push
SPOILER
The Duke's death I realised was Myles, because when the Duke said he took my glass, and they showed that flashback, I thought 'that was lazy storytelling, we didn't need that flashback' and it felt out of place with how smart the rest of the movie was, then remembered that the shot was different and the 'flashback' was there as a red herring. Plus I love that Miles being the killer is just so obvious but perfect. Also, is a sweatshop where they make sweatpants?
Lmaoooooo Kate Hudson was so bad in this in the best way! So entertaining! She had everyone laughing with her ridiculous lines. 🤣
SPOILERS
In my opinion one of the things that stood out to me in a negative way compared to the first movie is that they do way more short flashbacks to things characters said that ended up being clues when the first movie did perfectly fine without that. For example they don’t do a flashback to when Harlan says that Random is unable to tell a real knife from a prop; in this movie there’s a flashback to when duke announces his pineapple allergy, when he mentions driving to andi’s house, they even do a flashback to blanc telling Helen he would give her a reminder of why her sister left in the first place when that scene happened like 5 minutes ago. I love this movie but in terms of structuring it just feels a bit insecure.
The thing that made me realize that the island was going to burn was Helen and Cassandra's names. The movie takes place in Greece, and both Helen and Cassandra are prominent figures in the Iliad. Cassandra prophecies that Troy will be destroyed but no one believes her (like Andi warning that the hydrogen energy is unsafe but getting ignored and silenced), and it's Helen's arrival in Troy which causes the eventual destruction (Helen burns the island). Add to the metaphor that the invitations arrived in a wooden box, which could arguably be a loose Trojan horse reference. I've only seen the movie once so I'd love to go back through and see if there are more details I missed!
Some randoms thoughts I had about the movie:
1) Wasn't it hilarious how Benoit Blanc solves the party murder mystery even before it begins?
2) What was the meaning of that random guy walking around the estate, saying, "Don't mind me"?
3 Wouldn't a more rational person have protected such a fragile object as the napkin? It was obvious that Miles would snatch it away and destroy it.
4) Loved all of the behind-the-scenes running about by Benoit and Andi.
5) It seemed obvious to me that all of those absurd glass sculptures were going to get smashed. They are all in the way on those precarious pedestals and not fastened down.
6) The twists in the movie were delicious. Especially Andi not really being shot.
7) The geeky way Miles acts when the action starts getting dangerous reminds me of Ransom in Knives Out sort of doing the same thing. And they are both the villains!
8) I was very curious to try and see what was actually written on the napkin.
9) Burning down the Mona Lisa? Really? unforgivable.
10) I figured out two of the puzzles in the puzzle box instantly. The stereogram and the chess board. How did Ma Cody see so well across the room like that?
The random guy walking around is Noah Segan, Rian's friend who was also in Knives Out as Trooper Wagner. He's in there just for fun. 😂
She's not entirely in a "rational" state of mind. She's extremely emotionally upset and devastated by the loss of her sister. Also she might not assume his inclination towards destroying evidence because he had it in his possession for all that time and kept it intact.
You'll be able to better read the napkin after it comes out on Netflix, when you can simply press pause. That's another reason why I feel strongly that this needed to be played as a cinema release. There's too many things you'll catch on a first watch if you keep pausing or rewinding to see what really happened (which is NOT the way a story like this is intended to play out). 😆
Burning the Mona Lisa is honestly so thematically perfect in so many ways
I like that the random guy also plays into the Glass Onion concept, they tell you to ignore him because he's not part of it, but you don't because it surely there are more layers to it, but there isn't. Like with everything else, the answer was there from the begining and any complexity was purely from your own assumptions.
Actually, regarding your 2nd question, I have a slight theory on it! (i've only watched the movie once so im not entirely sure but if my memory serves me correctly)
I noticed that Derol (the random guy) walked across the screen 3 times.
The first time he walked from left to right, behind Miles (who was in the foreground) during that scene when the cast first arrived on the island.
The second time he walked from left to right again behind Miles.
The third time he walked from right to left, but this time behind "Andi".
In stage plays, villains would most commonly exit stage left (our right), whereas heros would exit stage right (our left).
So as my theory, I would say that Derol's role is to help us highlight who are the villains and heros in the way he exists the "stage" or screen!
@@sunsethorizonrose Incredible. I love this.
Someone might have already mentioned it but I really love the scene where Helen mirrors the face of the mona Lisa as Miles describes her as enigmatic. It both foreshadows how Andi is not as she seems with her being Helen and also how she goes on to destroy the mona lisa due to their connection to eachother.
I also liked how you can see Helen stumbling very early before the " there's something different about her" line like you mentioned foreshadowing her not being Andi but also how she uses alcohol as a crutch for confidence.
I haven't seen really anyone commenting on it either but yeah it wasn't even subtle. I remember turning to my friend and being like "wow that lady really sticks to that one angle, huh? Shall we call her Lisa now or something? "
Another note! Another reason why I don’t think audiences would have caught Miles having the phone in his pocket at first watch is despite us being told earlier that he doesn’t have phones, we’re just so subconsciously used to seeing phones in pockets now a days that we probably thought nothing of it if we forgot a detail or two and saw the phone. This movie totally slayed! Janelle Monet looked FIERCE I was in full fangirling mode over the costumes, Jenny the costume designer did SO GOOD! I’m defo gonna rewatch the movie and see if I can catch any of the clues I missed
What's wild was that my brother was the only one in the room who noticed this, picking up on it right away. But being on the autism spectrum I've noticed he picks up on things I don't think to look for. It was my second watch, so I knew Miles had the phone, but I didn't bother to look for it even. The level of detail blew my mind. "He's got the phone in his back pocket, I saw it! He doesn't even have a phone!"
I love the detail of miles not having a phone because it was a great was to throw in the reasoning of why he wouldn’t have an iPhone. In a vanity fair video breaking down a scene from Knives Out, Rian Johnson explained that the villain in any movie isn’t allowed to have an iPhone, after saying he would be shooting himself in the foot if he ever wanted to write another mystery. Very clever