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The Unlikable Souls of “Glass Onion”

By Anthony Lane

The big difference between “ Knives Out ” (2019) and its sequel, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” is one of climate change. In many respects, the two movies are twins. Both are directed by Rian Johnson; both star Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the sybaritic sleuth; and both present Blanc with a puzzle to solve. The first film was centered on a Massachusetts mansion, amid the rustle of autumn leaves, whereas the new one largely unfolds on a Greek island, in charring heat. The downside is a lack of shadows—a bummer for anyone who believes that murder is most foul, and most gratifying, when draped in gloom. The upside is that we get to see Craig, who rose from the waves like a dripping god in “Casino Royale” (2006), step gingerly into a swimming pool wearing a two-piece bathing costume, in striped seersucker, that even the shyest Victorian gent would have deemed too modest by half. Oh, and a buttercup-yellow cravat, knotted and spotted. Nice.

Nattier still is the scene in which Blanc lounges in his bath, crowned with a tasselled smoking cap, sucking on a cigar, and bored out of his giant mind. “I need a great case,” he says. And here it comes. He is summoned to the island in the sun; other invitations, each cached within a cunning box, are sent to his fellow-guests. From the top: Duke (Dave Bautista), who has found fame, if you can call it that, on YouTube, and his inamorata, Whiskey (Madelyn Cline); Claire (Kathryn Hahn), the flustered governor of Connecticut; Birdie (Kate Hudson), once a model, now an entrepreneur, always a fool, plus her assistant, Peg (Jessica Henwick); a scientist named Lionel (Leslie Odom, Jr.); and, to general consternation, Cassandra Brand (Janelle Monáe). Their host is Miles Bron (Edward Norton), a reclusive billionaire who used to be Cassandra’s business partner before casting her adrift. Reputedly, Miles is a master of new technologies. Demonstrably, he is a dick.

The opening twist, in the pretzel of a plot, is that Miles lures these folk to his domain and dares them to unpick “the mystery of my murder.” One obvious model here is Agatha Christie’s “ A Murder Is Announced ,” published in 1950. In both instances, an apparently lighthearted game morphs into a crime with no heart at all; those familiar with the book, indeed, will have a head start in identifying the slayer in the film. Where Johnson scores over Christie is in the whiplash of his storytelling. We get flashbacks, switchbacks, a darting shoal of red herrings, and scenes whose meaning is upended when viewed from another angle, with fresh information at our command. As Whiskey pours herself all over Miles, say, does she know that Duke is watching through the window? Does he know if she knows?

The title swings two ways. First, toward a track on the White Album, in which fans who read too much into Beatles lyrics are waggishly ribbed by John Lennon. “The walrus was Paul,” he sings. Only by such obsessive detail-sniffing, of course, can you hope to decode a movie like this one. Second, there is an actual glass onion: a stately dome, sitting atop Miles’s island lair, and a telling symbol, I would say, for this extravagant but none too sturdy film. It is shiny with mischief, crafted with guile, and performed with eager wit—not least by Kate Hudson, who turns the tweeting Birdie into the empress of faux pas. (On “Oprah,” we learn, Birdie compared herself to Harriet Tubman; she also thinks that sweatshops are where sweatpants are made.) Why, then, should the whole enterprise feel so curiously thin and cold to the touch?

The clue lies in Agatha Christie. Her gang of suspects, in “A Murder Is Announced,” was a mixture of young and old—as it was in “Knives Out,” which was thoroughly warmed by the friendship, fond and non-creepy, between an elderly author (Christopher Plummer) and his nurse (Ana de Armas). No such good will exists in “Glass Onion,” which is stiff with unlikable souls, all of them Miles’s pals, and thus of the same generation. Frankly, who cares who assassinates whom? Also, in the novel, as Miss Marple observes, “nobody knows any more who anyone is.” In the messy wake of war, one could forge not only a new identity but a fictitious past. That covering of tracks isn’t so easy in the digital age, and you can sense Johnson bending the evidence to fit the tale. At one point, somebody is killed before he or she can share a fact that just popped up on Google Alerts. What a way to go.

As for the climax, I will reveal only that it involves major mayhem. In line with“Parasite” (2019) and this year’s “Triangle of Sadness,” “Glass Onion” is bent on smashing the wealthy, together with all their toys—which, coming from a star-stuffed Hollywood spectacle, on a plump budget, strikes me as a bit rich. I wonder what Daniel Craig makes of it all. He clearly relishes the languid brain work, and savors the character of Blanc as if it were ripe Brie, yet here he is, with everything exploding in fireballs. Isn’t that what he was running away from, when he fled the world of Bond?

Tall and black-gowned, with a paunch and a pair of blue-tinted spectacles, Jack Gladney ( Adam Driver ) is the chairman—and the proud founder—of the department of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill, a pleasant cradle of learning. And here’s the fun part: Jack doesn’t speak German. He tries, but he just can’t get his all-engulfing American mouth around the Teutonic tongue. This frustrated figure, inclined to be hopeful yet pestered by intimations of doom, and brought to life by the tireless Driver, is the hero of “White Noise,” written and directed by Noah Baumbach .

The movie is based on Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name, from 1984, and is set in that decade. (Hands up: who is instinctively on the side of any film that is smartphone free?) As so often with Baumbach, we are ushered into the bosom of a family. This bosom is busier than most, because Jack and his wife, Babette (Greta Gerwig), not only have a child of their own but also house kids from their previous marriages; two of the siblings, Steffie and Heinrich, are played by a real-life sister and brother, May and Sam Nivola, thus adding to the lived-in domestic texture of the story. If, like me, you enjoy watching smoothly choreographed sequences of people weaving in and out of rooms, chattering and snacking, or rallying one another to the TV (“Hurry up, plane-crash footage!”), then the everyday crackle and hum of “White Noise” will be enough.

But this is DeLillo, so we must brace ourselves for narratives—or, at any rate, for occurrences that are so dense with the gaseous air of conspiracy that you can barely breathe. Hence the pills that Babette takes, in secret, or the “Airborne Toxic Event” that shrouds the landscape and causes the townsfolk, including the Gladneys, to evacuate. Baumbach, too, is taking flight, away from his regular zones of operation and into Spielberg country, where the highways seize up in mass panic, beneath a storm cloud as loomingly vast as a spaceship. And, all the while, everyone converses in fluent DeLillo: “Maybe there’s no death as we know it, just documents changing hands.” What husband has ever said that to his wife? On the page, the fact that the characters sound like the author somehow deepens the ominous charm of the spell that he casts. Onscreen, it’s too weird for words.

Nevertheless, even if you grow impatient with “White Noise”—an intimate black comedy that dreams of becoming an epic—stick with it, for the sake of the end credits. Unfolding in wide shot, against the background of a seething supermarket, like an Andreas Gursky photograph, these are a miniature masterpiece unto themselves. Given the chance, Baumbach can’t help making a song and dance of things. Someone please put him in charge of a musical, and soon.

There is more than one son in “The Son.” The first son we see, at the start of Florian Zeller ’s new film, is a baby named Theo. He is doted upon by his mother, Beth (Vanessa Kirby), and his father, Peter (Hugh Jackman), who live comfortably in New York. Discomfort arrives at the door, in the shape of the anxiety-shredded Kate (Laura Dern). She is Peter’s ex-wife, and she brings news of their son, Nicholas (Zen McGrath), who is seventeen. “He scares me, O.K.?” Kate says.

Nicholas is hardly the spawn of Satan. He seems a mild and dreamy boy; his gaze is misted over, as if his mind were drifting elsewhere, and it’s no surprise to learn that he has been skipping school. What did he do all day? “I walked.” And what’s his problem? “It’s life. It’s weighing me down.” The simplicity of these replies exasperates his father, a lawyer with political ambitions. (Not that the film is remotely interested in work; it’s merely an arena for private pain.) Peter’s response to the revelation that Nicholas has been self-harming is typical. “I forbid you to do this,” he says. That should do the trick.

Nicholas, who has hitherto lived with Kate, moves in with Peter and Beth, and appears—though only appears—to be on the mend. He is loved by those around him, and yet, as a doctor says, “Love will not be enough.” Advice that chills the heart. Many viewers, with experience of mental-health crises in their own homes, may decide that the plot of this movie cuts all too close to the bone. (Few of them will be wealthy professional New Yorkers with ready access to psychiatric care.) If “The Son” lacks the grip of Zeller’s previous film, “The Father” (2020), it’s because the fable of Nicholas and Peter has the brittle feel of a setup. Over and over, as situations are constructed, you can spot the payoff coming; when Peter dances with Beth, in their apartment, do we get a shot of Nicholas looking on, shut out from others’ pleasure? Check. Likewise, the finale relies on a detail that’s been planted, with maximum implausibility, a while before. The shock is blunted on impact.

