As a journalist, I’m supposed to tell you everything I can learn about a subject. But when it comes to the new movie “Glass Onion,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night, I’d rather tread lightly instead.
For a clue as to why, I present the movie’s full title: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Yes, this film isn’t some Beatles-inspired riff but a sequel to the twisty 2019 romp “Knives Out,” which introduced Daniel Craig as the drawling detective Benoit Blanc. And in advance of his film’s premiere, the director Rian Johnson sent out a statement imploring the press not to spoil it.
“There are some big surprises beyond who dies and whodunit, the preservation of which really do affect the experience of a first viewing,” Johnson wrote. “Thank you in advance for helping to preserve those for audiences.”
When it comes to educating Times readers, I’ve always tried to adopt a no-spoilers policy, but people’s standards on this matter vary: Recently, when I wrote about a romantic comedy and mentioned that the two leads kiss — the equivalent of someone getting slashed in a slasher — Twitter users reacted as though I’d leaked government secrets.
So below, even though I’m endeavoring to avoid spoilers, I’ll clearly mark what I’m about to tell you so that you can decide just how much you’d like to peel this “Glass Onion” in advance.
The Setup (Without Spoiling the Murder)
As in the first movie, Blanc is summoned to a gathering of rich eccentrics to solve a mystery. But this time around, there hasn’t been a killing — yet.
Instead, self-involved billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has sent invitations out to an eclectic group of his confidantes that summon them to his private island in Greece, ostensibly to escape Covid protocols (the movie takes place, with some surprising specificity, in the summer of 2020) but also to playact in a fun murder-mystery scenario he’s cooked up. After Blanc gets situated, Bron confesses that he hadn’t sent the detective an invitation to the party, so the initial mystery is who did.
And then there’s a larger, more meta question: Will the movie follow Blanc’s unraveling of the fictional murder mystery Bron has devised, or will a real one occur that demands even more of the detective’s keen eye?
The Characters (Without Spoiling the Villain)
Craig is the only cast holdover from the original film, and at the Q&A following the “Glass Onion” premiere, Johnson cracked, “I’m going to keep making these until Daniel blocks me on his phone.”
So no, there’s no return appearance from Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, or any of the “Knives Out” kooks, but the new group is a well-cast bunch. Foremost among them is Kate Hudson, who is having a blast as a party-more, think-less influencer; Johnson has said that he partly modeled this sequel on the 1973 mystery “The Last of Sheila,” and Hudson is absolutely meant to be its over-poured Dyan Cannon.
There’s also Kathryn Hahn as a politician bankrolled by Bron, Leslie Odom Jr. as a star scientist, and Dave Bautista (in tiny swim-shorts that would put Craig’s “Casino Royale” trunks to shame) as a gun-toting men’s-rights activist. And then there’s a mysterious Janelle Monáe, who plays a corporate partner pushed out by Bron’s overweening avarice. She skulks around this private island, serving looks but saying little, like a gun you can’t wait to go off.
The Reaction (Without Spoiling the Surprises)
“Glass Onion” has been pretty well-received in Toronto, with several reviews echoing The Hollywood Reporter, which called the sequel “more pleasing in most respects (and neck-and-neck in most others)” compared with the original. Variety was a little less enthused, but even that review noted how much bigger this seems than the 2019 film, and you can feel that increased budget when it comes to the outrageous production design of Bron’s island mansion, which features the movie’s titular object in the most eye-popping way.
The original “Knives Out” was a tidy hit, making $165 million domestically and nearly doubling that worldwide, but Johnson opted to leave his original distributor Lionsgate and take the franchise to Netflix, which shelled out quite handsomely to land “Glass Onion” and another sequel. That the streamer would pay $450 million for the package indicates how eager Netflix is to have a movie series on par with its buzzier television offerings, but “Glass Onion” still plays best in a crowded theater, and the audience at the raucous Toronto premiere cheered every cameo and twist.
The film is due for a streaming debut in December, but Netflix executives have indicated they’re exploring an advance theatrical run that is significantly more robust than the obligatory, Oscar-qualifying empty houses they usually book. Could that be an advantageous new model for the currently cost-cutting streamer? It hardly takes a detective to know that at the box office, they’d make a killing.
