Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, directed by Rian Johnson and the sequel to 2019’s Knives Out, which again stars investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), is one of the most anticipated Netflix releases of the year. Johnson, the film’s director, attended Netflix’s TUDUM event to reveal an exclusive scene from the film, which will debut on the streaming service in December. In this scene, some of the film’s major performers are shown opening a puzzle box presented to them by one of their mutual friends, Miles (Edward Norton). Starting with Leslie Odom Jr.’s Lionel Toussaint and including a severely tattooed Dave Bautista as Youtube personality Duke Cody, we watch these affluent buddies striving to solve this box.
Evidently, Bautista is a man-child with a high IQ, because he keeps yelling at his mother to stop telling him what to do. Governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), and Jessica Henwick continue to try to figure out how this complex piece of technology works. When the puzzle is complete, the box reveals a mystery message written to his “beloved friends,” “beautiful disruptors,” and “closest inner circle.” In the message, he extends an invitation to his own island, which thrills the elites immensely, so that they may have a “moment of normalcy” and relax. They’re invited to come to rejoin and reconcile, and Miles warns that they should do so while also being prepared to solve even more conundrums.
Turns out the mini-vacation is also a race to solve his… murder? At the end of the video, Detective Benoit Blanc cries out that the invitation is not to be believed, revealing that the unusual detective is back on the trail of a billionaire murder. Madelyn Cline plays Duke’s fiancée, while Ethan Hawke has an unnamed part in the star-studded sequel to Knives Out. Singer and actor Janelle Monáe also star as software entrepreneur Cassandra “Andi” Brand.
Two critics, Ross Bonaime and Steve Weintraub gave the picture high marks during its world debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, praising its wit and its ability to keep the audience guessing. Bonaime rated the film a perfect ten, praising Johnson for “breaking the expectations” of the mystery genre.
On December 23 cinemas will show Glass Onion, a Knives Out Mystery.