Glass Onion- A Knives Out Mystery: More glass than class

Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Ryan Johnson’s follow-up to his 2019’s giddily successful whodunit Knives Out, is a bit of a letdown. It brings us another array of topnotch actors , who sparkle like the champagne they so habitually imbibe. But the vast cast is this time appended to a fractured plot, filled with posturing and preening rather than any genuine urge to reveal a remarkable murder mystery.

There is also a lot of showing off of the we’ve-got-an-extended-budget-this-time-so-look variety. To give an example, when one of the protagonists comes to meet our resident detective Benoit Blanc at his residence that he shares with his husband (Hugh Grant, in a delightful door-opening cameo) their conversation shifts from the apartment into a balcony overlooking an scenic European town.

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Extravagance cannot be a fill-in for creativity or even common sense. This is what we learn when Benoit does his expose on the killer on a Greek island that looks like Meryl Streep and her friends’ leftover from Mama Mia.

Inhabiting this island is a bratty spoilt millionaire , played with snooty superficiality by Edward Norton, who turns out to be quite brainless and susceptible to serious injuries. Any resemblance to an American millionaire constantly in the news is purely coincidental . The fact that the plot turns out to be as harebrained as the millionaire whom Benoit exposes to be …well, harebrained, is just too ironic to be taken seriously.

There is a weird sterility ,almost an intellectual inertia, about the second film in the Knives Out franchise. No doubt it is a very good-looking ensemble and their vacation on a Greek island looks inviting. But somehow the plot never proceeds beyond the surface dazzle: swimming pools, cocktails, page 3 gossip, page bore backbiting, etc.

Where is the intrigue, the mystique, if you will, which wrapped itself around those interesting characters in the first film? I still recall all the femme fatale in the first film, from Jamie Lee Curtis to Ana de Armas with the pleasure of a treasure. This time in the sequel the fabulous stars stand around holding sparkling glasses mouthing dialogues which are more mindless than mysterious. By the time the first murder occurs I had lost interest in these people.

If these characters and the island setting are meant to be a tribute to Agatha Christie then I am afraid the affection is tragically inflected. This is more like a homage to Hitchcock on one of his off days. There are constant shoves into absurdity including an identical-twin situation which does little to enhance the suspense.

I also had a problem with Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc. Now that he is out of the closet he is shown to assume some remote gay mannerisms. It’s like throwing a pink scarf over a formal suit to attend a party where you want the guests to know your big secret.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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