This is not to scorn the skill of the actors, and Dern is on especially wrenching form. It is neither fair nor wise, however, to land Jackman with a role of ceaseless anguish, which, dancing aside, siphons off his natural geniality. The irony is that “The Son” is unceremoniously stolen by Anthony Hopkins, who won an Oscar as a man felled by dementia in “The Father.” He now plays Peter’s father, a power-monger with his wits intact and blazing, who, in a single scene, proceeds to torch the fragile emotional sympathies on which the whole film depends. His recommended cure for the suffering of his son and his grandson is as follows: “Just fucking get over it.” Is that not a monstrous thing to say? It is. Does the monster stay in your head, as the rest of the movie recedes? Completely. ♦

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By Katy Waldman

By Justin Chang

By Amanda Petrusich

Review: As all-star whodunits go, ‘Glass Onion’ has enormous appeal

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The key word in “Glass Onion,” Rian Johnson’s enjoyably deft sequel to “Knives Out,” is “disruption.” The friends who’ve descended on a Greek island paradise are game-changing innovators in the fields of fashion (Kate Hudson), science (Leslie Odom Jr.), politics (Kathryn Hahn) and toxic masculinity (Dave Bautista). Their host is a smug, name-dropping, eminently punchable billionaire whose resemblance to a certain newly installed social-media titan could scarcely have been better planned or timed. And, of course, a post-007 Daniel Craig is back in the mix as Blanc, Benoit Blanc, that genteel charmer of a Southern sleuth who can always be counted on to disrupt a killer’s scheme, even as he serves to anchor what has become an improbably solid franchise.

The keys to that franchise now belong to Netflix, and talk about disruption! “Knives Out,” released three Thanksgivings ago, became a smash hit and suggested there was hope yet for smart, funny original movies in theaters. I suspect “Glass Onion” would have done the same had it been given the chance; instead, it’ll play for just a week in 600 U.S. theaters before it starts streaming Dec. 23, just in time to give Netflix a nice Christmas subscriber boost. It also feels like a criminal disservice to the movie, an audience picture through and through, whose slyly tuned jokes and ingenious surprises are worth discovering with a crowd.

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Seek out those crowds, if you feel so moved; the sound of other people’s laughter may drown out a plot point or two, but you’ll experience worse distractions at home. The characters in “Glass Onion,” for their part, have been cooped up for too long. It’s May 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Miles Bron (a pitch-perfect Edward Norton), the aforementioned punchable billionaire, has invited his pals to his private island for a weekend escape. They happily comply, partly to enjoy a spot of lockdown luxury but also because they depend on Miles’ largesse — and therefore, his goodwill — to sustain their reputations and livelihoods.

Which is not to say that they wish him dead, exactly, although Miles’ ex-business partner, Andi (Janelle Monáe), may feel differently. Fired from the company they founded together and cast out from their once tight-knit circle of friends, Andi is one of two guests who turn up on the island unexpectedly; Blanc is the other.

As the two designated outsiders here, they forge an instinctual bond early on that may remind you a bit of Craig’s rapport with Ana de Armas in “Knives Out.” Maybe that’s a red herring on Johnson’s part, or on mine. Suffice to say that Monáe’s splendid, surprising performance is one of the movie’s foremost pleasures, achieving a heft and versatility that throws her co-stars’ amusing if paper-thin antics into sharp relief.

In other respects, “Glass Onion” — a reference to not only the Beatles song but also the large crystalline dome that sits atop Miles’ island compound — subtly echoes and departs from its predecessor, maintaining the usual high quality standards without lapsing too blithely into formula. As the plot gathers steam and accelerates, Johnson again offers a blunt evisceration of the privileged and powerful, only with fancier cocktails, showier bric-a-brac and gaudier outfits. (A frilly orange bikini and a rainbow lamé dress — both worn by Hudson, though not simultaneously — are among costume designer Jenny Eagan’s standout creations; Craig’s vintage blue- and white-striped cabana set is another.)

But if “Knives Out’s” manor house full of rotten apples hews close to the classical detective story template, the suspects in “Glass Onion” feel drawn to more contemporary specifications. You might have cast a vote for an outwardly respectable, privately on-the-take politician like Claire (Hahn) or laughed at the YouTube videos that have made Duke (Bautista) and his girlfriend, Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), a popular duo in men’s rights discourse.

Most of these dimwits — Andi has a less printable word for them — are just one misstep or bad tweet away from cancellation, especially Hudson’s fashion maven, Birdie, whose phone gets routinely confiscated by her loyal assistant (Jessica Henwick). And then there’s Miles, who, like more than a few self-styled tech visionaries, isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is — something that Blanc, for all his courtly manners, delights in pointing out early and often.

Cleverness, however, remains very much Johnson’s stock-in-trade. He’s uncannily good at misdirection, at smuggling clues into throwaway dialogue and keeping the identities of not only his killer(s?) but also his victim(s?) under wraps for a remarkably long stretch. And in keeping with the title’s governing metaphor — a puzzle that is at once fiendishly multilayered and wholly transparent — he’s skilled enough to hide some of his most incriminating evidence in plain sight. The central mystery hinges on an audacious structural coup that produces a succession of giddy, breathless moments in the movie’s second half, as cinematographer Steve Yedlin and editor Bob Ducsay excel at reframing earlier plot points from revelatory new perspectives.

If the actual solution doesn’t turn out to be as elaborate or airtight in its construction as “Knives Out” was, that’s partly because the satirical dynamics — the inequity between the power Miles wields and the friends cowering and seething in his shadow — don’t entirely allow for it. If there’s a weakness to Johnson’s conception of both movies, it’s that for all his strong, cohesive work with his ensemble, he hasn’t figured out a way to make all his characters equally compelling. To single out which actors fare better or worse is to risk spoiling a few surprises, though it gives away nothing to reiterate the droll, goofy pleasure of Craig’s company.

Blanc’s charms as a character are both obvious and layered: His air of comic befuddlement disguises a razor-sharp intellect, and he often deploys his armchair-detective showmanship to sneaky, subversive ends.

And like Hercule Poirot, Gideon Fell and a lot of other detectives with big brains and distinctive speech patterns, Blanc is a moralist and an idealist at heart — someone whose sympathies are instinctually with the wronged and neglected, and who believes fervently in the possibility of justice even when the law cannot provide it. That’s its own kind of disruption, I guess, except that it also fits a pretty satisfying formula. The “Knives Out” movies don’t need to be reinvented or broken open. But a distributor worthy of them and their audience wouldn’t hurt.

‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’

Rated: PG-13, for strong language, some violence, sexual material and drug content Running time: 2 hours, 19 minutes Playing: Opens Nov. 23 in general release; available Dec. 23 on Netflix

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The best bits in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” are the ones you won’t read about in this review (and hopefully won’t hear about before you see the movie). But rest assured that they are plentiful, and they’re scattered generously throughout Rian Johnson ’s uproarious if slightly inferior sequel.

The clever details, amusing name-drops, and precisely pointed digs at vapid celebrity culture keep Johnson’s movie zippy when it threatens to drag. In following up his 2019 smash hit “ Knives Out ,” the writer/director has expanded his storytelling scope in every way. Everything is bigger, flashier, and twistier. The running time is longer, as is the time frame the narrative covers. But that doesn’t necessarily make “Glass Onion” better. A wildly entertaining beginning gives way to a saggy midsection, as Johnson’s mystery doubles back on itself to reveal more details about these characters we thought we’d come to know. The result feels repetitive. The percolating tension that existed within the classy confines of the first “Knives Out” has lessened here against the sprawling, sun-dappled splendor of an over-the-top, private Greek island.

And it would just be tough for Johnson to top his original film, which was so smart and singular—hilarious, but also legitimately suspenseful. His characters felt richer (no pun intended) the first time around, and his ensemble cast had more to do across the board. “Glass Onion” offers some meaty and meaningful performances, particularly from Janelle Monáe , Kate Hudson , and Daniel Craig , once again doing his best Foghorn Leghorn impression as the intrepid detective Benoit Blanc. And several of his high-profile cameos are a giddy delight. But multitalented actors capable of daring, exciting work, such as Leslie Odom Jr. and Kathryn Hahn , frustratingly go to waste in underdeveloped supporting parts.

Still, if you can catch “Glass Onion” in its one-week theatrical run before it streams on Netflix starting December 23, it’s a film that benefits from the collective energy of an enthusiastic audience. Plus, it’ll help you avoid any spoilers that might dribble out over the next month. So: here goes!

Edward Norton plays Miles Bron, a billionaire tech bro who isn’t nearly as brilliant as he thinks. Once a year, he amasses his tight-knit clique—a disparate group of people who smugly refer to themselves as “The Disruptors”—for a lavish, weekend vacation. This time, he’s shipped them all multilayered puzzle boxes (an early indicator of the kind of elaborate production design Rick Heinrichs has in store for us) as a tease for the murder mystery he’s planned at his isolated getaway. His mansion manages to be gaudy yet chicly minimalist at once, an indication that he has no recognizable personal style of his own.

His guests include Hudson’s model-turned-influencer Birdie, who keeps getting into trouble for tweets she doesn’t realize are racist; Hahn’s married mom and no-nonsense politician Claire; Dave Bautista ’s brash men’s-rights YouTuber Duke Cody and his scantily clad girlfriend, Whiskey ( Madelyn Cline , finding surprising shading); and Odom’s beleaguered scientist, Lionel, who endures urgent faxes from Miles at all hours of the day and night. Also receiving an unexpected invitation is the jovial and fashionable Benoit Blanc, who welcomes the fun of this challenge, as he seems at sea between cases. Once again, it’s truly a joy to watch Craig get goofy.

