The Albany Gazette - Netflix whodunnit 'Glass Onion' teases Elon Musk parallels

Elon Musk goes by many labels, but is he also the inspiration for Netflix's new whodunnit "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery"?

In the movie, a detective played by Daniel Craig investigates a murder on the private Greek island of tech billionaire Miles Bron.

Bron, played by Edward Norton, is a brash entrepreneur and self-proclaimed genius who has made multiple fortunes with different companies. He delights in confounding those around him with his latest whims and riddles.

Since the mystery-satire first premiered at the Toronto film festival in September, critics have noted parallels to Musk, who founded SpaceX, runs Tesla and recently bought Twitter.

Vanity Fair said the film skewered "the foolish, and at times dangerous, messianics of the tech industry," calling Miles a "melange" of Musk and Steve Jobs.

Meanwhile, Mashable noted the film's "none-too-subtle scathing and silly send-up of Elon Musk."

"If you think the shoe fits, then they were probably in our conversation," teased Norton at a Los Angeles press conference on Tuesday.

"But I also think Miles is kind of like the Carly Simon song 'You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you'," he added.

"I think a lot of (tech billionaires) will think it's about them. And that's fine!"

Writer-director Rian Johnson ("Star Wars: The Last Jedi") said the character was not based on just one real-life figure. He told journalists that "taking the piss out of any specific person just was not all that interesting."

But, he said the movie was about "our relationship as a society to these Willy Wonka characters who we, on one hand, want to throw elephant poop at, but on the other hand... have some weird childlike wish that they will actually create a chocolate factory and solve all our problems."

Musk has recently drawn widespread criticism over his troubled purchase and controversial revamp of Twitter.

"Glass Onion," a sequel to 2019's "Knives Out" -- which was loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's novels -- will be the first Netflix film to play in major US theater chains for a one-week run, as the streamer experiments with new revenue sources.

It comes out in theaters on November 23, and will be available on streaming a month later.

(L.Kaufmann--BBZ)