‘Glass Onion’: Rian Johnson knows Elon Musk-Miles comparisons

•  Rian Johnson is touring to promote his most recent hit.
• Interview with Wired points out how similar Miles’ persona is to that of real-life tech.
• Johnson believes he is holding up a mirror to our contemporary zeitgeist.

‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery‘, director Rian Johnson is touring to promote his most recent hit. Following up on his critically acclaimed first, Edward Norton’s Hercule Poirot-inspired mystery sequel dispatched Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to the wealthy computer mogul Miles Bron’s private island to investigate a murder among the mogul’s powerful associates.

Since it debuted in theatres, viewers have noted how uncannily similar Miles’ persona is to that of real-life tech mogul Elon Musk. As was made clear in a current Wired interview, Johnson was aware of the similarities.

Although Musk has recently received much greater attention from the public due to his acquisition of Twitter, his most well-known companies still include Tesla and SpaceX.

His tenure as “Chief Twit” has drawn criticism in particular for his bad policy choices and for investing a lot of money on a platform that was already losing money.

His administration has often been viewed as chaotic, culminating in his recent announcement that he would leave the position of site director as soon as he found someone “foolish enough.”

Miles also exhibits the same habits. He exhibits the same confidence and reluctance to accept responsibility for a poor choice.

He still has the brains and the equipment to support his credentials. It seems obvious to draw a comparison in the wake of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

When questioned about Musk and Miles, Johnson said that he fully comprehended everyone’s perspective. That said, Musk wasn’t his precise aim while writing Miles because he wrote Glass Onion during the pandemic and not in 2022:

“There’s a lot of general stuff about that sort of species of tech billionaire that went directly into it. But obviously, it has almost a weird relevance in exactly the current moment. A friend of mine said, “Man, that feels like it was written this afternoon.” And that’s just sort of a horrible, horrible accident, you know?”

Of all, Miles is just one of the film’s many interesting characters. Among others who surround Miles are Twitch broadcaster and men’s rights advocate Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), former supermodel turned fashion magnate Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), and upcoming politician Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn).

Each individual could be compared to a particular influential person. Johnson was eager to deal with these kinds of odd individuals and had Blanc, a Southerner, put them all into a room next to his sleigh.

He highlighted that he was only holding up a mirror to our contemporary cultural zeitgeist when asked how he chooses who to scrutinize with his characters:

“On this one, once I had a tech billionaire at the top of the suspect pyramid, then the type of friends that they would have and the tenor of everything came together. Because the intent was to accurately reflect what it’s been like to have our heads in the middle of the cultural sphere for the past six years. It’s a pretty nightmarish kind of carnival, Fellini-esque inflated reality right now.”

Furthermore, he added that these more realistic caricatures were a slight shift from the first Knives Out. He intended to capture the extremes of our world rather than making characters that go beyond the bounds of traditional whodunit tropes:

“It’s a much more heightened tone. But any time I would think, “Oh God, should I tamp this down?” I would just open Twitter or turn on the news and realize it’s an honest reflection of what it feels like to be alive right now and paying attention to these people. It needs to be ridiculous because they are ridiculous, you know?”

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