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Review: ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ is the darkest ‘Knives Out’ movie yet
Rian Johnson's "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery" is more Edgar Allan Poe than Agatha Christie, with Benoit Blanc solving an "impossible" mystery at a rural church.
Rian Johnson’s 2019 whodunnit “Knives Out” has quietly become a Thanksgiving tradition in some households. The picturesque New England fall landscape, the dysfunctional family gathering, and the coziness of Chris Evans’ sweater all add to the general comfort of watching Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) unravel a confounding mystery.
Despite making its theatrical debut Thanksgiving weekend, the third entry in the franchise, “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” might be better suited for Halloween – or, given its subject matter, Easter Sunday.
Where 2022’s “Glass Onion” was filled with zany, screwball energy, “Wake Up Dead Man” is more somber and restrained – an Edgar Allen Poe short story rather than an Agatha Christie yarn. Though there’s still plenty of laughs to be had, it’s unquestionably the darkest film in the franchise to date. But that tone is perfect for a mystery that invokes questions of faith and exposes the danger of demagogues.
“Wake Up Dead Man” begins with an epistolary narrative, as Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor, “Challengers”) writes a letter to an unknown recipient laying out his life’s story. A former boxer who embraced faith after killing a man in the ring, Father Jud has been sent to a troubled parish in upstate New York, where the fiery Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) has been winnowing his flock with blistering sermons. The few remaining faithful have formed a cult of personality around Wicks, failing to recognize how his hateful screeds have curdled their hearts.
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Some of these congregants, who all become suspects in the death of Monsignor Wicks, are fully realized characters. Glenn Close’s Martha, who keeps the books and has devoted her whole life to the church, is a particular standout. So is Cy (Daryl McCormack, “Bad Sisters”), a failed political candidate turned conservative influencer who videotapes every sermon (and indeed, every conversation happening around him) for his online audience.
Other actors of considerable talent have less to do. As Cy’s sister, Vera, Kerry Washington has the worst ratio of screen time to narrative impact. Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), a wheelchair-bound cellist looking for a miracle, is similarly marginalized. In reality, all of the supporting cast — Jeremy Renner’s town doctor, Andrew Scott’s disgraced novelist, Thomas Haden Church’s stoic groundskeeper — are here to serve the star of the show, and it’s not Benoit Blanc.
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Craig’s drawling detective has always been more of a secret sidekick, and that’s never been more true than in “Wake Up Dead Man.” O’Connor’s priest dominates the first third of the movie, and even when Blanc arrives to lend his investigatory prowess, it’s Father Jud who leads the inquisition. O’Connor is more than up to the task, perfectly portraying a man who has always looked to God to answer the unanswerable and is shaken when he’s met with silence.
Johnson has never shied away from incorporating contemporary social issues in his films, whether it’s the COVID-era setting of “Glass Onion” or lampooning the out-of-touch Thrombey family in “Knives Out,” whose empty platitudes for their housekeeper Marta (Ana de Armas) vanish when she inherits the family’s fortune.
In “Wake Up Dead Man,” Johnson is sympathetic but unsparing in his assessment of Wicks’ parishioners, who are all suffering from Stockholm Syndrome after throwing their lot in with an unspeakably evil man. Even as they begin to realize their savior is a charlatan, they cling to their warped reality. “What is truth?” Renner’s character asks at one point when confronted with an unassailable but uncomfortable fact. “We don’t know.”
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With an “impossible” mystery at the film’s center, Renner’s question, though played for humor, is central to “Wake Up Dead Man.” Can all of life’s mysteries be solved empirically and objectively, or are there miracles that can only be explained by a higher power? Johnson is asking viewers to put their trust in him, and once again, their faith is rewarded.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is now in theaters, and begins streaming on Netflix December 12.
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