"Wake Up Dead Man" review — "Knives Out" three-quel is a darker, grace-filled satire
“This was dressed as a miracle. It’s just a murder, and I solve murders.”
A small congregation of embittered, faithful followers. A church haunted by a decades-old family tragedy. A greedy and ego-driven elder priest screams from the pulpit. And an elusive 80-million-dollar fortune waiting for someone to find it. This is the perilous situation that Jud Duplenticy, a young Catholic priest played by Josh O’Connor, finds himself in when he arrives at the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in the small coastal town of Chimney Rock, New York. Jud’s ideas of the church are simple, in that its purpose is to help the poor and needy, just like how Christ himself “came to heal the world, not fight it.” But when he encounters Jefferson Wicks, the parish’s brash and coarse-mouthed priest, he knows that it will not be an easy path for him to work within that community. Wicks holds onto his slim number of congregants with fear and trembling, exploiting their paranoia, family ties, and sense of religious devotion for his own ends. When, on Good Friday, Monsignor Wicks dies in what seems like an impossible murder, all eyes turn swiftly to Jud, who fought bitterly with Wicks in the days before his death. Jud defends his innocence, even as the suspicions of the townsfolk grow rapidly. A classic locked-door case invites a certain southern detective to upstate New York, who might be Jud’s only chance at proving his innocence.
Sporting a longer haircut and a messy beard, Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc makes his welcome return to the screen with Wake Up Dead Man. It’s the third installment in Rian Johnson’s ongoing series of murder mystery films, serving as a sequel to 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s Glass Onion. Like its predecessors, Wake Up Dead Man is unafraid to be ferociously contemporary and outwardly, and unsubtly, political. Where the previous films have found the themes of the nuclear family, wealth, immigration, and pandemic responses to be ample supplies of on-the-nose commentary and satire, this film takes a stab at religion as both a corruptive and restorative force. Just like how its themes are more weighty than the previous films, Wake Up Dead Man breaks from their borderline comedic sensibilities and takes a slightly darker, more atmospheric tone, inspired in part by the gorgeous 19th-century Gothic Revival architecture of the church that serves as its primary setting. Even Craig’s eccentric sleuth feels more subdued this time around. This is by no means a slight on the film’s strengths as an incredible piece of detective fiction. Writer/director Johnson manages to craft a third cleverly constructed and ever-entertaining whodunit, with the trifecta of a brilliant ensemble, an engaging narrative, and some gorgeous technical work. Suffice to say, Johnson has done it again.
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| Photo via Netflix. |
Arriving in the fictional town of Chimney Rock with a flourish, Daniel Craig leads the impeccable ensemble cast as his beloved Benoit Blanc. Craig has become the main feature of these films, and for good reason. His performance here, as I have already alluded to, is much more even-handed than the more flamboyant showiness of Glass Onion (full review here) or Knives Out, although Blanc certainly has his moments of grandeur. Craig’s voice is graver and more measured. The character sits in his discomfort about the film’s religious subject matter and openly expresses his pain around faith, making this film an excellent expansion of the character’s depth. As strong as Craig is in this film, this is not Blanc’s movie. While Johnson takes from the greats of his genre in that his detective is an unchanging force of justice, rather than a dynamic character, Blanc feels like he’s playing second fiddle more than ever. Instead, the film’s real centre piece is Josh O’Connor.
While Blanc’s southern charms give the film a sense of continuity with previous installments, O’Connor’s idealistic and devout Father Jud is the film’s central character. Father Jud is far from a spotless man, making his culpability in the central case feel more likely than not. He has a history of violence, including a particularly painful memory of killing a man in a boxing match at age seventeen. O’Connor plays the part with great depth and honesty, making Jud a deeply empathetic and powerful force for goodness and mercy. This performance comes in the midst of a busy few years for the actor, whose following up his leading performances in Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers (one of my favourite films of last year), and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, and preceding his role in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day next summer. As much as Wake Up Dead Man is a damning critique of religion in modern America, Jud provides an image of the open arms of Christ, as he physically demonstrates, counterbalancing the film’s (at times) pessimism about faith.
