The next submit comprises SPOILERS for Glass Onion.
A superb homicide thriller might be watched twice: As soon as to be stunned, and as soon as to see how the film stunned you. There are clues you missed, crimson herrings that tricked you, and plot threads you didn’t totally perceive till the ultimate answer was revealed. Within the case of Glass Onion, it’s solely on second viewing that you just understand that Rian Johnson primarily spoiled his huge structural twist throughout 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 buddies. The containers transform 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 chums should resolve a sequence 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 celebration; 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 tune, 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 ravishing musical puzzle primarily based on only one tune. And if you layer this tune on prime of itself, it begins to alter and turns into a ravishing new construction.
When Ma says that, Lionel realizes the clue means they’re imagined 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 simple to overlook on first viewing — as a result of he primarily reveals that Glass Onion is structured like a fugue. A lot of the story is informed twice: The narrative progresses in a linear trend till a key second, then doubles again to the beginning. After a brand new scene that reveals a serious bit of knowledge we didn’t know the primary time, your complete story performs once more, now with the brand new particulars layered on prime, revealing, as Yo-Yo Ma put it, a “lovely new construction.”
The crucial data includes the character of Andi, performed by Janelle Monae. By way of most of Glass Onion she looks as if an embittered former pal of Miles and the remaining. She doesn’t open her invitation field with the remainder of the group; she smashes it with a hammer. It seems that just a few months previous to the occasions of the movie, she had a falling out with Miles over the route of his firm, which she used run with him.
Miles invitations his buddies to his non-public island in Greece for a homicide thriller weekend; he will probably be “killed” on the primary evening, and will probably be as much as the company to resolve his “loss of life“ for the remainder of their trip. However grasp sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) reveals up at Miles’ celebration as effectively, and he suspects an actual homicide goes to happen. Certainly, on the primary evening of the journey, Duke winds up useless, 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 celebration 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 true Andi was useless 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’ celebration with Helen disguised as her sister within the hopes that they will uncover the proof that proves one of many Miles’ buddies murdered Andi.
Then Glass Onion replays essential moments from its first half once more with extra dialogue and extra context. For instance, the primary time by way of 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 greatest pal — a potential motive for homicide. The second time we see the scene, we understand 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 individual with motive for homicide would truly be Whisky, who might need killed Duke as a result of she was sick of being handled like a bit of meat.
It could possibly be a coincidence, and it is perhaps 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 obtained 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 dwelling as doable. To some extent, Glass Onion is a fugue a few fugue.
Yo-Yo Ma isn’t 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 buddies for simple laughs, however in lots of these instances — and positively within the case of Yo-Yo Ma — their function is rather more necessary than that.
Johnson makes use of these acquainted faces the best way 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 important characters had stated “Oh it is a fugue” after which defined it, viewers might need been extra inclined to hear 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 deal with the content material of what he’s saying — and understand that Johnson has simply confirmed you his complete hand earlier than the poker sport had even gotten underway.
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