Their reunion is all warm smiles and hugs until Monáe’s Andi Brand shows up. She was Miles’ partner in building his business empire; now, she’s on the outs with everyone. Her arrival sends an instant charge through the group and sends Blanc’s antennae buzzing. It’s a promising setup.

But as the title (taken from the Beatles song) suggests, there are layers upon layers to unpeel, yet the truth at the center is also crystal clear. As an indictment of the way extreme wealth corrupts, this whole exercise is pretty obvious, and it fits securely within a series of recent satires (“ Triangle of Sadness ,” “ The Menu ”) that aim at some easy targets, albeit with copious wit and style.

Monáe’s spectacular performance gives us something substantial to hold onto in this transactional world. The celebrity cameos are a consistent hoot, but Monáe—especially in her interactions with Craig—provides the necessary emotional heft and deeper meaning. Hudson’s performance is also more complex than we might initially expect. She combines an infectious ditziness reminiscent of her glorious mother, Goldie Hawn , with the kind of depth and vulnerability she displayed in her Oscar-nominated supporting work in “ Almost Famous .” It’s an enjoyable change of pace to see the normally likable Bautista play such an obnoxious figure. And Craig offers slightly different versions of Blanc, depending on the situation; his technical precision is impressive, as always.

Trying to outsmart this deliriously complicated plot is part of the fun, too, but it also becomes an unwieldy process in time. Still, “Glass Onion” remains dazzling to watch, from the shimmering images from Johnson’s usual cinematographer Steve Yedlin to the truly inspired costume design by Jenny Eagan . One particular outfit Norton wears in a crucial flashback scene provides one of the movie’s biggest laughs.

Ultimately, though, the giant glass onion that rests atop Miles’ mansion becomes an all-too-apt metaphor for the movie as a whole: Sparkling, but empty.

Now playing in theaters for a one-week sneak preview and available on Netflix on December 23rd.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Rated PG-13 for strong language, some violence, sexual material and drug content.

139 minutes

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc

Edward Norton as Miles Bron

Janelle Monáe as Cassandra 'Andi' Brand / Helen Brand

Kathryn Hahn as Claire Debella

Kate Hudson as Birdie Jay

Dave Bautista as Duke Cody

Leslie Odom Jr. as Lionel Toussaint

Madelyn Cline as Whiskey

Jackie Hoffman as Ma

• Rian Johnson

Cinematographer

• Steve Yedlin
• Nathan Johnson

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‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ Review: As Sharp as the First One, But in a Go-Big-or-Go-Home Way, and Daniel Craig Once Again Rules

Rian Johnson's whodunit sequel has a new set of suspects and even more elaborate games.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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It’s in the nature of cinema that if a hugely popular and beloved movie is grand enough, the sequel to it almost has to try to top it in a go-big-or-go-home way. For a long time, each new James Bond adventure was more lavishly scaled, baroque, and stunt-tastic than the last. “The Godfather Part II” was darker and even longer than “The Godfather,” “The Empire Strikes Back” enlarged the awesomeness of “Star Wars,” and “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” made the first “Terminator” look like a minimalist trinket.

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In the opening sequence, each character is summoned by having the same hard-wood box delivered to their home, which contains a series of puzzles they’re meant to solve, each puzzle unlocking the next. That’s a metaphor for how the movie works. Even more than the first “Knives Out,” “Glass Onion” is a thriller wrapped in a deception tucked inside a riddle. It is, of course, a murder mystery with multiple suspects, but it’s one that comes with byways and flashbacks and bells and whistles, not to mention two whodunit homicides for the price of one.

The film is set shortly after the pandemic started, so the invitees are all grateful to be there. (They’re administered a throat spray by Miles’ assistant, played by Ethan Hawke, who for some reason is never seen again.) Each has attained a noteworthy position in the world by becoming some sort of “disruptor.” And they owe their success to Miles, who has bankrolled all of them. But that also gives each a motivation for murder.

Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), the governor of Connecticut, is a former soccer mom who is taking on the political machine. Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) is a gun-nut yahoo and influencer who became the first person to win a million followers on Twitch. Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) is a former supermodel who has parlayed her scandalous celebrity — she was semi-canceled for a Beyoncé Halloween costume — into overseeing a sweatpants empire. Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.) is a scientist who works for Miles. And Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe) is Miles’ former business partner, who lost everything during a hostile split with him but has been invited to the island to make amends, and has agreed to come because…well, why she would do so after she got screwed over so badly is the film’s first mystery.

The second one is what Benoit Blanc is doing there. He claims to have received one of the puzzle-box invitations, but Miles says he never sent it. Yet he doesn’t mind that Blanc is there. Miles, you see, has organized a murder-mystery game for the weekend, in which he is going to be “killed,” and having the world’s greatest detective on site will only make it more fun. Early on, Miles takes Blanc up to the glass onion, and as the two square off, Blanc seems a bit tentative and out of sorts. Is he in over his head? Hardly.

In an outrageous scene, Blanc solves the game that Miles is trying to play before it even takes place. That’s the film’s idea of an appetizer. “Glass Onion” expands into something even more extravagant than the first “Knives Out,” which is what you want, even if at moments it can feel like a little more than you want. It would be a crime to reveal too much, but Andi, openly suspicious in her shiny blonde bob, is the most fascinating character, and Janelle Monáe invests her with a moody indignation that singes like a hidden candle. A flashback reveals why she’s really there, and who her secret partner is.

Is “Glass Onion” a better movie than the first “Knives Out”? Not necessarily. But it’s a bigger, showier, even more elaborately multi-faceted shell-game mystery. Craig has figured out how to let his wry performance sneak up on you all over again, and the suspects hover in a tasty zone between toxic and sympathetic. Yet for a movie this chock-full of surprises, there’s something about seeing the killer revealed that feels, perhaps, a touch less gratifying than before. “Glass Onion” is the first of two “Knives Out” sequels. It thoroughly delivers, but next time the knives should cut deeper.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 10, 2022. MPA rating: PG-13. Running time: 139 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix release of a Lionsgate, T-Street production. Producers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman. Executive producer: Tom Karnowski.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Rian Johnson. Camera: Steve Yedlin. Editor: Bob Ducsay. Music: Nathan Johnson.
• With: Daniel Craig, Ed Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Ethan Hawke, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Madelyn Cline.

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‘glass onion: a knives out mystery’ review: rian johnson outdoes himself with a wildly enjoyable sequel.

The follow-up to 'Knives Out' showcases an all-star ensemble including Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn and Leslie Odom Jr.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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Expressing one’s enthusiasm for Glass Onion , Rian Johnson ‘s sequel to Knives Out , presents a dilemma. Is it possible to declare that it’s more pleasing in most respects (and neck-and-neck in most others) without sounding dismissive of the thoroughly delightful original ? Would it help to add that, walking out of this film, rewatching the first only becomes a more attractive proposition? (And that’s for someone who just revisited Knives again last week.)

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It offers a little window or two into the private life of the celebrity detective Benoit Blanc ( Daniel Craig ) — though, in going less deep than Kenneth Branagh did with Poirot in his second Agatha Christie adaptation (which also surpassed its predecessor, by a lot), it keeps the character enough of an enigma that one hopes he’ll be revealed slowly, over many films. (After all, Craig just got free of that other big recurring obligation…) Its surprises may be more ordinary than the biggies in Knives Out , but they’re integral to the fun — and since it’s not possible to acknowledge a couple of the film’s strongest elements without spoiling them (this review won’t spoil anything), its best to say ignore any buzz and just go see the thing.

Edward Norton plays Miles Bron, a ripped-from-the-headlines tech princeling who gets credit for far more inventions than he should. Every year, he invites his little clique of pre-success buddies for a weekend of fun. This time he has planned a pretend murder mystery, in which one of the guests is supposed to have killed him.

Why invite the world’s most famous detective to such an event? Isn’t that like bringing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to your pickup basketball game? How are dummies like Kate Hudson’s former supermodel Birdie (now a lifestyle entrepreneur whose business is financed by Bron) supposed to compete? Or dummies like Dave Bautista ‘s Duke Cody, a men’s-rights YouTuber so attached to his handgun that he goes swimming with it strapped to his Speedo?

Okay, those two aren’t going to win this life-size game of Clue. Connecticut governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) and Birdie’s assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick, standing out again in a smallish role) are smarter, and Duke’s girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline) is the kind of wild card who could be genuinely sharp under an Instagram-hottie facade.

Being unable to discuss much of the plot lets us get to know the dramatis personae here more than we otherwise might. Nearly all depend on Bron’s money in some way, but he pretends they’re still just great friends. Would it surprise anybody if one of these “shitheads” (the movie’s word, though you’ll agree) might feel like killing Bron for real?

While that potential simmers in the background, Johnson scratches the fresh scab over Brand’s betrayal. All these people used to be her closest friends, yet all lied about her in court when Bron wanted to get rid of her. What’s her angle? Is she here to make them all feel guilty, or just to show them how rich people should dress? (Costume designer Jenny Eagan creates several memorable looks, none more so than Blanc’s seersucker bathing garb.)

