Glass Onion Peels Back Myth of Genius Billionaires

And what do you know, but after Duke dies and the drunken guests are puzzling through the order of events, Miles tells us that he placed the drink down on the table and Duke must have accidentally grabbed it… and then the movie shows us exactly that. 

But not even Miles can completely prop up a lie on his own; he needs the belief of others, whether genuinely earned or bought. That’s the case in the moment with the drink; even as we know what we saw, we watch everyone else accept the lie. It’s jaw-droppingly excellent and more than a little frustrating. But it also confirms how each of these supposed “disruptors” played a role in cutting Andi out of her ownership stake in Alpha: At the recent trial, each perjured themselves with the same party line, that Miles was the genius who sketched out the original idea for Alpha on a cocktail napkin.

That napkin—Andi’s original napkin, not Miles’ facsimile—becomes the MacGuffin for the film, the only piece of evidence that matters (compared to Knives Out hinging on several different physical clues). Even though Helen has Andi’s journals, and her email to the others, technically asserting the provenance of said napkin, it’s as if it doesn’t exist until someone from Miles’ inner circle acknowledges that it does. And so long as they either benefit from Miles’ financial and societal support, or fear him withdrawing that goodwill and influence, they won’t do so.

Which is where Benoit is needed to come back in and deliver the cold hard truth that’s been there all along: Miles is a goddamn idiot. He uses words wrong, he lacks all social graces, and he has surrounded himself with impressive people and breathtaking art to obscure his own utter ordinariness. He would be nothing without these people, and the money they helped him acquire to buy a mystique, but somehow he has twisted reality so that each of them believes they would be nothing without him.

Again, Andi’s journals lay out the truth, which is that she brought Miles into their group at the Glass Onion, likely because of his charisma—maybe even because she felt somewhat sorry for him. And yes, Miles did seem to be the kind of guy who made things happen: negotiating a gig for Birdie, helping Claire get elected, and so forth, each time taking a slice of the pie, a founder’s fee. All he had to do was reinvest those small rewards into bigger and bigger ventures, and suddenly he was playing with much larger numbers, the legend of his success growing more and more with each retelling, until suddenly the larger-than-life persona had eclipsed the mere man.

Because a man who takes such big swings as hosting other disruptors on his own private island for a weekend revolving around his play-murder must be worthy of such attention… right? The cult of personality around this man must not be a cult, because smart, driven, accomplished people have invested their own support and attention into this personality… right?