I don’t think —or, at least, I hope so— that there will be room for too much discussion if I affirm that ‘Daggers in the back: the mystery of the Glass Onion’ is one of the best films that a 2022 film year that is about to end has left us . And it is that, after having revolutionized the subgenre of whodunnit with the first installment of the now saga, Rian Johnson has done what seemed impossible: reinvented what he already reinvented.
After seeing this magnificent sequel, the only enigma that remains to be deciphered is whether the Johnson writer or the Johnson director is more brilliant. ‘Glass Onion’ is a masterclass in writing and staging —without disdaining the magnificent direction of photography by Steve Yedlin—, and in addition to his script, precise as a surgeon’s pulse, we only have to take a look at the last shot of the feature film to check.
- From this paragraph there will be spoilers for ‘Backstabbers: The Mystery of the Glass Onion’.
The eyes, boy. They never lie.
Witnessing how he progressively places all the pieces on the table to later assemble an impossible puzzle full of twists, surprises and twists makes it crystal clear that Rian Johnson has not left a single detail neglected nor has she modeled a single scene lightly, and the example that I bring you below is a good example of this.
After turning the life and aspirations of the abhorrent—and much less intelligent than he pretends to be—Edward Norton’s Miles Brown upside down, and once his revenge is complete, Helen Brand rests on a bench next to Benoit Blanc, who asks her if you are ready to go home. Helen just remains silent, breaking the fourth wall—or is she?—with a direct look at the camera. which links to an essential component in the film’s narrative.
This is none other than the Mona Lisa that Miles has in the living room of his swanky complexand that he describes his guests in the way that you can read below before making a new display of egomania.
“My mother took me to Paris when I was six years old. The first time I saw her, she changed my life. Da Vinci invented a technique that leaves no marks on paper, so every time you look at her her expression changes. Now you see to smile, not now. Is she happy? Is she sad? Neither one nor the other? What you thought was something simple suddenly takes on layers and a depth so complex it’s dizzying.”
Once these words are spoken, the montage automatically cuts to a shot of Helen’s reaction, who answers with a poker face a brief “really impresses”. But what does all this have to do with the finishing touch of ‘The Mystery of the Glass Onion’? The key, as expected, is nowhere else than in the look of our protagonist.
The last shot of the film is a direct reference to the work of Leonardo da Vinci which, despite the forceful resolution of the plot, has an aura of ambiguity that has unleashed all kinds of theories; including the one that suggests that the twins never existed and that Helen is actually Andi. An unnecessary conjecture born of what is undoubtedly the icing on a cake cooked by a master of his trade.