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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: (Nathan Johnson)
Not long after it became clear that 2019's ensemble cast mystery film
Knives Out would be a massive financial success, filmmaker Rian
Johnson set forth with lead actor Daniel Craig to create a franchise out
of the movie's main character, Detective Benoit Blanc. The first sequel
is 2022's
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which isn't
technically a continuation of the same story from
Knives Out but
rather a totally separate episode involving Blanc as an auxiliary
presence amongst an all-new cast of misfits in a whole new murder
mystery. This time, the setting is the private Greek island of a tech
billionaire, and he has brought a variety of friends and business
associates with an interest in his controversial alternate fuel system
together via invitation for a murder mystery game. Blanc is invited by
one of the guests and finds himself solving the plot behind attempted
killings and actual deaths, a task at which he naturally excels. Not
everyone is who they seem, of course, and the movie enjoyed a soundly
positive critical response. Because of its split of distribution between
streaming and a limited theatrical release,
Glass Onion: A Knives Out
Mystery wasn't the same smash box office hit as its predecessor, but
the results for Netflix were beneficial enough to provide the green
light for Johnson to film a 2025 successor. As is typical for Johnson's
films outside of the
Star Wars franchise, his cousin, Nathan
Johnson, provides the original music. Before his score could factor, the
director chose several songs by The Beatles as inspiration for several
plot points, and the group's song, "Glass Onion," is heard over the end
credits. Those influences don't carry over to the score, which the
composer began working on after setting up a trailer on the site of the
filming. There, he felt best positioned to write the score's themes and
determine its general personality, which balances more flamboyant
extremes of comedy and suspense than the previous entry.
Enthusiasts of the score for
Knives Out will note
that Johnson retains a few motific ideas and the string quartet model of
opulence for
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but the revised
soundscape otherwise represents a significant increase in size and scope
for a welcome result. The orchestra is increased from the size of the
prior group to 70 players and laced with accents led by the
distinctively forward harpsichord for this occasion, and the
orchestration and mix of the ensemble's lines are superbly layered for a
fuller, more interesting sound. The string quartet presence continues at
a few choice moments for connectivity but is largely overwhelmed by the
more strident personality of this score. The creativity is cranked up a
notch as well; Johnson worked with the string players to create
unconventional percussive-like sounds, woodwinds are overblown
intentionally, and prominent chimes, snare, and timpani are suspense
highlights, especially in the intentional chaos of "Ransacking." Not
much cultural instrumental flavor prevails aside from castanets that
sound like wood blocks at times. The tone is meant to shift from comedy
and satire to serious mystery and suspense over the course of the story.
For the latter needs, the composer's dissonant textures are created
organically, which is really nice, including various groaning effects.
These techniques shine especially in "Lights Out!" The themes outside of
the main one are rather obtuse and therefore not all that enjoyable, but
their interplay is outstandingly complex, Johnson definitely improving
his game in his handling of the narrative. His main theme arguably
representing the billionaire's original mystery invitation and setting
is the easy and obvious highlight, a snazzy and self-important construct
with a touch of overblown, carefree pizzazz and very fun answering lines
in its latter half. Playfully introduced at 0:12 into "Theme From Glass
Onion," this theme is massive from the ensemble at 0:50 with its
answering phrases on trumpet and similarly large at 1:37 with the
answering phrases built into the main string lines.
After its stylish introduction at the outset of
Glass
Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the main theme fiendishly mingles in
pieces throughout "The Puzzle Box," and a final grand statement to close
the cue makes the most out of the trumpet answer jousts. It emerges
right out of Blanc's own motif for the mystery of his presence in "An
Anonymous Invitation" and toys on celesta later. Boiled down to
fragments in "Ground Rules," the theme understandably loses its shine in
"This is Not a Game" and is transformed into a brazen horror identity
early in "Trapped" before reconstituting with worry at 1:52. Fragmented
along with the other themes in descending phrasing during "Blanc's
Plan," this main identity offers a fully resounding but more troubled
rendition at the end of the cue. It's twisted towards dark intentions in
"Motive & Opportunity," somewhat devious in the first half of "Perjury,"
and becomes violently upended at the conclusion of "Ransacking." Losing
its footing in the first half of "A.B." despite the return of the
harpsichord, the idea dies with a whimper on solo piano at the end of
the cue. At the climax of the film, the theme is tortured against chime
hits in "The Center of the Onion," earning some defiance at 1:08, and
continues with slight presence in the middle of "Peeled Back. Striking
discordant pieces of the idea are set against the Andi/Helen characters'
thematic material a minute into "Peeled Back," and the main theme gets
one alternate rendition in "Theme From Glass Onion - Revisited" to close
out the album arrangement. That theme for the Andi and Helen sisters is
actually the protagonist identity meant to be the most malleable in the
score, and for the composer, this idea was considered the actual,
primary theme of the work. Its secondary motif of intrigue is an
ascending and descending 7-note line to and from key, and this
supporting idea only really factors in the final quarter of the work,
culminating at the end of "Glass Onion String Quartet in Bb Minor." As
for the sisters' theme's primary phrasing, Johnson supplies fragments
early in "The Puzzle Box" as he skillfully intertwines them with both of
his Blanc motifs and the main theme, making that cue a really solid
early survey of the score's kay narrative's elements.
