#your bandit has a headache and is aware that this is a rambling mess

[aparticularbandit]

Glass Onion Meta

because i have too many thoughts and also i want to compare it with knives out but only very vaguely because it’s been a while since i’ve seen the first movie but some of the commentary/analysis i want to make involves comparing the two.

so!

...below the cut because this might get long (and also apologies if this is rambly because it’s just me having thoughts and wanting to get them all out...or at least some of them out).

oh, obviously this includes major spoilers for glass onion and also includes maybe minor spoilers for knives out.

EDITED TO CORRECT AN ERROR RE: WHO STEPS UP FIRST AT THE END.

i think it’s important to start with the themes/point of glass onion being very different from those in knives out.  rian got asked in an interview about making movies about rich people who do horrible things, and i think the difference between the two is this: knives out is about rich people who do horrible things, but glass onion is about rich person who does horrible things.  this is why the big heart moment in knives out is revealing that marta didn’t kill harlan because she is a good nurse, but what should be the big heart moment in glass onion is not telling someone drowning in guilt that they are, actually, good but the people who were once good now have the strength to turn against their abuser.

in essence, glass onion is the exact opposite of knives out - where the first movie is about saving a singular person done wrong by multiple rich people, the second movie is about saving multiple people being done wrong by a singular rich person.

now - past that general etc. i don’t really want to delve into knives out much, other than to point out that the majority of the cast are rich entitled people who were born into rich and have grown up rich and have their entitlement as the result of that.  the only character like that in glass onion is miles, and it’s his corrupting influence - and abuse - that is the heart of my argument, really.

SO.

We need to start with the rest of the family - and yes, I will refer to the core six (Andi, Claire, Lionel, Birdie, Miles, and Duke) as a family because I feel like they are.  I think that’s best set up in the first scene in seeing how Lionel, Claire, Birdie, and Duke play off of each other; how Birdie and Lionel have Claire’s speech on the news playing where they’re intended to be paying attention to it (Birdie’s Birdie, so she’s distracted, and Lionel appears to have intended to host a group of people sitting and seeing Claire’s discussion on tv except that he got pulled into a meeting with who I think were probably the other Alpha scientists?); and how Lionel and Claire, as soon as they get the box from Miles, are immediately on the phone with each other, expect Birdie and Duke to show up, and then all four of them are just ribbing on each other good-naturedly the entire time.  They are a family.  They are a family.  And you see that at its best with those four (and particularly, I think, with Lionel, Claire, and Birdie).  These six people know each other, and as far as they know, they all love each other (at least prior to everything with Andi and Miles’ dispute re: Alpha, but we’ll get into that).  Even more to that point, every year they basically go on a big family vacation that Miles funds, and when they go, they don’t take the rest of their family (Birdie brings Peg because Peg is all of her brain cells and Duke brings Whiskey because Whiskey can get to Miles, but Claire doesn’t bring her husband (or assumed kids) and Duke doesn’t bring his mom, even though he still lives in her basement).  This is for them.  Their family.  Not everyone else.

Anyway.

We need to start with the rest of the family, and more importantly, we need to start with Andi.  The movie itself tells us that Andi found the other four first because she saw their potential - a substitute teacher, a washed up model, a YouTuber who couldn’t get off the ground, and Claire who is apparently in her thirties and still running for student council president, maybe I heard that wrong and she was trying for school board head or something, there’s something off there (EDIT: correction re: Nonnie heard clearer than me!) a failed attempt at city council president but they’re all trying to do something with their lives and failing and Andi looks at them and says, hey, there’s something here, something good, and all of us together can get to that something good.

And to Andi’s point, she’s right.

Lionel is more than a substitute teacher; he’s a scientific mind who probably keeps Alpha afloat (after Andi leaves - which means scientifically speaking, he’s probably the closest to her level, but he’s a science guy, not a business guy, which is where Andi probably excels more).

Birdie is more than a washed up model - which sounds like a bit of a stretch until you realize that, yeah, she did create a fashion line and then created an entire sweatpants line.  (Like Lionel, she is not business savvy.  Birdie gets the raw end of the stick here because she has no brain cells, but she’s not entirely dumb.  She knows fashion.  She just doesn’t keep track of much else.)

Duke is able to influence millions of people once he finds the right crowd (Twitch and YouTube run differently; what does well on Twitch does not always do well on YouTube and vice-versa; this is one of those things that I’ve heard some of the YouTubers I follow talk about in terms of their attempts on Twitch, not something I know from experience, but Twitch is run differently.  It uses a different skill set).