That’s one big way in which the Blanc films differ from most of the chamber whodunits that inspired them: Characters others might write off prove crucial to the solutions Blanc helps bring about. He doesn’t use the “arc of truth” metaphor that served him well in the first film, but it seems even more apt here, as he helps set things in motion and then watches them work as they should. It’s deeply satisfying, even before you start to appreciate the way it subverts conventions about authority figures. Even on a private refuge that police have a hard time reaching, justice can sometimes be done. In the movies, anyway.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review – Daniel Craig’s drawling detective is back

Benoit Blanc returns, with a cast of A-listers from Edward Norton to Janelle Monáe, in Rian Johnson’s ingenious new whodunnit romp

The first one was good … this one is better: an ingenious, headspinningly preposterous and enjoyable new whodunnit romp featuring Daniel Craig as the legendary detective from the deep south, Benoit Blanc. Writer-director Rian Johnson has established his own murder-mystery working model, positioned equidistantly between the Agatha Christie approach, in which the culprit is revealed at the very end, and the Columbo approach, in which it happens at the very beginning. Here, as in the first film, the guilty party’s identity gradually emerges in the second half – not so much a twist as an unfurling pirouette. But Johnson and his enigmatic, drawling sleuth keep us guessing.

Edward Norton is an insufferable tech bro called Miles Bron who has become a multitrillionaire through his stake in Alpha, an online network fusing data, news and cryptocurrency. He invites a whole bunch of pals and fellow “disruptors” to his private island with its giant domed building called the Glass Onion for a murder-mystery themed party: these include politician Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), supermodel turned designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), YouTuber and men’s rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr) and – most uncomfortably of all – Cassandra Brand (Janelle Monáe), who had the original idea for Alpha but was ousted from the company by Miles and his lawyers with hardly a dollar.

But also among the guests is Benoit Blanc himself. Bron says he didn’t invite Blanc, but lets him in anyway, amused by whatever prank his guests are apparently playing on him. His idea is that someone will fictionally “kill” their host and the guests have to figure out who and why. Things turn deadly serious and of course the ashen-faced guests turn to Benoit to save them. Glass Onion is never anything less than entertaining, with its succession of A-lister and A-plus-lister cameos popping up all over the place. And Johnson uncorks an absolute showstopper of a flashback a half-hour or so into the action, which then unspools back up to the present day, giving us all manner of cheeky POV-shift reveals. Craig’s outrageous leisure-themed outfits are a joy and Monáe gives a tremendously likable comic performance as the woman with more than one secret to reveal and more than one grievance to hold against Norton’s loathsome Musk-ish plutocrat. Are eccentric detectives the new superheroes?

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

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Watch Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery with a subscription on Netflix.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery brings back Benoit Blanc for another wildly entertaining mystery rounded out by an outstanding ensemble cast.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery solves the often deadly riddle of how to deliver a satisfying sequel to a movie that was nearly perfect to begin with.

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The Knives Out Sequel Glass Onion Is Bigger and Better Than the Original

This review originally published in September out of the Toronto International Film Festival. We are recirculating it timed to Glass Onion ’s streaming debut on Netflix.

The rich are richer in Glass Onion , the effervescent sequel to Knives Out that just had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and arguably more awful — or, at least, awful in grander and more visible ways. While Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunit focused on the stunted relatives of a famed novelist, people who at least put up some pretense of respectability, his new one turns its attention to a group of “disruptors” who are prominent enough to practice their respective grifts right out in the open. Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) is the governor of Connecticut and an aspiring senator who talks tough on CNN while quietly approving untested tech in exchange for donor money. Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.) is head scientist at the company, Alpha, that’s responsible for that untested tech, and has rushed timelines and skipped safety procedures at the behest of his boss. Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) is a media personality turned sweatband brand owner who’s so prone to viral scandals that her assistant, Peg (Jessica Henwick), is the keeper of her phone. Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) is a social-media star who’s taken a turn to the alt-right, using his ever-present gun and his much younger girlfriend, Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), as props.

Wealthiest and most repellent of them all is Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who’s the host of the weekend getaway during which the mystery unfolds, a mogul and supposed genius who doesn’t actually seem to do much except self-mythologize and use his money to push people around. He owes more than a bit to Elon Musk, but these crumbling pillars of contemporary society are all designed to feel at least a little familiar. (Maybe too familiar, in the case of Hudson, who’s an absolute scream as the vapid Birdie, but whose activewear brand has been privy to labor-abuse accusations not unlike those of her character’s company, a convergence that’s more of a joke at the audience’s expense than her own.) Glass Onion is bigger and more precisely designed than Knives Out , but what makes it a more satisfying movie is that it sits with its characters more rather than immediately showing off their decay. Instead, theirs is the kind of hollowness that comes from a lifetime of smaller moral compromises, until suddenly you’re on a Greek island with some old friends, contemplating murder.

Obviously, there is a murder, though it happens eventually rather than toward the start of the film, tensions simmering over the course of an annual gathering on Miles’s private Greek island, where he’s built a delightfully hideous mansion that includes a see-through dome filled with billionaire bachelor-pad décor — a douchebag Taj Mahal. This year, Miles intends to throw a murder-mystery party, though he has two surprise guests. Andi (Janelle Monáe), the former business partner who unsuccessfully sued him when he booted her from their company, wasn’t expected to show. And Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the master detective from Knives Out , wasn’t invited at all, and yet somehow became the recipient of one of the custom puzzle boxes Miles had shipped out to his chosen attendees. Craig’s evident delight in playing Blanc, with his neckerchiefs and Southern-fried accent, is infectious, and Glass Onion ’s longer wind-up allows glimpses into the character’s personal life, which include some random but enjoyable cameos. Johnson allows events to spin out to a pivotal party sequence that’s made jittery by its slightly too quick editing, and then takes us back to the start, revisiting scenes from different angles and with new information.

For all that it’s intricately constructed and set in an extravagant Mediterranean location, Glass Onion has an underlying context that’s not exotic at all — it’s a movie that takes place toward the start of the pandemic without feeling consumed by it. Instead, COVID serves as a backdrop but also the source of some key character details, from the famous painting that Miles has managed to get on loan from a museum to the useless mesh face mask that Birdie prefers. Movies taking place during the early days of our global acquaintanceship with the novel coronavirus have tended to all feel the same, because so many of us were just sitting at home, feeling frightening and isolated and terribly bored. But the characters in Glass Onion aren’t the kind that would feel like they’d be subjected to those same rules, even the ones who consider themselves nominally more responsible. They’re basically doing a short, and very high-end, version of forming a pod, accelerating right into the dramas that accompany the meltdown of so many similar arrangements. Unlike Knives Out , which verged on the self-congratulatory in its politics, Glass Onion allows its class critiques to be built into the characterizations of its rogues’ gallery of suspects, who are also living through a moment that temporarily united so much of the world, but who are not like the rest of us at all.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review: Maximum mayhem on a Greek island

The 2019 murder mystery gets a big, fizzy reup in Rian Johnson's celebrity-stacked latest.

Fool them once, shame on you; fool them twice, it's a franchise. Three years after blowing the dust off a moribund genre with Knives Out , writer-director Rian Johnson has officially entered IP territory, or at least anthology: Knives is its own free-ranging entity now, borne on the linen-clad shoulders of Daniel Craig 's floridly clever detective Benoit Blanc.

His presence is the connective thread in Glass Onion , a busy, shiny not-quite-sequel which arrives today in limited theatrical release before landing on Netflix Dec. 23, bigger and starrier and not a little bit sillier than the original. (As if, by the thermodynamic laws of Hollywood, we would expect any less.) It's the early days of the pandemic but rich-people problems, at least, persist: Where can the one percent court mayhem in the midst of an apocalypse, if not on a private Greek island?

To clarify, the names on the guest list are not nearly as wealthy as their host, a Musk-Bezos master-of-the-universe type named Miles Bron ( Edward Norton ). He's the tech lord who half-invented the internet; they're the little people who knew him when, including an anxious politician looking to land a Senate seat ( Kathryn Hahn ); a self-contained scientist ( Leslie Odom Jr. ); a chaotic model-influencer ( Kate Hudson ); and a bull-necked YouTube star ( Dave Bautista ) and his barely-legal girlfriend, naturally named Whiskey ( Outer Banks ' Madelyn Cline).

Every year, Miles gathers these old friends — they literally have nothing else in common, so just go with it — for a destination weekend; this time it's his private paradise in the Aegean, where they're invited to spend their time lounging and reminiscing and solving a "murder mystery" set to occur at the welcoming dinner. No one is quite sure how Blanc got an invitation to the party, or why Miles' former friend and now bitter rival, Cassandra Brand ( Janelle Monáe ), has RSVPed at all, after Miles took credit for her best ideas and cut her out financially. But here they are in this spectacular villa, trading new secrets and salving old wounds, when someone turns up actually dead.

Johnson, who once again also penned the script, has no shortage of ammunition for his rat-a-tat takes on pop-culture ephemera and the navel-gazing delusions of wealth and fame. Norton is the kind of faux-boho billionaire who smugly insists on possessing the best of everything — Serena Williams, Paul McCartney's guitar, and even the late Steven Sondheim appear in well-timed cameos — which means he accepts Blanc's unexpected presence as a gift, one more celebrity bauble to collect. Hudson's Birdie Jay, trailed by her traumatized assistant ( Game of Thrones ' Jessica Henwick ) swans around in caftans, blithely dropping truth bombs ("I say it like I see it") that are more like small xenophobic flash-bangs, and Monáe's cool glare lands like a laser beam.

