‘Glass Onion’ Spoils Itself In Its First Scene

The next put up incorporates SPOILERS for Glass Onion.

An excellent homicide thriller will be watched twice: As soon as to be shocked, and as soon as to see how the film shocked you. There are clues you missed, pink herrings that tricked you, and plot threads you didn’t totally perceive till the ultimate resolution was revealed. Within the case of Glass Onion, it’s solely on second viewing that you simply notice that Rian Johnson basically spoiled his massive structural twist inside the film’s first minutes.

The scene in query includes the arrival of a number of elaborate containers on the properties or places of work of a bunch of associates. The containers change into invites, despatched to a quartet of longtime buddies — Kathryn Hahn’s Claire, Leslie Odom Jr.’s Lionel, Kate Hudson’s Birdie, and Dave Bautista’s Duke — by their mutual pal Miles Bron (Edward Norton), an eccentric billionaire. To get to the precise invitation inside, the buddies should resolve a collection of puzzles contained within the field; they begin a convention name to decode all of them collectively.

The important thing second that foreshadows the remainder of the film comes when cellist Yo-Yo Ma (enjoying himself!) seems at Birdie’s home. She’s fixing her field within the midst of a raging get together; Ma simply occurs to be one of many company. He wanders over because the field begins enjoying Bach’s “Little Fugue in G Minor.” Whereas Birdie makes an attempt to Shazam the track, Yo-Yo Ma identifies it from reminiscence, as a result of he’s Yo-Yo Ma.

Ma himself delivers the essential line of dialogue, when he explains a fugue:

A fugue is a lovely musical puzzle primarily based on only one tune. And whenever you layer this tune on high of itself, it begins to vary and turns into a lovely new construction.

When Ma says that, Lionel realizes the clue means they’re purported to carry a deal with out of the field, which then spins round, revealing a brand new “layer” of puzzles beneath.

The chums push ahead, resolve the remainder of the clues, unlock their containers, and get their invites from Miles to a trip on his non-public island. However Ma’s contribution has a a lot bigger and extra meta which means that’s straightforward to overlook on first viewing — as a result of he basically reveals that Glass Onion is structured like a fugue. A lot of the story is informed twice: The narrative progresses in a linear style till a key second, then doubles again to the beginning. After a brand new scene that reveals a significant bit of data we didn’t know the primary time, the whole story performs once more, now with the brand new particulars layered on high, revealing, as Yo-Yo Ma put it, a “stunning new construction.”

The crucial info includes the character of Andi, performed by Janelle Monae. By means of most of Glass Onion she looks like an embittered former pal of Miles and the remainder. She doesn’t open her invitation field with the remainder of the group; she smashes it with a hammer. It seems that a couple of months previous to the occasions of the movie, she had a falling out with Miles over the course of his firm, which she used run with him.

Miles invitations his associates to his non-public island in Greece for a homicide thriller weekend; he might be “killed” on the primary evening, and it will likely be as much as the company to unravel his “dying“ for the remainder of their trip. However grasp sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) reveals up at Miles’ get together as properly, and he suspects an actual homicide goes to happen. Certainly, on the primary evening of the journey, Duke winds up lifeless, seemingly poisoned, and Andi goes lacking. The lights in Miles’ home go in and out the following chaos, an unseen assailant shoots Andi within the chest with Duke’s gun. The remaining get together company demand Blanc clarify what has occurred.

That’s the purpose the place the second a part of the “fugue” begins. (The soundtrack even reprises Bach’s Little Fugue at this actual second.) Johnson jumps again in time to the scene when Benoit Blanc was “invited” to Miles’ island — by Andi’s twin sister, Helen. It seems that the actual Andi was lifeless earlier than the movie started. The police imagine she dedicated suicide; Helen suspects it was homicide. She and Blanc hatch a scheme to crash Miles’ get together with Helen disguised as her sister within the hopes that they will uncover the proof that proves one of many Miles’ associates murdered Andi.

Then Glass Onion replays essential moments from its first half once more with further dialogue and extra context. For instance, the primary time by the story we watched Blanc spy on Duke as he spied on Miles in mattress with Duke’s girlfriend Whisky. At that time within the story, it appeared like Duke had caught his girlfriend dishonest on him along with his finest pal — a potential motive for homicide. The second time we see the scene, we notice what’s actually occurring: Duke put Whisky as much as sleeping with Miles within the hopes it will assist him get a job at Miles’ information channel. So the particular person with motive for homicide would truly be Whisky, who may need killed Duke as a result of she was sick of being handled like a chunk of meat.

It could possibly be a coincidence, and it could be a stretch, however even the truth that the musical piece that lends Glass Onion its construction is a fugue could possibly be a clue. In psychiatry, a fugue state is one the place an individual discards their true id, assumes a brand new one, and wanders off. Once they wake from their fugue, they do not know how they bought there, nor bear in mind the occasions that occurred whereas they had been in that state. Helen doesn’t lose her reminiscence, however she does assume a brand new id and travels about as removed from her residence as potential. To some extent, Glass Onion is a fugue a couple of fugue.

Yo-Yo Ma shouldn’t be the one celeb cameo in Glass Onion; there are additionally appearances from Serena Williams, Jake Tapper, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Natasha Lyonne, and the late Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury. I feel some would possibly chalk them as much as Rian Johnson calling in favors with some well-known associates for straightforward laughs, however in plenty of these circumstances — and positively within the case of Yo-Yo Ma — their objective is rather more vital than that.

Johnson makes use of these acquainted faces the way in which a magician makes use of misdirection: To distract the viewers whereas he drops his plan proper in entrance of their faces. If one of many predominant characters had mentioned “Oh this can be a fugue” after which defined it, viewers may need been extra inclined to pay attention extra attentively, and maybe to catch on to Johnson’s plan. By making it an sudden celeb, the viewers is much less more likely to concentrate on the content material of what he’s saying — and notice that Johnson has simply confirmed you his whole hand earlier than the poker sport had even gotten underway.