New Delhi

Most of my teenage years were spent devouring Agatha Christie's murder mysteries. I read my favourite ones again and again, discovering new details and hints at the identity of the murder. Due to Christie's presence being ubiquitous in mystery and detective fiction, it has been emulated more than one can count. So most of her whodunits do not have nearly the same impact now. Trust writer-director Rian Johnson to recreate that old magic — for this scribe anyway. His 2019 Christie pastiche 'Knives Out' was both a homage to the Dame and an update. Christie and her work are products of their time. Politically and socially, she was a staunch conservative as apparent in her writings. 

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At the end of the story, her characters like Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot caught the killer(s) and restored order, and the said order was a clearly-defined class system that underpinned British society. Johnson, through Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc, does not just solve the crime and catches the murderer. He disrupts the societal order. In both the first film and the sequel, we do not just find the identity of the one who committed the violent crime, but also their motivations. It's not just a whodunit, it is simultaneously a whydunit as well. There is also —  and this is unique to Johnson — an interplay between characters with and without privilege and that affects the plot.

'Glass Onion', deriving its name from The Beatles song in which John Lennon intentionally wanted to confuse fans who read too much into the songs of the band. The onion, and here I am just theorising, has layers, and if one were to keep peeling it, there would be nothing at the centre at all. The solution to this particular case might be too obvious for even Blanc, who is good with metaphors, to solve.

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Blanc is invited by an eccentric tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), along with an eclectic group of people (played by an all-star cast) to stay with him on a beautiful, isolated Greek island and solve his own impending murder. 

There is Kathryn Hahn's Claire Debella, Connecticut Governor and aspiring senator, Kate Hudson's Birdie Jay, a big-name fashion designer, her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick), Dave Bautista's Twitch streamer and men's rights campaigner Duke Cody, and his girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline). The co-founder of Bron's company and former partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe) also turns up, something the tech magnate did not see coming for the invitation was just a formality.

True to the title, Johnson builds an intricately structured and engaging mystery peppered with clues and misdirections and clues that are actually misdirections. Johnson also plays with audience expectations, and smartly subverts them at every turn. 

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glass onion

The story slyly comments on things like know-it-all tech bro billionaires (similar to a certain someone who recently bought a social media site on a whim) and their unholy connections with politicians, online, misinformed influencers giving all the wrong ideas to the young ones, and son.

But even if one were uninterested in the underlying themes, the story offers a lot of the 'meat' that's present in such mystery stories. Nothing is what it seems. There are layers and layers to these characters and their motivations. Each character, as was true in most Christie stories, has at least one solid motive for the murder.

And among them all, Blanc, with Craig having refurbished the thick, funky Southern accent, observes everyone closely, staying several steps ahead of everyone, including the audience. But as mentioned, there is something so obvious, so profoundly stupid, about this case, similar to just the online murder mystery games a bored, in-between-cases, Blanc plays in the bath and loses every single time.

Unlike their miserable characters, the actors are clearly having a hell of a time playing such rich, vapid characters. The performances, particularly from Norton and Monáe, are unaffected and natural. Johnson is so good at squeezing a lot of drama, tension, and humour from his actors that one gets an idea that casting was very specific and careful, instead of netting the biggest stars the studio could afford as earlier seemed. Craig's Blanc should not work. The accent is badly done, the character is comical, too extra, and to somebody who does not know him, he is the opposite of a cool-minded, brilliant detective. And yet, the actor is an absolute delight to watch.

'Glass Onion' is a delicious murder mystery in which Johnson once again gives that cosy feeling of Christie's tales, and at the same time gives his own subversive touch.

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