Listeners should be aware that the sisters' theme for
Andi and Helen in
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is not
particularly memorable, a circumstance largely owing to Johnson's choice
to manipulate its performances in such a way that it never really
receives easily clarifying enunciation. It also seems to represent other
characters as a musical red herring to lead viewers astray. That said,
it is heard immediately in "Andi's Theme" but more fully realized in the
cue's dramatic middle, where casual listeners will get their best feel
for its somewhat tragic melody. Slightly jazzy in "An Anonymous
Invitation" until it receives a full-blown location moment at the end
with grandiose flair, the sisters' theme then influences the slight
darkness in the second half of "Ms. Birdie Jay," continues its jazzy
inflection on piano "The Infraction Point," and reasserts itself in the
middle of "Dinner is Served." It's lightly sad on tentative piano in the
latter half of "The Scene of the Crime," grimly dramatic in "Time to
Finish This" with several poignant renditions, and taunts "Snoop" around
the margins. Only the underlying chords of the theme guide the light
plucking in "Something's Off" while its melodic fragments torment pieces
of the main theme in "Ransacking," their shared descending lines
interwoven; the sisters' theme does enjoy a monumental and confident
adaptation in the middle of that cue. The theme experiences several
smart variations in "A.B.," and the rendition opposite the harpsichord
there is potently dramatic. Melodramatic once again at 2:35 into "The
Center of the Onion," the sisters' theme achieves its resolution in
"You've Got Nothing" with several varying emotional approaches yielding
an impactful piano solo at the end. That performance segues directly
into a frantic, quartet-led moment of chaos in "Glass Onion String
Quartet in Bb Minor," which is overblown in personality with ensemble
hits. This material directly continues into "Burnt" in a panicked action
mode, and the last portions of the cue taking the theme into nasty
vengeance territory. Finally, the sisters' theme extends out of the
Blanc theme for a reprise of "The Infraction Point." Don't expect a
clear sense of catharsis from this identity even at the end of a story
that finds some peace for these characters, no feeling of true victory
emerging for it.
While there are singular ideas that weave in and out of
several cues for secondary characters, perhaps the most interesting
development in the music for
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is
Johnson's choice to expand the use of his previously existing material
for Blanc. He only referenced this pair of motific ideas a few fleeting
times in
Knives Out, which made it difficult to attribute them to
Blanc, but there's no mistaking their purpose in the second film. Blanc
has two returning themes recurring regularly here, one central to him
and another propelling his hunt for clues. The main one is an ascending
seven-note phrase sometimes extending to an eighth, barely functional a
few times in the prior score but all over this one. It supplements the
main theme at 1:17 into "Theme From Glass Onion" on woodwinds, toys
early in "The Puzzle Box," and opens "An Anonymous Invitation," where it
leads directly into the main theme. The omnipresent motif provides some
stern presence in "This is Not a Game," opens "The Scene of the Crime"
on oboe before dissonant haze, and again starts "Blanc's Plan," this
time on clarinet. It offers a quick reminder up front in "Ransacking,"
enters the complicated thematic battle at 2:15 into "A.B.," and once
more finds itself inextricably tied to the middle of "The Center of the
Onion." At the conclusion, the Blanc theme provides almost a jazzy
presence of sophistication in "Disruption" and takes its familiar place
in "Theme From Glass Onion - Revisited." The character's hunting theme
is essentially a basic propulsive rhythm that deviously propels two
other themes early in "The Puzzle Box" and dances early in "Dinner is
Served" and in the middle of "Trapped." It underpins the Andi/Helen
material in the latter half of "Time to Finish This," grows out of the
character's main theme early in "Blanc's Plan," bounces along in "Snoop"
and "Perjury," and quietly stews in the conversational ambience of
"Peeled Back." As admirable as these themes are in a technical sense,
most listeners will only recall the flashy main theme for the island
setting and the antagonist. The album offers diminishing appeal in its
second half as Johnson loses touch with the story's fun start, an
unfortunate necessity. Still,
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
is a technically better-sounding improvement in the franchise and has
enough pizzazz in its highlights to recommend.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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