Glass Onion returns to the world of Knives Out and Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and reminds us just how good writer/director Rian Johnson is at murder mysteries. But with Glass Onion also comes a lot more information about Blanc and how he works his cases. In my review for the movie, I gave it 5 stars because it is perfect, but I also want to break down a bit of what works in the movie.
And one of those things is a new working relationship that Blanc finds that mirrors, in a lot of ways, his connection with Marta in Knives Out. So, let’s talk about it, but beware, there will be spoilers ahead.
**Spoilers for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery lie ahead.**
In both Knives Out and Glass Onion, Benoit Blanc has realized one simple thing: Women are great at solving things. With Knives Out, we watched as he worked in tandem with Marta (Ana de Armas) to figure out what actually happened with Harlan Thrombey. Now, Glass Onion has brought us yet another iconic duo: Helen and Benoit.
When Andi (Janelle Monáe) is found dead, her twin sister Helen (also Monáe) makes it her mission to figure out what happened to her. And that’s why she enlists the help of Benoit Blanc to go to an annual mystery-themed party that Miles Bron (Edward Norton) throws for his friends. When Andi originally got her invitation to the party, Helen was the one who broke the puzzle to get the paper invitation out of it and brought it to Blanc, where the two cooked up a plan—after Benoit Blanc’s partner, played by Hugh Grant, answered the door.
Together, they’d go to this party and pretend like Helen was Andi and that Blanc was invited (when he wasn’t), to get answers. And it works because if there’s one thing that Blanc knows how to do, it is work with women to solve a murder.
The power of women
I’m not saying that Benoit Blanc couldn’t solve a case on his own. He can and he does. But it is telling that this is now the second time he’s chosen to work with a woman to figure out what is going on. With Marta, it was different because she was so heavily involved in the situation, but with Helen, the two are going into this on pretty much the same playing field.
And with each new turn, Blanc is shocked by how good she is at it. It’s never from a place of anger that someone is better than him or that someone figured it out before he could. It comes from being awestruck by Helen and her ease in figuring things out. And the two work together so flawlessly that, like his dynamic with Marta, I left the movie hoping that I’d see the two work together again.
If this all leads to Benoit Blanc starting a detective agency on his own with the women he’s worked with, I’d be more than happy to continually watch it. Because Benoit Blanc gets it and, so far, if he has to solve a murder with anyone, he seems to like solving it with a woman at his side, and it is a fun dynamic to see.
(featured image: John Wilson/NETFLIX)
