It’s not a whodunit because the movie begins with you “knowing” whodunit, and then ends with the twist being actually “no one” dunit. Never at any point in the movie does the viewer wonder “whodunit”, which is literally the only requisite for a movie to be classified as a whodunit.
Two bonus points can be awarded for how bad it is as well. The first being that the answer to who the real villain is, is the only character in the movie who obviously presents from the start as the villain. The whole twist is “You thought the cartoonishly villainous person was an obvious red herring and that we have a much more clever villain in store, but nope. They just actually are the villain”. The second being that the ending monologue posits that Martha is not a killer because “She’s too good of a nurse”, when in reality she’s a horrible nurse with zero attention to detail and her horrible incompetence is the only reason she isn’t the killer.
I can’t think of any other whodunits where the twist is “Like a whodunit, but you aren’t even aware there is a mystery until after it’s solved, and the secret villain of the movie turned out to just be the person we introduced to you as the villain in the first act.”
You should check out Poker Face by a lot of the same people involved with Glass Onion. Very well written, almost like a modern Murder She Wrote. Also it stars Natasha Lyonne, who I am a fan of because of Russian Doll.
I like the Knives Out movies. I like Rian Johnson. I like Daniel Craig. I love Benoit Blanc as a character.
The movie’s going to be in theaters exactly long enough to qualify it for awards, and I would rather watch a light murder mystery romp at home anyway.
I liked the second one, the first one I couldn’t stand. It was marketed as a whodunit but it just wasn’t.
How was the first not a whodunnit? There are plenty of whodunnits with twists like that.
It’s not a whodunit because the movie begins with you “knowing” whodunit, and then ends with the twist being actually “no one” dunit. Never at any point in the movie does the viewer wonder “whodunit”, which is literally the only requisite for a movie to be classified as a whodunit.
Two bonus points can be awarded for how bad it is as well. The first being that the answer to who the real villain is, is the only character in the movie who obviously presents from the start as the villain. The whole twist is “You thought the cartoonishly villainous person was an obvious red herring and that we have a much more clever villain in store, but nope. They just actually are the villain”. The second being that the ending monologue posits that Martha is not a killer because “She’s too good of a nurse”, when in reality she’s a horrible nurse with zero attention to detail and her horrible incompetence is the only reason she isn’t the killer.
I can’t think of any other whodunits where the twist is “Like a whodunit, but you aren’t even aware there is a mystery until after it’s solved, and the secret villain of the movie turned out to just be the person we introduced to you as the villain in the first act.”
You should check out Poker Face by a lot of the same people involved with Glass Onion. Very well written, almost like a modern Murder She Wrote. Also it stars Natasha Lyonne, who I am a fan of because of Russian Doll.
Which one?
Top one
Right-on. Thanks!