Are the Knives Out movies Cozy?
Knives Out and Glass Onion are two modern murder mystery movies, very much in the mold of Agatha Christie. Our question is, of course, are they cozy?
Let me start this review by saying there are no spoilers in this article. Knives Out has been out for a couple of years, but as I write Glass Onion is still in theaters for the one-week run Netflix decided to give it. There are plenty of twists and surprises in them, and if you haven’t seen them you should. Both are excellent stories and very enjoyable.
What is Knives Out?
Knives Out came out in 2019, and became a surprise hit, one of the biggest mystery movies ever.
According to Wikipedia it made more than $300 million on a $40 million budget. The star, detective Benoit Blanc, entered the public imagination, being quotable and memorable. The announcement of a sequel soon followed.
The basis of the story was the classic detective mystery. An old man is found dead, his heirs gather at his mansion, and a detective arrives to figure out whodunnit. The police have quickly ruled the death as suicide, but literally everyone has a motive for murder.
We follow the story with flashbacks abounding as people reveal different clues. There are numerous plot twists as the story unfolds, so many that it flips on its head several times. If you think you’ve solved the mystery early, you’re probably wrong, and if you happen to be right, it’s probably for the wrong reasons.
Knives Out was a very enjoyable movie, and when it ended I immediately wanted to see it again to see all the clues I had missed.
What is Glass Onion?
A sequel was quickly rumored after the success of Knives Out, and Glass Onion came out in 2022.
It is not a direct sequel (although the subtitle is “A Knives Out mystery”), but rather a story in a similar vein. The setting and characters are completely different with the sole exception of the detective, Benoit Blanc. In this it is very similar to Agatha Christie, for whom Poirot was the only constant.
Glass Onion takes place on a Greek island owned by a billionaire, who has gathered his friends for a murder mystery weekend. He tells them he will be the person to “die” and will then sit back and watch them try to solve the puzzle. The interesting part to us is the presence of Blanc, who you wouldn’t expect to be involved in a trivial game.
Once again we have twist after twist, many of which I never saw coming. If you think you’ve solved it, you’re either guessing or you’re Benoit Blanc.
Again it was an excellent mystery movie, and I’m very pleased to see not only another movie will follow, but both Daniel Craig (Blanc) and Rian Johnson (writer/director) have said they hope to make more.
Just who is Benoit Blanc?
Benoit Blanc is a private detective in the grand tradition of Hercule Poirot. As noted, he is the only constant between the two movies, and will presumably continue to be so. This makes him much more like Poirot, who was the only recurring character throughout his own series.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Blanc is how little we know about him, which is also similar to Poirot. He is such a cypher that, reportedly, the director considered giving him a different accent in each movie, without explanation. Instead his accent is very southern US, but still without further details of his life. I assume, but don’t know for sure, the French name Benoit is in some way a nod to Hercule.
About the only thing we do know about Blanc is that he is a master detective. This is emphasized in Glass Onion when he is shown in a group Zoom chat (the movie is set in Covid times, after all) while playing a video game with others including Angela Lansbury and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Having lost the game, the others are attempting to reassure Blanc on how good a detective he is.
I suspect we’ll find out just a tiny few facts about him as the movies go along. This will be a very interesting way to reveal a character to the audience.
There’s a hole in your plot!
Both movies have plot holes. This is inevitable, I think, when someone is writing a story and millions of others are watching. One of them is bound to spot something wrong.
This is different to writing books, where you have an author who is specifically looking to fill in the holes. They (should) also have editors and reviewers looking at the story. I don’t know how much review a movie script goes through, but it’s interesting to see holes which wouldn’t get by an author. Perhaps they should hire a mystery writer or two to review the script for plot holes next time.
The first movie is fairly clean of plot holes. Many of the ones you’ll see if you look online are nitpicking rather than plot holes, although there is one issue with the timeline which I haven’t seen an explanation for.
Glass Onion has a major plot hole though, one which we discussed right after leaving the theater. Again, no spoilers, but there is an event during the movie which shouldn’t have happened. Without it, virtually the entire story would have been rendered moot. I’m not talking about a “if protagonist hadn’t gotten a flat tire outside the spooky house, they would never have gone in” kind of thing. It’s more like “character A did X. They then did Y, which they should never have done because they did X.”