That Craig walked out of one franchise rooted in violent international intrigue and right into another is an irony for another time. But it does feel as if the actor, natty in his striped playsuit, is almost playing a bizarro-world Bond — trading MI6 and martinis for neatly knotted neckerchiefs and Foghorn Leghorn bon mots — and he seems to revel in it, leaning happily into the pure camp of being Benoit.

Inevitably, an ensemble of this size leaves some people out in the cold, and Hahn and Odom Jr. both feel underused; the big reveal is less overtly witty than the original and certain punchlines, too, will probably reach their sell-by date before the credits fade. But Glass Onion doesn't feel like a movie that's meant, really, to be peeled. It's here strictly to dazzle you with money and murder and famous-people pandemonium, then sharpen its knives for the next installment. Grade: B+

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‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ review: A clever, multilayered caper

Movie review.

Just in case anyone had any knitwear-adjacent dreams regarding the new “Knives Out” movie, let me crush them right here: The absurdly cozy cable knit sweater, worn with such autumnal panache by Chris Evans in “Knives Out” that it launched a thousand memes , does not return for the sequel. There’s no need for it, as “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” mostly takes place at a palatial estate on an idyllic Greek island, and Evans and most of the rest of the original cast are presumably still off in New England watching the leaves fall. Only Daniel Craig’s courtly, Southern-flavored super-detective Benoit Blanc returns, showing off his fondness for nattily striped ensembles (his swimwear alone could possibly best that sweater in a duel) and his crackerjack ability to solve a murder in less time than it takes to drink a mint julep.

The original “Knives Out ,” made on a lark by writer/director Rian Johnson as a sort of post-“The Last Jedi” palate cleanser, was that rarity in movies: wickedly smart, old-school goofball fun. “Glass Onion” therefore carries the heavy weight of expectation, which is tricky for a comedy, but for the most part it handles that burden lightly. Though inevitably not as fresh-feeling as the first one, with a running time that feels a bit bloated, the new film is nonetheless a kick and goes down nicely with popcorn.

As “Glass Onion” begins, a group of longtime friends are having their pandemic pods interrupted by an invitation to an exotic gathering — including Blanc, who’s been spending far too much time in his bathtub talking to friends on Zoom (and let it be known that I would watch an entire movie consisting of nothing but this), and who doesn’t know why he’s invited as he’s never met the host. Among the others on the guest list of billionaire inventor Miles Bron (Edward Norton): scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), Connecticut Gov. Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), YouTube influencer Duke Cody (Dave Bautista) and his girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), and former business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), who’s carrying more baggage than her luggage allowance would indicate. But Miles’ plans for the weekend are quickly squashed when someone turns up dead, and Blanc gets busy sniffing out whodunit.

You watch “Glass Onion” relaxed, feeling like you’re in good hands; everyone on-screen is clearly having a wonderful time, so you can’t help but join right in. The plot’s a clever, multilayered caper, echoing the elaborate structure the movie is named for, and Johnson fills the script with funny name-dropping (a case of hard kombucha was sent over, Miles breezily explains, by Jared Leto) and lets the cast happily ham it up. (Just listen to the delicious maple-syrup drawl Craig gives to the word “style,” which I can only transcribe as “staaaaaaal.”) And there’s a wondrous list of A-list cameos, so much so that a goodly portion of my notes taken during the screening consist simply of a famous person’s name followed by an exclamation point or three. I’m not about to spoil any of them, but do know that two of them are bittersweet, one of them made me shriek, and all of them are very funny. Apparently Johnson’s already contracted for “Knives Out 3” ; bring it on, sweater or no.

With Daniel Craig, Janelle Monáe, Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista. Written and directed by Rian Johnson. 139 minutes. Rated PG-13 for strong language, some violence, sexual material and drug content. Opens Nov. 23 at multiple theaters for one week only; begins streaming on Netflix Dec. 23.

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Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is one of the purest pop pleasures of the year

This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Daniel Craig returns as detective Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. John Wilson/Courtesy of Netflix

• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
• Written and directed by Rian Johnson
• Starring Daniel Craig, Janelle Monae and Edward Norton
• Classification PG; 139 minutes
• Opens in select theatres Nov. 23; streaming on Netflix starting Dec. 23

Critic’s Pick

Perhaps I’m partly to blame, or maybe thank. When writer-director Rian Johnson’s first Knives Out movie came out in 2019 , I singled out Daniel Craig’s wonderfully loopy performance as ace detective Benoit Blanc by sentencing the British actor to a lifetime of performing solely with the molasses-thick, Deep-South accent that he drawls in the film. I didn’t realize at the time that this was Johnson’s plan all along. Three years later, we have a new Benoit Blanc adventure to enjoy, with the explicit promise from Johnson that audiences will get an indefinite supply of drawlin’ Daniel whodunits for years to come, should the sequel deliver the goods.

And deliver the goods Glass Onion does – this new Knives Out mystery is one of the purest pop pleasures of the season, the kind of irresistible crowd-pleaser that balances its franchise obligations with a clear sense of wit and creative purpose. It also might be the fourth-best thing that Netflix has ever financed, after The Irishman , Roma and Uncut Gems , respectively. All due credit to Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that his company threw at Johnson to make it happen. The next big mystery for Benoit Blanc to solve, then: Just how much of Netflix’s Knives Out 2 budget resulted in my subscription price being hiked earlier this year? We may never know. But at least the case in Glass Onion is comparatively easier to solve.

Glass Onion delivers the kind of irresistible crowd-pleaser that balances its franchise obligations with a clear sense of wit and creative purpose. Courtesy of Netflix

Summoned to a luxe Greek island by an Elon Musk-esque tycoon named Miles Bron (Edward Norton), Blanc must figure out who among his new client’s coterie of high-flying friends is guilty of cold-blooded murder. Is it the obnoxious Joe Rogan-like podcast host Duke Cody (Dave Bautista)? The AOC-meets-Nancy Pelosi politico Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn)? The Steve Wozniak-ish scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.)? Or the Kate Hudson-y actor Birdie Jay played by … Kate Hudson? The only suspect who doesn’t fit into an easy celebrity facsimile is the soft-spoken entrepreneur Andi Brand (Janelle Monae), who also happens to be Miles’s ex – and is carrying to the island enough physical and emotional baggage to fill Bron’s titular, Beatles-inspired glass mansion.

Johnson, an old hand by now at the detective game thanks to not only the first Knives Out but also the high-school noir Brick and the con-artist caper The Brothers Bloom , digs deep into the history of the whodunnit to refashion the genre into a cinematic pretzel of twists and triple-takes. Just when you think that you have figured out which rug will next be pulled out from under you, Johnson reveals that there are rugs woven inside rugs woven inside even tinier rugs – and that the floor beneath those many carpets isn’t actually a floor at all, but a ceiling.

I’ll admit that, when initially announced, Glass Onion ’s cast list underwhelmed. The first Knives Out had a murderer’s row of murderers, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas and Don Johnson. Oh, and Christopher Plummer. And LaKeith Stanfield. And more? Probably more. Yet everyone in Glass Onion is here for a deliciously perfect reason.

While the first Knives Out had a murderer’s row of murderers, the supporting cast in Glass Onion fit their roles perfectly. Courtesy of Netflix

Bautista lays into his red-pilled fool with a muscular zeal that showcases the bruiser’s natural talent for deadpan. Monae balances very tricky narrative responsibilities with slick ease. Norton fuses his notoriously prickly public persona with a slime-ball tech-bro charm to create a hiss-worthy dolt (he also at one point dresses exactly like Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia , so extra bonus points). Hudson, the film’s surprise MVP, hasn’t been so charming and sharp since her breakthrough in Almost Famous two decades ago. (Is the actor in fact better here than as Cameron Crowe’s Penny Lane? I’m here to heretically argue … maybe!)

Backing everyone up, meanwhile, is Craig, who delivers the film’s many craned necks and raised eyebrows with an effortless finesse. If the actor plays his cards right, Benoit Blanc just might be the headline – and James Bond the footnote – in the actor’s eventual obituary.

Like even the most seemingly perfect crime, though, there are hitches and catches. A flood of early film cameos sells too hard the idea that this is Hollywood’s favourite new franchise. The first act involves a decent amount of COVID-19 talk, which briefly deflates the film’s escapist charms – and when Johnson decides he’s had enough pandemic talk, the problem is magically quashed. There are also several shots that seem designed mostly to be screen-captured and meme-ified on Twitter (maybe Elon caught wind of this, and his current corporate escapades are simply pre-emptive strikes against Johnson). But once the whole bloody affair is sorted, these cutely annoying issues hardly matter.

Is this the home run – an all-audience- and critic-friendly hit – that Netflix has been waiting for? Not quite, as half the fun of Glass Onion is watching the film’s many layers peel away while in the company of a raucous crowd. Every plot pivot and sight gag works to drive a full house into an infectious state of “aha!” agitation. It is anyone’s guess how the action will play out in the cold comfort of a Netflix subscriber’s home.

But I have faith in Johnson’s ability to crack cases previously thought uncrackable. May Daniel Craig never speak in his native tongue again.

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery review: "Almost as sharp as the first"

Gamesradar+ verdict.

