Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is taking the world by storm.
The new film by Rian Johnson is a follow up to the 2019 Oscar-nominated Knives Out and is another classic whodunnit thriller - with eccentric characters, an over-the-top plot and of course, world famous detective Benoit Blanc.
Glass Onion follows several characters including Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) who is a clueless fashion designer, right-wing men's rights advocate Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), politician Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn) and Lionel Toussaint (Odom Jr.) who is a brilliant - and questionable - scientist.
Together they venture to the island of their very rich billionaire friend Miles Bron (Edward Norton) to partake in a murder mystery party. But the group is very surprised when detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) joins in on the trip and Miles' disgruntled former business partner, Andi (Janelle Monáe).
Watch the trailer for Glass Onions: A Knives Out Mystery here. Post continues after video.
But all is not as it seems in the Netflix original film, Glass Onion - as it is filled with one twist after another and littered with red herrings and Easter eggs.
Here are eight details you may have missed in your first viewing.
1. The face masks tell us all we need to know about the characters.
Glass Onion is set during the height of the COVID pandemic (a few months into 2020), meaning there are endless nods to the virus throughout.
A notable one is the masks each character wears when they turn up in Greece and they get ready to board Miles' boat.
Hudson explains the way each character uses them is a sign of who they are as a person.
"The masks in this movie are an Easter egg as to who all these people are," she said during Variety’s Actors on Actors. "Each person, in the way they wear their mask, is really who they are."
2. There's a Beatles reference.
Movie fans tried their best to discern what exactly the title of Glass Onion meant when the film was announced to the world. Once we watched it, we learnt that it not only refers to where the group of friends met all those years ago and Miles' glasshouse - but also is a nod to the story (you must peel back layers of the murder mystery to find the answer).
There is also a song by The Beatles that plays during the movie’s credits. It was written by Paul McCartney and was about people reading too much into the band’s lyrics.
Including the song is a cheeky nod to McCartney's lyrics but is also used as a red herring to distract the audience.
3. A Rothko painting hangs upside down.
Throughout the film, there are plenty of clues that tell us Miles is not the genius he presents to the world.
One clue refers to the art in the background, which shows an original Rothko painting upside down.
"I showed up and there was the big Rothko painting," the director said in an interview on Roger Ebert. "But of course, it's Edward's character, Miles. So, I said, 'Can we turn it upside down?' So, it's actually upside down... A joke for the art nerds."
4. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hugh Grant, Ethan Hawke, Serena Williams and Noah Segan cameos.
There are plenty of celebrity cameos littered throughout Glass Onion (Hugh Grant and Serena Williams are obvious ones but did you realise it was Ethan Hawke administering the COVID vaccines?!), however Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Noah Segan's ones are important.
Gordon-Levitt actually voiced the ominous "hourly dong" that rings out on the island. Segan has a bizarre role as the pot-smoking hippy living on the island alongside Miles. He doesn't do much but it is nonetheless hilarious that Johnson insists on including him in each Knives Out movie.
5. The fake murder mystery foreshadows the real one.
Just like Miles' fake mystery game - the answer is hidden in plain sight.
Birdie's necklace is the key to finding out who murdered the billionaire in the fake murder and in the real murder - it's the napkin in Miles' office.
6. Cain’s jawbone shows us the entire structure of the film.
As Benoit plays Among Us in his bathtub, we can briefly see a murder mystery puzzle book titled Cain's Jawbone on the floor.
Cain's Jawbone has a lot of similar themes in the film and is referred to as one of the most complex word puzzles because its pages are arranged in the wrong order.
Glass Onion doesn't have a conventional, chronological form of storytelling either and relies on flashbacks to tell the story and provide context.
7. Miles Bron's outfits reflect who he wants to be.
While the director of Glass Onion intended Miles' flashback outfits to be a joke - it also told us everything we needed to know about the billionaire.
In a flashback, we see him wearing a maroon shirt under a black leather vest with his long hair pulled into a ponytail.
It is an imitation of the outfit Tom Cruise wore back in the 1999 film Magnolia.
"Edward was so genius in the beginning, saying Miles Bron has never had his own idea in his life, he looks at everyone else for inspiration or exact copying," the costume designer, Jenny Eagan, said. "Imitation is his game. It’s all kinds of those people he’s looking up to and he assumes that he can be. It’s so on the nose, so ridiculous: Who does this guy think he is?"
8. How the film paid homage to Knives Out.
We see Serena Williams sitting on the video call in the gym and she’s reading a book called Gravity’s Rainbow.
It's a cheeky nod to the first Knives Out film when Benoit tells Marta (Ana de Armas) that no one has actually ever read the book by Thomas Pynchon.
Read more: 5 murder mysteries to watch after you've finished Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Feature Image: Netflix/Mamamia.
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