Miles Bron, the spoilers incoming antagonist of Glass Onion, is stupid. Right? That s the
point the film s climax hinges on - Miles isn t the genius he thinks he is, that the
world thinks he is, and if the people around him hadn t assumed a level of ability that
wasn t there, Miles never would have got this far. But Miles isn t consistently idiotic.
He was able to catch Andi unawares. A decoy invitation was sent to his victim. He plays
it cool on the island when fake Andi arrives with Blanc, and he s able to kill off Duke
without anyone even realising it was him initially, at least. Miles is as thick or as smart as
the story needs him to be at that moment or at least that s what a lot of this film s
would-be-critics like to say. Is this true? Does mean the film s contradictory? Objectively
flawed? Does it mean that its defenders are idiots? Well, no. In this video we re going
to take a quick look at the stupidity of Miles Bron, and hopefully clear a few things up.
First, if we re going to assess Miles actions, we need a clear picture of what these actions
are so, what does Miles do? Going chronologically, he first meets the Glass Onion crew a decade
or so ago, and manages to get some stuff done- for instance helping out Claire with some
local office campaigns, and getting Duke set up on Twitch. This stuff is competent, but
hardly wunderkind material. He then goes into business with Andi, as the pair use her idea
to build Alpha, which grows to become a tech giant over the following years. We can assume
that his contribution here is largely a managerial one which again requires competence, but not
genius. The next thing we know is that Miles met a scientist at an Ayahuasca ceremony who
sold him on Klear, this too-good-to-be-true wonderfuel that ends up having an explosive
impact on the film s climax and that as a result of Andi s doubts, Miles Zuckerberg
s her out of the company. That shows a certain killer instinct, but any brilliance here really
comes down to Miles lawyers. The decision as a whole wasn t particularly smart, either
even if everything hadn t gone pear-shaped afterward, with the napkin, and the weekend
getaway, this move would have ended up tanking Alpha after a few Klear-related disasters
such as the planned use of the fuel on a manned spaceflight. The next thing Miles does is
show up to Andi s, in his own car, when he was supposed to be abroad, and murder his
ex-partner. At some point around this time, an invitation to the weekend getaway is sent
by Miles to Andi. When the gang shows up at his house, including a seemingly-resurrected
Andi, Miles plays it cool doesn t immediately freak out or try to kill Andi again, there
and then. Later on, Miles manages to surreptitiously kill Duke, and tries to off the sus Andi impostor
before everything comes tumbling down. That s the timeline then, and these are the events
we ll be considering as we discuss this supposedly spurious stupidity.
Glass Onion has proved a strangely polarising film, and these events are the primary evidence
a lot of people cite when arguing that the film, Miles characterisation, is incoherent.
Miles keeps his cool in the face of uncertainty, while simultaneously communicating through
fax, and installing an override on the Mona Lisa s security system. Smart and dumb seem
to coexist. But none of those moves are smart, not really. Regarding the decoy invitation?
If you ve killed someone, and you knew them, especially if you were on famously bad terms
with them? You need an alibi. You don t need to be Albert Einstein to figure that out you
just need to have watched a cop show or procedural in your life. It s also entirely possible
that the box was sent out before Andi found the evidence, before Miles killed her, but
that pretty much comes back to the same point. Sending Andi an invitation after an acrimonious
split is an optics move. It s not a dumb move per se, but it s not a genius one either.
And even after the murder, Miles doesn t cancel the delivery. Either way, this is a good move,
maybe, but it is a fairly obvious one. The initial murder itself is hardly a masterstroke,
either. Blanc initially passes over Miles as a suspect, it s too obvious, too easy,
but that s because he s a master detective, assuming this is some labyrinthine case, with
layer upon Machiavellian layer to dig through. The regular police wouldn t, though! Miles
is an obvious suspect, and he d be treated as one. There is a question here around whether
Miles resources would allow him to shield himself from a fair and thorough investigation
but it s not clear cut. So Miles gets away with the murder for the time being because
Andi underestimated him or, perhaps more accurately - overestimated him. The fact that she didn
t see it coming isn t to say it was a stroke of brilliance on Miles part it s just a flaw
on Andi s, in a film all about this flaw of overestimation. The way Miles keeps his composure
upon seeing Fake Andi rock up to the island has again been cited as evidence of Miles
intelligence but intelligence is a pretty strong word here. Miles isn t a genius, but
he s not Phineas Gage. He hasn t suffered immense brain damage so he s not going to
give away the fact that he thought he d killed Andi in front of all his clueless friends.