Murder, mystery, money: impaling one-percenters, the second Knives Out movie is almost as sharp as the first.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Super-sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is sitting in the bath, in just a fez, playing an online mystery game with friends. He loses. He’s been in the bath for a week. It’s May 2020, mid-lockdown, and he’s going out of his mind. "I need a great case," he drawls in that, er, 'colorful' Southern accent. And at that moment a locked hardwood puzzle box arrives...

Rewind. Why not? We’re taking our c(l)ue from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a film that further complicates its fiendishly layered murder mystery with multiple flashbacks. So, it’s late 2019 and Rian Johnson’s Agatha Christie-alike mystery Knives Out is a smash, critically and commercially. Along with Kenneth Branagh’s rather more staid Murder On The Orient Express, it will relaunch a genre, with Only Murders In The Building, See How They Run, The Afterparty, Reunion and Retreat to follow. It will also, naturally, launch a franchise, with Netflix paying a whopping $469 million for two sequels.

Glass Onion is the first of those sequels – and like most sequels, it goes bigger, broader, brasher. Knives Out was set in the gloomy mansion of a murdered author, who of course wrote mystery novels to add to the meta fun. Glass Onion takes place on the private island of Elon Musk-alike tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton), who’s invited his inner circle of friends to stay for a few days to solve his own murder. No, this isn’t some spin on classic noir D.O.A., in which a poisoned man with only days to live sets out to find who killed him. Miles has merely set up a murder-mystery game, written for him by none other than Gillian Flynn; the invitation to each guest resides deep inside the hardwood puzzle boxes he sent out.

We’re back in Blanc’s bath. Soon, he arrives at the island with seven fellow guests: governor of Connecticut Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn); former model turned canceled fashionista Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her long-suffering PA, Peg (Jessica Henwick); toxic influencer Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), who swims with a very big gun tucked in his very small trunks and is accompanied by girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline); genius scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.); and Miles’ former business partner Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe), who’s still smarting from "the trial". Why he invited her – and why she said yes – is a mystery. So, it transpires, is Blanc’s attendance, with Miles swearing he wasn’t on the guest list.

Such is the set-up, but it’s not long before events take a dramatic turn and Blanc finds his services required for real. To say more would be to take away from the ingenious plot – a corkscrew wrapped in a riddle packaged in an enigma, and all tied up with a Gordian knot – but it’s no spoiler to say everyone has a motive and everyone’s a suspect.

Everyone’s also clearly having a riotous time. Hudson relishes Birdie’ tendency to say outrageously un-PC things. Norton’s in a groovy groove as a filthy-rich, neo-hippie jerk who could be the long-lost cousin of Fight Club’s Narrator (a self-proclaimed “disruptor”, Miles says the fun is in escalating the chaos: “You break more things, bigger things; nobody wants you to break the system itself, but that is what true disruption is”). And a clenched Andi sits tight on secrets primed to hatch. As for Craig, well, he - naturally - is having the most fun of all, upping the Southern- gentleman charm and bumbling gratitude and ridiculous outfits that camouflage Blanc’s genius. Columbo is a touchstone, but might there also be a hint of Roger Moore’s florid, tongue-in-cheek Bond, after Craig himself played 007 with a harder edge? One thing’s certain: Craig yelling “Shitballs!” is one of the year’s highlights.

There will certainly be viewers who find Glass Onion too much, who respected the intimacy and intricacy of Knives Out and will wonder why every sequel must be supersized. They’ll have a point. But it’s better to rock up to this beautiful island and enjoy all that’s on offer, from the ridiculous mansion topped by a huge transparent bauble that looks like – you guessed it – a glass onion, to the ludicrous postmodern furnishings, to the twisting, turning, looping, jack-knifing, knowing plot. "So legit" is Miles’ catchphrase, and Johnson’s screenplay is certainly that, as cleverly entertaining as Christie’s tantalizing tales, as well as an exercise in genre deconstruction – one that also finds time to skewer privilege and white male entitlement as it rattles along.

It’s the filmic equivalent of a Penn and Teller magic trick: amaze, show the mechanics, amaze again. So while Miles’ friends are accused of holding on to his "golden titties", a similar charge can’t be aimed at Johnson. Netflix might have written him a Blanc cheque, but he delivers. Roll on the third installment.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is on Netflix from December 23. For more viewing options, check out the best Netflix movies out now.

Jamie Graham is the Editor-at-Large of Total Film magazine. You'll likely find them around these parts reviewing the biggest films on the planet and speaking to some of the biggest stars in the business – that's just what Jamie does. Jamie has also written for outlets like SFX and the Sunday Times Culture, and appeared on podcasts exploring the wondrous worlds of occult and horror. 

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Glass Onion review: a deviously intricate Knives Out sequel

Like the drawling Southern detective he has now placed at the center of two fabulously entertaining clockwork whodunits, Rian Johnson should not be underestimated. The writer, director, and blockbuster puzzle enthusiast has a gift for luring his audience onto ornately patterned rugs, then giving their edges a powerful yank. Glass Onion at first seems like a more straightforward, less elegant act of Agatha Christie homage than its predecessor, the murder-mystery sleeper Knives Out . But to assume you’ve gotten ahead of it, or seen every nature of trick Johnson has concealed under his sleeve, is to fall into the same trap as the potential culprits who dare trifle with the great Benoit Blanc (a joyfully re-invested Daniel Craig).

Anyone annoyed by the topical culture-war trappings of Knives Out (all that background MAGA chatter and drawing-room conversation on immigration policy) may be irked anew by how Glass Onion situates itself rather explicitly at the onset of COVID, with an opening series of introductions heavy on face wear and video chats. Even Johnson, first-rate showman that he is, can’t make these reminders of the recent, dismal past very funny.

Thankfully, he wastes little time getting his fresh ensemble of suspects out of quarantine and onto an island in Greece that’s as extravagantly designed as the movie itself. Peaking with a glowing tower capped by a literal glass onion, the island could also double as a classic Bond villain lair . Craig may have hung up the tuxedo for good, but like Pierce Brosnan before him, he’s likely destined to keep jetting off to exotic locales under the shadow of that iconic role. Blanc, though, couldn’t be much further from Bond in general disposition. It’s a pleasure once more to see the star play quizzically befuddled — there are moments here where he almost strikes the famous French figure of Monsieur Hulot , bumbling through the automated absurdities of a state-of-the-art retreat — before those mental wheels start deviously spinning.

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The island is owned by one of our real-life Bond villains, the arrogant billionaire mogul. Miles Bron (Edward Norton), an Elon Musk type , has invited five quasi-famous lifelong companions to join him for a murder mystery game in his private paradise. The “disruptors,” as he calls his entourage, include a scandal-plagued model (Kate Hudson), a concerned chemist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a men’s rights YouTube personality (Dave Bautista), a savvy politician (Kathryn Hahn), and Bron’s embittered former business partner (Janelle Monáe). Blanc is surprised to find his name on the invite list — and so, incidentally, is Bron. Turns out someone else wanted the esteemed gumshoe present at this supposedly carefree gathering.

Knives Out proceeded at a giddy scramble, complicating the rooting interests of its investigation and redefining its rules every few minutes; that was all part of the movie’s high-wire fun. Glass Onion takes its time a little more. Forgoing the crosscutting interrogation sequence that opened the previous movie — an ingenious device best not diminished through repetition — Johnson instead doles out the pertinent exposition gradually. There’s a lot to dole: backstory relationships, motives for a crime not yet committed, and a Hasbro box worth of important clues and items, among them an envelope, a napkin, a glass, a painting, a crossbow, and a Chekhovian handgun that naturally goes missing. All of this amusing in the dinner-party murder-mystery mold, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that Johnson is playing it straighter this time; it doesn’t help that his latest characters lack some of the comic zing of the Thrombey clan .

Keep the faith. The slightly sluggish pacing turns out to be a crucial element of Johnson’s sleight of hand. The big early twist of Knives Out — the way he seemed to solve the mystery hours ahead of schedule — is one he can’t repeat here, obviously. But he finds a way to revive the spirit of that brilliant subversion, as the movie doubles back on itself to replay scenes from fresh perspectives. It’s a kind of canny structural time travel, and it races Glass Onion into the grand fun of its back half when Johnson leans into his talent for upending expectations and nesting games within games. More so even than the previous Blanc investigation, this one seems designed to reward repeat viewings; full hindsight will uncover new layers to even the clunkier scenes.

If there’s an ideological framework to this franchise of smoke and mirrors, it’s a puckish distrust of the filthy rich. Here, Johnson’s class consciousness manifests as a pointed skewering of tech-era robber barons obsessed with “blowing up the world,” in a figurative sense that could too easily become a literal one. That’s just good, wholesome fun, dunking on the ego of the billionaire class. But Knives Out proved more affecting in how it foregrounded that element; it was the secret key to the resonance of the film, a brainy comic thriller that expressed its class politics through Ana de Armas ’s rather touching portrayal of essential decency in the face of greed and sham philanthropy. Glass Onion ends up sacrificing a little of that stealth poignancy at the altar of its bigger, knottier, twistier sequel architecture. It’s more of a contraption.

