The ruse played by tech charlatans like Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried is not claiming credit for another\'s convenient, get-rich-quick napkin idea. It\'s convincing people that such an idea works at all.
I think this depends on which tech figures one views the film as commentating on. While Miles\'s writing alludes to con artists like Holmes, the character also draws inspiration from businessmen who portrayed themselves as the mastermind behind products they either purchased or simply partially contributed to, such as Elon Musk and Steve Jobs.
As for the napkin, while there\'s a fair argument that the film is too generous to Andy (and it\'s not even clear what Alpha did before Bron took the lead), it\'s most likely that the business plan for Alpha is vague because the alternative would be the writers actually coming up with a multi-million value business plan. In the scheme of thing it\'s just a MacGuffin.
According to Miles' actor, the napkin thing was absolutely based off of Holmes:
Though when you think about it, that just shoots itself in the foot, since Andi was supposed to be a real genius.
I think this is a problem with shallow Hollywood satire: it tries to hit everyone at once, and ends up hitting no one. This movie really just plays on the preexisting prejudices of the audience. Miles just becomes a stand-in for whoever you hate.
To be fair, the napkin thing itself wasn't based off of Holmes. It was specifically the picture of Miles looking astounded and self-impressed while holding the napkin that Edward Norton said he was trying to invoke Elizabeth Holmes in. That whole "Picture of a genius holding something that you don't understand but they assure you that it's incredibly smart, actually" vibe that Elizabeth and Norton both nailed.
I really enjoyed the movie, I respect that you feel differently but I don't quite get the "plays on the pre-existing prejudices of the audience" thing. Is it a bad thing that more people these days are not fond of untalented billionaire grifters who make the world a worse place for everyone but themselves?
People have used the fact that any art they’ve ever heard of comes from people who are already rich, and therefore represents hypocrisy, or from people no one has heard of, and therefore represents whiny envy, to dismiss any and all criticism of the corrupting power of wealth or the fact that people who have it are often idiots who didn’t earn a dime of it since before capitalism was even a thing.
I mean, I try not to post this kind of thing because arguing on the Internet never changes anyone’s mind and just makes people get defensive, but it is the eternal conservative defense, arguably regardless of what conservatism even means for that given era.
If I recall correctly, Andi had far more involvement than just writing an idea on the napkin. The point of the napkin is that it was the only piece of physical proof of her role in starting the company (and therefore owning it), which was pivotal in a case where Mile's friends/hangers-on refused to testify against him and say it was her baby. It's not as though the contents of the napkin is itself a magic recipe to make a billion dollar company.
In the real world, we know there are plenty of extremely successful "Great Men", and Miles to me seemed more like a reference to the likes of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk; men who get rich being the face and name put on on other people's work; men who aren't innovative or creative or geniuses, but are ruthless and very good at marketing. Part of that marketing is assuring you that they are creative, innovative geniuses.
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@Elmo 3000 No, but I feel this movie romanticizes tech billionaires in it's own indirect way. Part of the reason "Great Men" can have such an image is that people like to believe in real-life superheroes who can single-handedly perform miracles with tech "genius."
While we may infer that Andi did other work beside the napkin, we're not shown it. All we know is that she was presumably the brains who made the company great, and rightfully should have owned it as somehow proven by the napkin. Meanwhile, Miles is such an imbecile that I wonder why she even needed him. The narrative implication I got is "Surprise! Miles Bron is NOT Tony Stark... Andi is!"
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Look into the Center of this Glass Onion: a Napkin
This movie... is dumb. It's not brilliant, it's just dumb. Yeah, that's a blandly reappropriated line, but it's the plainest way to put it.
Spoilers ahoy.
Glass Onion is about the CEO of a tech company, Miles Bron, who invites his rich buddies to his island for a vacation, including a misogynistic streamer, a two-faced politician, and an airheaded model, among others. One of them murders two of them: the streamer, and Bron's estranged colleague Andi Brand. Gentleman Detective Benoit Blanc and Andi's twin sister Helen secretly investigate, and deduce that the culprit can't be Miles unless he's an idiot. And turns out... Miles is such an idiot that he doesn't know how words work.
But if he's an idiot, how did he come to own a successful tech company? Well, he stole the original idea. Off of a napkin Andi wrote in a bar. This isn't a nitpick or a small detail; it's the smoking gun. Everything about this movie rests on that napkin. Andi loses her case against Miles that was based entirely on the origin of the napkin. Miles murders her when she finds the napkin and threatens to use it as proof. The napkin's discovery proves Miles is the murderer. And the napkin's destruction eliminates any legal evidence against Miles.
Even if I suspend my disbelief on this plot point, it spoils the mystery (if Miles didn't even come up with the original idea, why should I assume he's not an idiot?). And I don't suspend it, because it's so dumb. Obviously, ownership of a business isn't based on who came up with the basic idea. But more egregiously, this isn't how genius and invention work! Ideas are cheap. What matters is whether an innovator can put the work in and make their ideas succeed. The ruse played by tech charlatans like Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried is not claiming credit for another's convenient, get-rich-quick napkin idea. It's convincing people that such an idea works at all. And that's the thought I keep coming back to whenever I look at that ridiculous napkin in all its Technobabble glory:
Deprived of legal solutions, Helen blows up the island complex to expose Miles as a fraud. Never mind that in real life, everyone would be baked to fry bits.
Glass Onion is just another example of feigned disruption. It acts like it mocks idiocy pretending to be genius, but it itself portrays genius as a miraculous, sensational thing that can write billion-dollar ideas on napkins and blow up buildings free of consequence or injury. It's praised for its "social commentary," but all it does is caricature controversial figures. It's just more of the same trite material expected from Hollywood stars, that which lulls viewers into accepting the same old pretty explosions, nonsensical plots, and shallow satire of every rich, powerful, culpable person other than themselves.