And the way he puts the kibosh on Duke to preserve the secret isn t exactly smart it
buys him about 20 minutes, and literally relies on him going, hey, look over there!
Look, the salient point here isn t that all of Miles less dumb choices are actually, secretly,
mega-thick. It s more that there isn t much variance here, in terms of mental acuity.
He s not a complete and utter idiot, but he s not brilliant. He s not the genius he thinks
he is, and that s really the key here. Real life isn t Fallout when people talk about
stupidity, it isn t that everybody has some intrinsic Intelligence value, and that some
people just have 1 or 2 points out of ten. Most of the time, when we call someone dumb,
we re doing so as a shorthand for whatever specific problem or failing is holding them
back. Maybe someone struggles with spatial reasoning. Maybe someone has an awful memory.
Maybe they lack basic knowledge. Maybe they have no self-awareness, can t or won t see
when they re being unreasonable. Similarly when people call Miles dumb, there is a specific
dumbness operating here. There is a pattern that underlies all his failures in the film,
and it s what I referred to a minute ago. Simply he s been drinking his own Kool Aid.
He thinks he s a genius in a world of fools. He overestimates himself and underestimates
those around him. When you look at the timeline of events with this in mind, everything becomes
crystal clear. Miles pushes Andi out of the company, endangers
Lionel and Claire s careers, all because of his blind faith in Klear. He thinks he knows
best, and the others are cowardly fools. Miles kills Andi, thinking no one will suspect him,
because it looks like a suicide. He doesn t consider that people like Helen will see
how out-of-character this looks, and try to peer behind the curtain. We can infer that
Miles thinks the arrival of the decoy box is a genius ploy to dispel any remaining suspicion,
and frame him as a concerned friend reaching out just a moment too late. Miles plays it
cool on the beach, then pulls Blanc aside to try and interrogate him, figure out if
he s there to snoop. Miles is fooled by the answers Blanc offers which, sure, seems contrived
if you ve not been paying attention, but it fits this pattern perfectly. He thinks he
s smarter than Blanc, doesn t think there s a chance the wool could be pulled over his
eyes. It s why he s so confident he can get away with killing on the island, twice. He
d put an override on the Mona Lisa because he thought the Louvre people fools for thinking
he, the great Miles Bron, could ever endanger his beloved painting. Obviously, he s wrong
on all accounts, and he never saw that wrongness coming. This is the stupidity of Miles Bron,
and it s consistent, the whole way through. Miles makes this mistake again and again,
the same mistake the viewer makes he assumes he s special, when he s mediocre at best.
This isn t a theory, or even a hidden layer. The film tells us this, makes it clear. It
even goes to the trouble of showing us in no uncertain terms that everything interesting,
everything unique Miles does, or seems to do, is someone else s idea. Alpha was built
on Andi s work, Klear was lifted from some sketchy Norwegian scientist, Miles last attempted
frag was inspired by Blanc himself, and even that eventual napkin burn was Lionel s idea.
(clip LIONEL: After all that, you, you still kept the envelope? You didn t burn it or anything?)
All the evidence Miles uses to convince himself that he s exceptional comes from other people,
other places. Miles himself? He s nothing special. But he
refuses to see this, he can t see this, and that inability is at the core of his character,
and of this stupidity. He is dumb, not in the abstract, but specifically dumb, in this
way, consistently and coherently. And I think it s odd that this has proved contentious
it s all here, all in the text, so to be honest, I don t really think the people who missed
this, chose not to look for it, or chose to ignore it, are really in a position to be
questioning the intelligence of anyone else. That s it for Miles, and that s it for this
video. Hope it s been enjoyable and/or illuminating. It s just a short thing while I get the next
longer video sorted, and it s normally the type of thing I d do for a Patreon video,
but I thought keeping this little elaboration public would be a better move given the circumstances.
So think of it as the coda to my Glass Onion videos Anyway, cheers for the watch, drop
a like and a comment if you fancy, and feel free to share this around to anyone pointing
to Miles intelligence level as a plothole, or whatever. Big thanks as always to my Patrons
onscreen now, especially Ryan Emerle, and I ll see you soon.