(Credit: Netflix)

In 2022, Netflix served up a Christmas feast in the form of detective movie Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Edward Norton, Janelle Monae and Kate Hudson joined the Knives Out party. And Rian Johnson trapped his all-star cast on the private island of Norton’s character Miles Bron with celebrated murder mystery-solver Benoit Blanc is almost too much to ask for.

Leaving aside the fact that Bron’s paradise palace is named after (and shaped like) a Beatles song, the titular ‘Glass Onion’, as well as the various other easter eggs Johnson has placed around the picture for fans of murder mystery movies, the film’s plot alone is enough to get us hooked. Bron has invited his closest friends, a rogue’s gallery of the rich and famous “disruptors” for an annual get-together on his island, where he intends to pit them against each other in a competition to solve the mystery of his “murder”.

More mysterious than this game of Cluedo itself, though, is the surprise inclusion of Daniel Craig’s detective Blanc alongside Bron’s friends. And, in a twist that shocks the other guests and horrifies Bron himself, the sudden appearance of his former business partner, Andi Brand.

Blanc soon solves the puzzle of Bron’s carefully crafted murder mystery roleplay, ruining the game the host had planned for his friends. “Unfortunately,” as Blanc observes in his dry southern drawl, “this crime has clashed with the presence of Benoit Blanc.” As it turns out, Blanc wasn’t invited to the weekend away. But Andi was, even though she and Bron became the best of enemies the moment he “cut her out” of his business.

When the real murder of Bautista’s character, Duke Cody, occurs before the group’s very eyes via a poisoned cocktail, suspicions mount that there is something sinister behind Andi’s participation in the gathering. Or, indeed, her invitation to participate.

So, why did Andi show up?

In fact, the person who appears to be Andi isn’t really her at all. It’s her identical twin sister, Helen, as is revealed to the other guests at the climax of the film. Blanc has asked Helen to come with him to Bron’s island, disguised as Andi, as the “essential catalyst” to uncovering the truth about another murder committed by one of the group. The murder of Andi herself hasn’t yet become public knowledge.

As next of kin, Helen was informed of Andi’s death, by apparent suicide at her home. She immediately suspects foul play, and her suspicions are confirmed when she visits her sister’s house and discovers someone has turned the place upside down. In the big reveal of the film’s finale, Blanc explains that it was Bron who rifled through her things after murdering her, to steal an envelope containing proof that Andi had the original idea for their business, not him.

At the exact moment of Helen’s visit, a package was delivered to Andi’s home, “this thing from Miles Bron,” as she calls it. The puzzle box invitation to his island gathering. He did invite Andi, but Blanc never tells us exactly why.

It could be that Bron deliberately included Andi in his list of invited guests so as not to arouse suspicion that he was behind her death. Yet it’s unlikely Bron, who Blanc declares to be an “idiot”, thought that far ahead in covering his tracks. In any case, rather than serve as an alibi, there was always a danger that Andi’s invitation would incriminate Bron, as it eventually does.

More likely, the invites were sent out before Andi told the other “disruptors” that she was about to reveal her true role in Bron’s success in order to bring him down in the days leading up to her death. Bron’s suppression of her revelation was the motive behind his act of murder, which was less premeditated than it initially seems.

Andi and Miles may not have been on good terms before then, but there were ostensibly no hard feelings towards her from his side. Even during the movie’s climax, he claims, “She meant the world to me.” And so, as the vainglorious man he is, he still wanted to send her an invitation to his sprawling dominion and the show he was putting on, even if he knew she wouldn’t accept it.

As fellow “disruptor” Lionel Touissant tells Blanc while the group travels to the island, “The question isn’t, Why did he invite her? It’s, Why did she show up?” It was Andi who harboured ill feelings towards Miles for his betrayal of their business partnership. At least, before he decided she needed to be silenced for good.

Of course, it wasn’t Andi who showed up, but Helen, dressed as her twin. And Blanc already knows the reason she’s there. If only Miles Bron hadn’t given her the reason to attend by sending Andi the invitation in the first place, he might have gotten away with his crimes.