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| Photo via Netflix. |
With Jud reluctantly in tow, Blanc begins moving through the film’s group of suspects, with Jud perhaps the most popular culprit of them all, although Blanc seeks to prove the young priest’s innocence. The ensemble cast is, as is par for the course, brilliant. Glen Close plays Martha, the parish’s uptight bookkeeper. Jeremy Renner plays Dr. Nat Sharp, an emotionally unstable alcoholic divorcee. Kerry Washington plays Vera Draven, a small-town lawyer who is guided by a misplaced sense of familial loyalty. Andrew Scott plays Lee Ross, a best-selling sci-fi novelist who finds himself increasingly pulled into a world of right-wing paranoia by Wicks. Pulling up the rear are Cailee Spaeny as Simone, a disabled cellist who has been giving her life savings to the church, and Daryl McCormack as Cy Draven, Vera’s adoptive son and the self-professed “GOP golden boy.” Looming like a vicious spectre over the film is Monsignor Wicks (it’s unclear if he was actually given the title of “Monsignor” by the church, or if he merely assumed it for himself), played by a brilliantly controlling and angry Josh Brolin. The cast bounce off each other with ease as the film’s tensions ramp up and surprising connections are brought to the surface, leading to a showstopping finale.
Father Wicks’ death is a classic “locked-door” mystery, which Blanc explicitly calls attention to with a second-act monologue on the plot of John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man (one of many references to Johnson’s inspirations and forebearers in the film). While profoundly connected to his forebearers, Johnson’s narrative is always surprising and jumps through some incredibly complex set pieces. Johnson’s script is electric and snappy, packing in equal measures of excellent joke writing and character confessionals. The film is decidedly of its era. McCormack’s Cy is an online content influencer and failed politician who never lets the audience forget the crushing contemporary political discourse. Shot by Steve Yedlin — who has served as cinematographer on all of Johnson’s projects, from his debut Brick, his controversial Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and both previous Knives Out capers — the film’s camera work is extraordinary, from its shot composition and lighting, to the movement and energy of the camera itself. Wake Up Dead Man pulls out a million and one stunning visual flourishes. I would wax poetic about my highlights from the film’s many intricate set-ups, fights, shots, and fever-pitch breaking points, but when a film relies so heavily on surprise, I keep my lips tightly shut on any more details.
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| Photo via Netflix. |
Not only does the mystery itself make for some compelling and highly entertaining filmmaking, but Johnson also substantiates the film with a surprisingly deep meditation on faith, grace, and forgiveness. The script is full of references to scripture and twisted quotes from the Bible’s most famous characters. Wicks is a masterful manipulator, whose politically charged homilies grasp the religious imaginations of his congregants and twist them towards hatred of their enemies. The rise of Christian nationalism in the U.S. certainly makes the film’s political commentary quite obvious. For those who have been critical of the past two films for being a little too on the nose (which this film certainly is) and a little too shallow, Wake Up Dead Man manages not only to be very apparent in its criticisms but also to offer an alternative perspective. Father Jud embodies the compassion and love of what he sees as the true church. Jud sees the congregation of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude not as merely potential murderers, as Blanc is quick to judge them, but as deeply broken people in need of the love of Christ. There is one particularly beautiful moment in which Jud breaks from the urgency of the case to spend hours on the phone with a woman he has never met before to pray with her for her fractured family. While the eternal skeptic Blanc and the devout Father Jud never see eye-to-eye on God, nor does Blanc have a “road to Damascus” conversion, the film allows for a softer, grace-filled perspective on what it means to live a faithful life.
While it might not quite capture the same “lightning-in-a-bottle” energy of the original Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man manages to surpass Glass Onion by delivering a story that ismore tonally mature, thematically striking, and grounded. O’Connor and Craig deliver stunning leading performances, the crowning achievements on an already stunning ensemble. The film hits all of the right notes: it’s well-paced, incredibly tense, always surprising, and often profound. The film is unflinching and scathing in its critiques of American culture and phony religiosity, while never disparaging the power of the divine in the lives of its characters. Johnson plays his hand well. For fans of the series (like myself) who might be wondering about its future now that we’re at the end of the two-picture deal inked by Netflix in 2021, Wake Up Dead Man does not operate as a finale by any means. Even if this does mark an end or a pause for the franchise, Johnson has capped off the Knives Out trilogy on the most refined entry yet. While Blanc’s search for a killer makes the film an extremely exciting murder mystery, Jud brings the film into more meditative, thoughtful territory. Where sin abounds — and there is plenty of sin in this twisted comic thriller — grace abounds all the more.
Wake Up Dead Man is now streaming on Netflix.
I saw this film. Good review. I really like the final sentence.
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