Still, we could use contraptions this skillfully, cleverly devised. What Glass Onion does preserve is the essential old-new appeal of Knives Out . Johnson has once more polished the formula of this classic genre, delivering all the expected thrills of a mystery unraveled while touching on contemporary social concerns and gleefully circumventing the assumed course of a narrative. He’s a rare breed of Hollywood hitmaker , a cerebral crowd-pleaser. How do you give audiences more of what they liked while still surprising them? Glass Onion is the answer. Only a sucker would bet against Johnson pulling it off again.

Glass Onion starts streaming on Netflix on December 2 and will open in theaters at an undisclosed time before that . Our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival continues all week .  For more of A.A. Dowd’s writing, please visit his  Authory page .

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In late 2019, writer and director Rian Johnson's Knives Out was an unexpected hit. There aren't a lot of comical murder mysteries burning up the box office the way that one did. That may be why Netflix pulled the trigger on two Knives Out sequels, the first of which will arrive later this year. Now, Netflix has unveiled the first trailer for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Former James Bond star Daniel Craig is reprising his role as detective Benoit Blanc. And as the title implies, Blanc has a new mystery to solve.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Official Teaser Trailer | Netflix

The new year is only a month old, but Netflix wants to send an important message about its 2022 plans: It has no intention of giving up its status as the king of the streaming services. There will be 86 Netflix original movies released in 2022, which is 16 more than the 70 original flicks that Netflix released in 2021. In short, "every night is movie night."

Netflix has released a promo video for its 2022 films that feature several A-list stars breaking character in the midst of their clips to extoll the virtues of Netflix's approach. There's even a first look at Knives Out 2, which is currently in production, with a return appearance by Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc.

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TORONTO — Has Rian Johnson dunit again?

The sequel to the surprise hit of 2019 “Knives Out” premiered Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival . Called “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” the Netflix movie brings back Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc and throws him in with an entirely new crew of wealthy eccentrics.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Running time: 139 minutes. Rated PG-13. On Netflix Dec. 23.

Murder. Mayhem. Mediocrity.

Is it funny? Indubitably, my dear watcher. Johnson, who got an Oscar nod for writing the first film, is a very clever scribe and director. After all, he is the same guy who, much to many “Star Wars” fans’ chagrin, wrung a lot of laughs out of “The Last Jedi.” 

However, what makes you want to draw a chalk outline around “Glass Onion” is our lazily conceived new suspects. They’re well-cast and the actors all do fine comedic work, to be sure, but Johnson drops one defining biographical detail about them at the beginning and never elaborates.

The actors, therefore, play up their own personalities rather than develop memorable characters. Plainly put, they’re bland.

For example, Kathryn Hahn (trading Agatha All Along for Agatha Christie) plays Claire, the governor of Connecticut. If you walked into the movie 15 minutes late, you’d have no idea she is a powerful politician. Same goes for Leslie Odom Jr.’s Lionel, a brilliant scientist. Once in Greece, he’s no different than any other guy tanning by the pool.

Kate Hudson plays a ditsy social media firebrand named Birdy (she’s been mastering that performance her entire career), and Dave Bautista is Duke Cody, a loud, gun-toting right-wing internet personality with a bikini-clad girlfriend named Whiskey (Madelyn Cline). Janelle Monáe, meanwhile, is a secretive interloper named Cassandra who everyone seems to hate and has a mysterious past.

They’re all summoned to a private Greek island in May 2020 during the pandemic (there are a lot of pandemic jokes here that won’t land in a few years) by their pal Miles Bron (Edward Norton), an Elon Musk-type billionaire innovator who likes to make a splash, for a murder mystery weekend. He calls his oddball group of friends “The Disruptors.”

Frankly, this film could use with some more disruption.

Thankfully adding some panache, Blanc, who’s never met any of these people before, is invited along too.

Once they arrive at the pristine isle, where Bron has built a giant home called the Glass Onion, powered by a controversial and dangerous new energy source, everybody just yells a lot and the film drags on too long for a light comedy. I missed the acidic wit of the first film; I missed Jamie Lee Curtis. The reveal isn’t surprising enough.

Craig, funny as ever in this role, gets the bulk of the laughs, and Detective Blanc is the most fascinating part of the movie. Just like in the original, it’s a treat to hear him throw back to seemingly innocuous lines uttered an hour before that told us exactly what was going on. If only we’d listened more closely.

Johnson still does whodunits better than Kenneth Branagh’s horrid Agatha Christie adaptations he keeps torturing audiences with. Yet despite the giggles and the beefier budget — explosions, an exotic locale, massive sets — “Glass Onion” comes off slight.

Call it “Plastic Shallot.” 

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'Furiosa' Joins the Small but Growing Number of Climate Change Films

W hen the highly anticipated Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga hits theaters this week, moviegoers will return to director George Miller's dystopian desert vision of a world undone by ecological catastrophe and climate change.

Miller first had Mad Max and other ragged desperados racing for the last drops of water and gasoline back in 1979. Since then, as New York Times chief film critic Manohla Dargis wrote last week in her (favorable) Furiosa review, "the distance between Miller's scorched earth and ours has narrowed."

Indeed, in 1979 the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas causing our world to warm, hovered just under 340 parts per million (ppm). Today, CO2 levels have rocketed to nearly 427 ppm, and average global temperatures have been rising in tandem.

Last year was the hottest on record and brought extreme storms, heat waves and wildfires that scientists had long warned would come with a changing climate . According to one recent study, the summer of 2023 was the Northern Hemisphere's hottest in 2,000 years.

But while we can see the growing evidence of a crisis around us with alarming frequency, we do not often see climate change depicted when we go to the movies. According to a recent survey of top films, Furiosa will be among the just under 10 percent of major movies released in the past decade that acknowledge climate change.

That's a problem, climate activist Anna Jane Joyner told Newsweek . Good Energy, the group she founded and leads, works as a "story consultancy" to give climate change a larger presence in Hollywood films.

"They are the most powerful storytelling engine in our world," Joyner said. "So, it's really important that climate shows up."

Good Energy partnered with the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment at Colby College to publish a review of the 250 most popular fictional films released between 2013 and 2022. The Buck Lab researchers found that only 9.6 percent of the movies meet the group's test for climate reality in film narratives.

The findings come at a pivotal time as the industry struggles to find its footing amid streaming technology and competition from other entertainment sources, possibly reducing the appetite for scripts that tackle tough social topics.

A leading studio that had championed climate change and other causes, Participant Media, recently announced its closure, prompting an open letter from Hollywood A-listers including George Clooney, Don Cheadle and Ava DuVernay urging studio executives not to give up on issue-oriented movies.

Joyner said the stakes go far beyond the world of films into the realm of climate action, which she said needs the public attention movies can provide.

"There's not been a social movement in history that won without engaging storytellers and artists," she said.

The Climate Reality Test

Joyner said climate change can show up in films in a wide variety of ways, and the Buck Lab and Good Energy developed a methodology to assess those called the climate reality test.

"It just tests the baseline," she said. "Does climate change exist in the world of this story, and does a character know it?"

Among the rather short list of movies that meet that test, many fall in the superhero and big-budget action genres. Climate change is often part of a dystopian future or a villain's plot the heroes must avert. Aquaman , Fantastic Four , Justice League and The Amazing Spiderman 2 all passed the test and made the Good Energy list.

In others, a film's plot might not hinge on climate change, but the issue is present in dialogue.

"This is also very psychologically important for normalizing conversations around climate change and validating an audience's own emotional experience," Joyner said. The 2019 drama Marriage Story falls in this category (and is among Joyner's personal favorites).

Then there is a category of films in which the writers and producers create what Joyner calls a "climate world."

"It's when climate is a context of the story that comes up over time," she said. "It's woven in throughout the story, it affects the characters' lives and it actually affects the storylines."

Joyner places the 2022 film Glass Onion in this category. Ed Norton's character promotes a clean-energy technology that drives the plot and (spoiler alert) turns out to be disastrously dangerous.

Despite the low percentage of films that passed the test, Joyner said she finds reasons for optimism in the survey results. An earlier study her group published ranking thousands of movie and television scripts found just under 3 percent acknowledged climate change.

"At least we're moving in the right direction," she said.

There was also a positive trend over the period the group measured in the recent survey. Twice as many films released in the second half of the decade passed the climate test compared to those from the first half of the decade.

And Joyner pointed out something from the box office results. According to the survey, films that met at least part of the climate test performed 10 percent better than those that did not.

She's not claiming that climate content is a guaranteed moneymaker, she said. Rather, she viewed the findings as evidence that movie producers shouldn't be afraid of alienating audiences when they address the reality of climate change.

"It's definitely not hurting the profitability of these films," she said.

A Deep Eco-Cinematic History

Activists like Joyner are following in a long history of environmental themes in film stretching back to the very origins of cinema, according to authors Joseph Heumann and Robin Murray.

Both are emeritus professors at Eastern Illinois University, he in communication studies and she in English, and together they've written eight books on how movies have depicted ecological issues.

The earliest example they cite comes from the Lumière brothers, French pioneers of early filmmaking. In a short film from 1896, the Lumières used footage shot in Baku, Azerbaijan, site of one of the first large oil discoveries.

"The way that people looked at what we would call an eco-disaster today was that it was this amazing production of oil," Heumann told Newsweek . He said the film shows a figure walking in front of giant wells spewing oil into the air.