I’m not going to say this one thing ruined the movie, because the movie was still great. I am saying the events of the movie should have never happened.
So are Knives Out and Glass Onion Cozy?
Here at CozyMystery.com we use a checklist to decide if a particular story is cozy or not. You can get our checklist for free if you sign up for our newsletter.
Since these two movies are similar, in style if not in content, I’m going to use the checklist on both of them together. This will tell us if the series is cozy, and hopefully help with avoiding spoilers.
The Dealbreakers
We always start with the Dealbreakers. These are questions where if even a single answer is Yes, the story is not cozy.
- Is the protagonist NOT actively sleuthing to solve the mystery?
Benoit Blanc is obviously sleuthing in both movies, so this is a No.
- Is the murder a crime of violence where we see or hear gory details?
This is slightly tougher, because we do see the deaths, but since they’re not especially gory I’d say No again.
- Is there profanity or foul language?
Plenty of it. I think we would excuse it in a movie much more than in a book though, so I’ll say No.
- Are there any descriptions of sex, including anything other than a kiss?
None that I recall. No.
- Is the protagonist a police officer on a major force?
He definitely is not, No.
- Is the protagonist a private investigator hired to solve the crime?
This is the sticky one. Blanc is a private detective, and in the first movie at least he is hired to find the truth.
- Is the mystery solved early and the rest of the book is trying to stop or catch them?
This is difficult to answer without spoilers, but I would say No.
The one answer I knew we’d have problems with is the one about Blanc being a detective. He is, and there’s no getting around it, which means these movies are not cozy.
Why not? Simply because we do not believe a cozy mystery can star a detective. The aim of a cozy is for the reader to put themselves in the shoes of the sleuth, and that is really not possible with a detective. A reader identifies with an amateur sleuth, not a professional.
So we can say the movies are not cozy. I would have called them Traditional mysteries from the start, anyway.
But let’s continue with the checklist anyway.
The Warning Signs
Our Warning Signs aren’t as strict as the previous section. Two or even three of them might be okay, but more tells us it’s not cozy. Let’s take a look.
- Is the focus of the story on something other than solving a puzzle?
This is difficult to say. I mean, it is, but only because there’s a focus on a different puzzle. Going to say No on this.
- Is the focus on the romance between the two leads?
No, not at all.
- Is the focus on family relationships?
In Knives Out, absolutely. That’s the whole reason for the show. Glass Onion, not at all.
- Is the tone of the writing fast and/ or dark?
No, it’s mostly light and fun.
- Is there more than one perspective in the book?
Yes. There are multiple perspectives throughout both movies. They jump back and forth depending on who is telling the story.
- Does the reader ever know something the protagonist doesn’t know?
Not that I remember.
- Does the protagonist ever know something the reader doesn’t know?
Oh yes, many times. Without giving anything away, a significant chunk of the second movie is just that.
- Is the book much shorter or longer than sixty thousand words?
This doesn’t apply. I’m not even sure if there’s a translation which applies.
There are at least two Yes’s here, and another one if you are watching Knives Out. Once again it would really show the two movies are not cozy.
Just How Cozy is it?
Our How Cozy questions are designed to see how far a book goes into the cozy genre. Typically a score of about ten means a book is cozy, and anything over six or seven is beginning to lean that way.
Without printing and answering each of the questions here, I’m just going to give the score. We don’t need to go into detail since we already know the answer.
For both of these movies I could get to around 6 / 20, which is on the very lower edge of being cozy. You would really prefer a few more points to reasonably consider it cozy.
With a score like that, I think we can once again conclude these movies are not really cozy, although they show a few signs of the genre.
So, are the Knives Out movies Cozy?
If all three sections say they’re not cozy, then I’m sorry to say but they’re not. I would have liked to see them be cozy, since it would have been a huge validation for the genre, but it’s not to be.
Knives Out and Glass Onion are, therefore, Not Cozy. As previously mentioned, they’re more Traditional mysteries, in the style of Agatha Christie rather than the modern type of cozy.
That doesn’t mean they’re bad. As mystery movies they are the best thing we’ve seen in many years. I would strongly recommend them to you, and to anyone reading this. See if you can solve the mysteries before Benoit Blanc does.
Agree? Disagree? Have anything to say about these movies or ratings? Let us know in the comments!
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