Glass Onion

[rynling]

I didn’t enjoy Glass Onion as much as I enjoyed Knives Out. This was for purely personal reasons, those reasons being that I love Gothic stories about old houses and that I find both Ana de Armas and Chris Evans to be extremely attractive. Still, I enjoyed Glass Onion a whole lot.

Content warning for spoilers. Nothing explicit, but best to be on the safe side.

Glass Onion is about how Janelle Monáe destroys a cryptocurrency tech billionaire played by Edward Norton. Edward Norton’s character is high-octane cringe from start to finish. You want to see him destroyed, and it’s great when it happens.

Not only is it great when it happens, it happens for a good twenty minutes. Every single one of those minutes is a treasure. There’s none of the tension between the heroine and the villain that pervaded Knives Out; there’s just a billionaire’s life going up in flames. It’s cathartic.

What I appreciate about Glass Onion is that, as part of this destruction, the Mona Lisa is burned. I’ve talked about why I dislike the concept of fine art, and I feel like Glass Onion gets it. It’s not enough to hate the ultrawealthy; you also have to resist the culture of privilege that surrounds them. The beauty and history of the Mona Lisa is all well and good, but its worth as a financial investment and status symbol is nowhere near the value of the dignity of a single third-grade teacher who teaches kids to read.

Anyway, honorable mention goes to Dave Bautista’s thick thighs, as well as the multiple pairs of shorty shorts that enabled them. I was not expecting that from Glass Onion, but what a lovely treat.

Comments

[fishguts]

In the end, although I had a riotous time with Glass Onion, I ended up preferring Knives Out, too, and for the same reasons! From the old house with the trick window to the "one was in this room when the other was in that room" back-and-forth, there was something so richly hot chocolate satisfying about the murder mystery novel aesthetics of Knives Out, at least for me!

I could not agree more on wanting to see Edward Norton's character get thoroughly destroyed. When the napkin was destroyed, I was expecting some reveal that, oh, it's okay, someone caught it all on camera! but no, what Miles Bron does is absolutely irreversible, so why not make something even more irreversible happen? I love the direction the movie takes in those last twenty minutes. I have always been more or less indifferent about the Mona Lisa as a painting, never giving it too much thought, but Glass Onion made me want to see it burn.

I respect that!