When the world can feel like it is closing in on you, just know that Benoit Blanc is out there solving murder cases and all will be well once more. The teaser for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery dropped today, and it brings us back into the world of Rian Johnson’s whodunnit, and as was the case with Knives Out, I’m instantly invested.
With another all-star cast, including the return of Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, as well as Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, and Dave Bautista, the film is highly anticipated given the success that Knives Out had. And part of it is because Johnson mastered the storytelling of a whodunnit in that first movie, but it also helped that he had another all-star cast leading the charge. So heading into Glass Onion, fans were eager to see what the film was preparing us for.
The film is described as follows: “You’re invited to put the pieces together. In the follow-up to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects.”
Daniel Craig on a boat
What instantly fascinates me about Glass Onion vs. Knives Out (one of my favorite movies) is that the tone of the film revolves around what each individual group seems drawn to. For the Thrombeys, they were involved in the world of murder mysteries because Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) was an accomplished mystery writer. So we were thrown into one of his stories and ran with it.
Glass Onion seems to center around a group of friends who love puzzles and solving mysteries all on their own. So while there is, again, a connection to mysteries, it is different in tone from Knives Out in the sense that someone like Harlan Thrombey is not at the center of it.
And this teaser trailer makes for a great look into these characters, their vibes, and how the story is going to play out differently from that of Knives Out, and the minute that I saw Daniel Craig’s outfit, I was sold (as if I wasn’t sold beforehand).
Trust no one
One of my favorite parts of Knives Out was that despite the fact that you probably knew who did it, you were sent on such a twisted journey through the Thrombey family, all of whom were horrible people, that you didn’t know whether or not you could trust your own detective skills. It made sense why Benoit Blanc was exploring all his options, and that is what made his team-up with Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) work so well.
What little we know about Glass Onion seems to fit into that “trust no one” mentality quite well, because the friends in this group are all so wildly different from each other that it isn’t really surprising to me that they’re all going to have some other motive to come to this party.
It’s about the puzzles
The puzzle aspect of Glass Onion fascinates me in the same way that the “knives” did in Knives Out. Glass Onion could be referencing the Beatles song of the same name, which was given to the song because fans read too much into their lyrics, and with the puzzles and the title, maybe that’s the point—that we’re looking too far into the mystery and it’ll be the obvious pull that leads us to the answers we want.
Whatever actually happens in the film, I know that I can trust Rian Johnson to give me the murder mystery I’ve been waiting for, and December 23, 2022 cannot come fast enough.
(featured image: Netflix)
