Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Rian Johnson’s latest whodunnit is a smart, stylish, but disappointing sequel to Knives Out.

What is Glass Onion about?

A billionaire invites five friends and world-famous detective Benoit Blanc to his private Greek island for a murder mystery party. They soon realise that more nefarious things are at play.

Where can you watch Glass Onion?

Netflix.

Trigger Warnings:

Mild violence. Sensuality. Threat.

My review of Glass Onion

Knives Out is one of my favourite movies. It offers all the elements I crave in a whodunnit: colourful characters, a compelling setting, real emotion and entertainment, and a clever mystery.

But Glass Onion doesn’t tick all those boxes. 

Its best qualities are the vivid setting (a beautiful island in Greece!), a strong mystery (not on par with Knives Out, but still so clever), and impeccable direction and set design. Bold colours and scrupulous cinematography make the movie a feast for the eyes. 

But the characters are less successful. The cast is excellent, but they don't have much to do (with the exception of perhaps Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson, and Janelle Monae). Kathryn Hahn, who is arguably the cast's best talent, is underutilised and kept in the background. The same is true of Jessica Henwick and Leslie Odom Jr. They do have their clearly defined roles - Hahn is the uptight politician, Henwick the long-suffering assistant, etc. - but they might as well have been a ballet dancer and a doctor because those roles don’t mean anything in the plot.

The delightful costumes (and masks) give us much-needed insight into the characters’ personalities. But I also wish those personalities had come through in the characters’ actions.

Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., and Kathryn Hahn in Glass Onion | from IMDB.com

The plot is frustratingly slow. The pacing drags until about the last quarter, and I kept waiting for something big to happen. When the final twists come, they’re almost worth it, but I kept expecting more from the characters and they never delivered. It made the finale anticlimactic, and the emotion was missing.

Glass Onion is smart and stylish, for sure. But poorly developed and underutilised characters make it unforgettable.

Have you seen Glass Onion? What did you think of it?