Claire is actually a very skilled and capable politician provided she has the right connections and backing.

They are all very good at what they want to do; they are just missing the connections to do it.

Which is where Miles comes in.

Miles has no skills.  The movie calls him an idiot.  He steals outright from people.  But what Miles has are connections and money, which is what the fam needs.  They need a sponsor.  Miles becomes their sponsor.

And it’s worth noting that other than Andi, none of them like Miles until he sponsors them.  Miles literally buys his way into the fam.  (And I think it’s worth noting that Miles does have a certain charisma to him.  He’s full of shit.  We know he’s full of shit.  But he’s so good at redirecting and talking around and using words that are close but not quite the right word that we don’t notice he’s full of shit.  That’s how he gets through to Andi, and once he gets through to Andi, that’s how he gets through to the rest of the fam.)

Even Andi depends on Miles’s connections and money to get Alpha off the ground.  They’re partners.

And, to an extent, I’d argue they’re the fam parents.  Andi brought them all together, she created the fam, she’s their mom.  Miles gives them presents and money and introduces them to the rest of the business world; he’s their dad.

Roughly speaking.

And I think in the decade that the fam is together, they probably do think of themselves as a family.  Sometimes maybe Miles asks them to do stuff they don’t like, but he also always gets them out of trouble when they fall into something.  When Duke makes a bad call and gets banned from Twitch, Miles gets him right back up again.  When Birdie makes a bad call and decides to start her sweatpants line, Miles supports her doing it.  He helps them out, and he expects them to help him out.

I think while Miles and Andi were together, it’s quite likely that she reined him in.  They were partners.  They did things together.  (She probably would not have supported the sweatshops in Bangladesh, but she was gone by then.  She also would not have thrown Birdie under the bus for that because that was on Miles and also she would have known that Birdie wouldn’t know what that means.)

Like - the fam aren’t rich entitled jerks.  They’re normal people.  People with the potential to do good - great - things.  People who, yes, take advantage of Miles’s sponsorship to do those good things.  And build their lives around being able to do those things with the sponsorship of their admittedly very rich friend - but it’s not taking advantage because he’s always there to help them and provide for them and offer these things for them.  Initially with no strings attached.  And then maybe with some strings, but they’re very small strings, and they aren’t really bad things, it’s fine, and Andi’s okay with it, so that’s not really a string, that’s just family helping family.

And then Andi tells Miles no.

Andi, the strongest, the brightest, the best of them, the one who brought them all together, tells Miles no, and he cuts her out of the company founded on her ideas.

Andi is absolutely ruined, and they see Andi get absolutely ruined, and they come to the realization that their friend who has been nothing but a friend is actually not a friend and not only can cut them off but will completely ruin them if they get in his way.

Andi tries to go up against Miles, but by then he’s gotten to them and proven to each of them that he will absolutely destroy them if they try to side with Andi.

At this point, I think for most of them it’s not about the money.

It’s about seeing everything they have done, everything they have tried to do, all of the good they are trying to put into the world - Claire is a governor, she is trying to do so much good for her state, and she wants to do so much more good for her country; Lionel is a scientist, and maybe some of Miles’s ideas are crap, but some of them are genuinely good, and he is the one person who Miles actually sometimes listens to (except on Klear, when he wouldn’t even listen to Andi, why would he ever listen to Lionel?  especially when he put all of their money into funding it, it has to work and Miles has always been about finding ideas that work and bringing them into his fold so that he can control them); Birdie doesn’t have any brain cells, so for her this is less about putting good into the world and more about sticking with her fam (we see this at the end, she goes where Lionel and Claire go; Birdie trusts her family so much that she wouldn’t question doing what Miles asks, which is how she ends up in the sweatshop problem (I think Andi is the one who hired Peg because Peg is actually capable at what she does, and I think Miles is the one who suggested Birdie have a secret phone just for communicating with him behind Peg’s back)); and Duke...by this point is mostly a lost cause, but he’s still a mama’s boy (honestly, I think Duke took after Miles, he looked to Miles first and foremost, and he’s the most likely to actually have the influence and money to get out from under Miles if he had enough sponsorship to get there, but Miles is never going to give him that because Miles needs Duke dependent on him) - it’s about seeing all of that completely ripped to shreds and destroyed, not about the money.

They’re not entitled rich people; they are normal people who needed money and connections, who gained money and connections through one singular person, and then realized that one singular person who they thought was their friend really, really was NOT their friend.