"You can see how horrible and toxic the environment is, but that the figure doesn't seem to care," he said.

Heumann and Murray explore how various environmental themes show up in horror, action, westerns and even comedy over the years. They said they've found that environmental themes in films tend to cycle with the overall public profile of ecological issues.

The 1970s saw the rise of the environmental movement, the energy crisis and the first Earth Day, and there was a corresponding surge in movies with those themes.

"We have films from the '70s that were responding to this new vision for environmental change," Murray said.

One film from that period, the 1973 science-fiction movie Soylent Green , is one of the first major movies to mention "the greenhouse effect." Charlton Heston struggles through the heat in what must be one of the sweatiest movies ever made—each character is covered with a shiny layer—amid a landscape beset by overpopulation and, of course, hunger.

While climate might be missing from many big-budget fiction films today, Murray said, she sees a boom in small-budget, independent and documentary films tackling environmental themes.

"We're seeing, I think, more of those films because there's more awareness of climate change," she said.

The question, Heumann said, is whether those films motivate viewers to act.

"You can give the audience members knowledge, and some of that knowledge they'll take away, but it doesn't necessarily translate to activism yet," he said.

In a historic plot twist worthy of a Hollywood script, Baku, Azerbaijan—scene of the Lumière brothers' early film about oil—will host the annual United Nations climate talks, COP29, this November.

A Personal Climate Connection

One film on the Good Energy survey list that most explicitly deals with climate change hardly mentions it—at least not directly. Don't Look Up , from 2021, starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as a pair of scientists trying to warn an oblivious, pop culture-saturated society about an impending collision with a comet.

The comet becomes a metaphorical stand-in for climate change, allowing director Adam McKay a chance for some darkly comic commentary on the political and media obstacles to addressing the crisis.

Joyner said the film connected with her as someone who has been involved in climate communications for two decades.

"It was so cathartic to see that on screen because that was like the first ten years of my career," Joyner said, comparing the public response to climate warnings to the blasé response to the comet in the film. "It's like, 'There's a comet coming at us!' And it doesn't seem like anyone in my life or in our country or world cares. And am I going crazy?"

Joyner traces her climate activism to her early surroundings and upbringing. She grew up on the Gulf Coast, an environment that's highly vulnerable to climate impacts such as sea level rise and extreme weather, and she said that her father, a megachurch preacher and author on conservative political themes, is a climate change skeptic. (He's recently moderated his view, she said.)

Her relationship with her father and her efforts to sway his opinion were depicted in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Years of Living Dangerously .

"I've had my share of climate anxiety and grief and anger and other dark emotions," Joyner said of her work on the issue. She said she often finds herself turning to stories to help process those feelings.

"In the age of climate change, that's where we go to find meaning, and we always have," she said, explaining the direction of her activism with Good Energy. "That's why I thought, Focus on Hollywood."

Update 5/20/2024, 11:00 a.m. ET: This story was updated to clarify the role the Buck Lab played in the film research.

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I Didn’t Truly Know My Mother Until I Cooked With Her

To connect with a parent who awes (and occasionally intimidates) everyone around her, the Times reporter Priya Krishna spends time with her in the kitchen.

By Priya Krishna

My mother and I were not the “Gilmore Girls.”

Growing up, I didn’t open up to her about the people I had crushes on, the friend groups that were on the outs or who was invited to whose bat mitzvah.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

But I did help her cook. Every day, when she came home from the office, I’d set up my textbooks on the kitchen island and pretend to do my homework, while really, I was gazing at my mother, the inimitable Ritu Krishna, as she deftly sizzled spices in ghee and smacked the valve of the pressure cooker closed with a spoon when it whistled. Partway through her cooking, I’d be summoned to wash chiles, chop cilantro or taste the food for salt.

We are opposites, my mother and I. Where she is poised, classy and no-nonsense, I am goofy, outgoing, a people pleaser. My whole childhood, we struggled to find common ground. We weren’t just from different generations. My mother was an immigrant from India; I was an American kid trying to navigate the world without a language to understand my identity. It was also very intimidating to have a mother who wakes up looking as if she just got a blowout, who is deeply admired by all her friends and co-workers, and who doesn’t wear deodorant because she, in her own words, “doesn’t smell.” I didn’t know how I would ever live up to the standards she set for me, let alone for herself.

But when she cooked, she was at her most accessible — changed out of whatever fashionable outfit she had worn that day, her hair pulled back with a clip, bobbing her head to Abba or Strunz and Farah as she nursed a glass of wine. In the kitchen, our relationship hummed.

On my birthday, we would make a chocolate cake from a Betty Crocker dessert cookbook together, decorating the top with rose petals and doilies. When I was gifted a children’s cookbook with a recipe for “green spaghetti” ( pesto ) — we made it one night and marveled at what would become our new favorite pasta sauce.

Recipe: Tea Sandwiches

My mother worked for airlines, which allowed our family to travel often. During my childhood, we visited countries like Egypt, Italy, Morocco and China. Upon returning from any vacation, we would discuss the dishes we had eaten — dainty tea sandwiches in England, cardamom cream-soaked shahi toast in India, crunchy and satisfying onigiri in Japan — and figure out a way to recreate them at home.

Recipe: Salmon Onigiri

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but cooking was one of the few ways we could really understand each other. As I got older, I became only more angsty, more rebellious, more frustrated by our generational and cultural differences. Yet I still wanted to cook alongside her, and she still wanted my company in the kitchen. Maybe she didn’t get the social significance of a grand prom-posal , and maybe I didn’t get why she wouldn’t let me drive with music on, but we both understood that this pot of beans would be greatly enhanced with a drizzle of tamarind chutney and a fistful of chopped red onion.

I was socialized to want a mother who was my best friend. Instead, I got one who awed, inspired and slightly terrified me. It took me a long time to appreciate her for who she is. But our path to mutual appreciation was paved in the kitchen. There’s something about cooking together — doing menial, repetitive tasks like washing vegetables or measuring spices (not that my mother did any measuring) — that makes conversation and connection easier. It lowers the stakes.

Recipe: Shahi Toast

Since those kitchen island days, you could say we’ve taken our cooking relationship to the next level. We’ve spent several years working together on two cookbooks and now, when the two of us talk on the phone, we usually start by discussing what we last cooked in great detail. We debate the particularities of roasting lemon slices versus sautéing them, and which brand of almond butter is the best. It’s our shared language, a way to check in with one another that’s separate from work or relationships.

Food has always been a central part of my life because it didn’t just open up a world of different cuisines — it opened up the world of my mother.

Read by Priya Krishna

Audio produced by Tally Abecassis .

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Priya Krishna is a reporter in the Food section of The Times. More about Priya Krishna

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Even with likable youngsters, a vast array of cartoonish characters, various pratfalls and shenanigans, and Ryan Reynolds in non- Deadpool mode, the family comedy “IF” isn’t really a "kids movie" – at least not in a conventional sense.

There’s a refreshing whiff of whimsy and playful originality to writer/director John Krasinski’s bighearted fantasy (★★½ out of four; rated PG; in theaters Friday), which centers on a young girl who discovers a secret world of imaginary friends (aka IFs). What it can’t find is the common thread of universal appeal. Yeah, children are geared to like any movie with a cheery unicorn, superhero dog, flaming marshmallow with melting eye and assorted furry monsters. But “IF” features heady themes of parental loss and reconnecting with one’s youth, plus boasts a showstopping dance set to Tina Turner , and that all leans fairly adult. Mash those together and the result is akin to a live-action Pixar movie without the nuanced execution.

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Bea is introduced to an IF retirement community located under a Coney Island carousel with a bevy of oddball personalities in the very kid-friendly middle section of the movie. “IF” low-key has the most starry supporting cast of any movie this summer because of all the A-listers voicing imaginary friends, an impressive list that includes Emily Blunt and Sam Rockwell as the aforementioned unicorn and superdog, Matt Damon as a helpful sunflower, George Clooney as a spaceman, Amy Schumer as a gummy bear and Bradley Cooper as an ice cube in a glass. (It's no talking raccoon, but it works.)

One of the movie's most poignant roles is a wise bear played by Louis Gossett Jr. in one of his final roles. Rather than just being a cameo, he’s nicely central to a key emotional scene.

While the best family flicks win over kids of all ages, “IF” is a film for grown-ups in PG dressing. The movie is amusing but safe in its humor, the overt earnestness overshadows some great bits of subversive silliness, and the thoughtful larger narrative, which reveals itself by the end to be much more than a story about a girl befriending a bunch of make-believe misfits, will go over some little ones’ heads. Tweens and teens, though, will likely engage with or feel seen by Bea’s character arc, struggling to move into a new phase of life while being tied to her younger years – not to mention worrying about her dad, who tries to make light of his medical situation for Bea.

Reynolds does his part enchanting all ages in this tale of two movies: He’s always got that irascible “fun uncle” vibe for kids, and he strikes a fun chemistry opposite Fleming that belies the serious stuff “IF” digs into frequently. But unless your child is into old movies, they probably won’t get why “Harvey” is playing in the background in a scene. And when “IF” reaches its cathartic finale, some kiddos might be wondering why their parents are sniffling and tearing up – if they're still paying attention and not off playing with their own imaginary friend by then.