And realizing that there was no way out from under his control without losing everything.

And then being stuck.

I think it’s quite possible that if Andi had found the napkin earlier, Lionel and Claire would have sided with her maybe because she would have had actual hard evidence she could stand on, and if Lionel and Claire sided with Andi, Birdie would have followed.  Not sure about Duke.  Duke’s murky.  But without actual physical evidence and proof, it becomes he said; she said, and when dealing with Andi who has already been devastated vs. Miles who even without Alpha has all of that money and connections and influence and could probably still destroy them if they turn on him--

Dad might be an abusive asshole, but if we pretend to like him, if we are his good little children, then maybe he won’t hurt us the way he hurt Mom.

It’s an abusive family relationship.

And once Mom is out of the way, Dad can be worse.  Especially because Miles knows that he has the control over them that he wants, especially because that control has been tested and he’s been proven the winner, especially because he has people in place now to do whatever he wants whenever he wants it, all he has to do is threaten them.

Except that Andi finds proof.

Lionel may have been giving Miles a general heads up because Andi didn’t send that email to Miles, she sent it to her family.  The people she found.  The people she still loved.  The people who might come back and join her now that she has actual proof.  But Lionel is still under Miles’s employ, and he’s still the person who is supposed to be keeping Miles in check (and failing), and without Andi, he and Claire become the new...not parents, but they’re the oldest children here, they’re the ones closest to what Miles is doing, and they depend on each other to keep each other going.

Helen asks if they’re interested in how Andi’s doing or if they’re interested in the envelope, but the thing of it is that yeah, they’re interested in the envelope because if that holds what they think it does, that gets them out.  It isn’t about let’s destroy the envelope to save Miles, it’s let’s talk about this so we can see where to go from here.

Because the additional problem here is that they are all now perjurers because they lied on the witness stand, so if they walk back their testimony, then they are now felons, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like that would at least wreck Claire’s chances at senate (or staying on as governor if she’s not in senate).  Like - that seems like it was a fairly public trial, and having to go back and redo things would be an even more public trial, and turning back now would also ruin their reputations, even if it doesn’t ruin them financially or etc.  Which is just another thing Miles now has over them.

So of course it’s a we need to talk about this, not because they don’t care about Andi, but because it affects all of them and they need to get this right if they’re going to try and go against Miles with all of his money and connections and influence.  Because yeah, Andi could use that and win, but what would be the cost?  They need to talk about it.

And all of that weight is there when Helen asks them to side with her, but now also they know that Miles has killed two of them.

Which means if there is another extended trial they also have to worry about whether or not he will try to kill them, too.

And like - now it’s not just reputation, it’s not just the life they have built for themselves, it’s their actual lives - and Duke’s already dead, so he doesn’t have to worry about his mom, but Claire’s got an entire family who Miles could go after and threaten if he wants - and, like, even if they were okay with risking reputation, you are asking them in front of a literal murderer to put their lives on the line to fight him, knowing that he has already murdered the best of them to get his way.

Helen has not dealt with Miles.  She’s doing this for Andi.  It’s like an outsider telling you how to deal with getting out of an abusive situation and there’s no safe way to do it, you can’t find a safe way to do it, and you certainly don’t agree to it in front of the fucking abuser where he will hear you.

Which is why the heart of the ending has to be when they agree to fight him.

When Claire says I saw the gun.

When Birdie says I saw the napkin.

When they all agree that enough is enough (in this case, enough happens to be turning all of the houses in America into mini Hindenburgs like they just lived through).

When Lionel says I saw Miles driving away after Andi was killed.

The movie starts with these three (and then Duke) and their reactions to getting something from Miles - and it’s most telling in Claire’s, how even though she’s zooming into a news station to talk about her campaign for senate, she’s still looking off to where the package from Miles might be, but it’s telling even in Lionel’s because he’s already trying to cover for Miles, and then there’s that present, and even with Helen, when we think she’s Andi, seeing her just destroy it - the movie starts with the power Miles has over all of them, and it has to end with them trying to break out of that power.

The catharsis isn’t just Miles gets what’s coming to him; it’s these people have finally had enough of the abuse and have decided to try and get out.

And I hope they stick with that, I hope they get out, I hope they reconvene with Helen and fight because Miles is in enough of a vulnerable spot that they can get out, finally.  I hope that they are honest about what happened on that island.

...and I hope they are able to rebuild what little family they have left and that they pull Helen into it, if they can.