Although Wake Up Dead Man is the Knives Out movie that’s most preoccupied with existential questions surrounding death, writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film in the series is also the one that’s most full of life. Yes, it brings back a delightful Daniel Craig as the fast-talking detective Benoit Blanc, but he is not the one who unlocks this movie’s mysteries. No, in addition to Craig not appearing onscreen for the film’s entire opening 30 minutes, he is merely there to serve the outstanding Josh O’Connor.

 

Not only does the franchise newcomer give an excellent comedic performance, but the Challengers and God’s Own Country actor also brings a genuine amount of grace to a film that ends up becoming precisely about that. It’s Johnson’s most elaborate murder mystery movie yet, but also his most emotional.

What that entails requires being vague so as not to rob the film of its fun (this is a Knives Out  movie after all), but the greatest revelation comes in how effective Johnson is in his exploration of faith, community, anger and redemption. He never sacrifices entertainment in the pursuit of doing so, moving at a rapid pace with one killer joke after another, including a couple of sly shots that it takes against its streaming home, Netflix and even Johnson’s former film series, Star Wars.

 

But the film’s greatest strength comes in how it settles into something more thoughtful and reflective when you least expect it. In between extended jokes about masturbation, the film tackles the perilous rise of right-wing extremism and how religion can be a way to heal but also a convenient cover for hate. If this sounds like it could be too much for Johnson to pull off, have patience, your faith will be rewarded tenfold. 

 

The darker mystery Johnson plays around with this time centres on Fr. Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor), who we first hear as he is recounting a long and winding story. To put it simply, after getting in a fight with another member of his faith, he is sent to a remote church with a dark past that is now struggling in the present. The cause for the struggles, both past and present, is that it is run by the tyrannical Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who is more interested in his own power than with any of his flock. Jud, though prone to swearing and many more ungodly things, soon tries to push back against this in any way he can.

He tries to connect with those still caught in Wicks’ orbit, which is where we get to know the pitch-perfect new ensemble cast of Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack and Thomas Haden Church. Matters become even more dire when there is a sudden death at a service that makes everyone a suspect. 

This is when Blanc enters the story, but there is never a moment when you’re impatient for him to arrive. Johnson is so confident in setting up all the new characters and their various hilarious dynamics that you get completely swept up in the lengthy introduction. With a profoundly funny O’Connor as our guide into this entire new scenario, you’re always completely enraptured with Johnson’s commitment to both silliness and sincerity.

Though Wake Up Dead Man has the most confined setting of all the films, cinematographer Steve Yedlin, a close collaborator of Johnson’s who shot The Last Jedi, the original Knives Out and Glass Onion among others, shoots the hell out of the whole thing. There are so many brilliant visual moments that make revealing use of lighting changes or become more haunting images of gothic horror when we get plunged into darkness. It’s as though there are entire worlds contained within the church and surrounding forest from all the different ways they get captured. As we make our way through all of them, with O’Connor and Craig both having mountains of chemistry to spare, you get to take in a production that’s just as handsome as the two leading men.

 

The ultimate triumph of all these already great parts is how Johnson guides us into something more radical and contemplative once all the pieces of the mystery fall into place. Yes, there are many great monologues by Craig, and pure fun to be had in seeing him stumble about before arriving at the eventual answer. However, it’s the smaller, more subtle moments from O’Connor that make Wake Up Dead Man the surprisingly transcendent, yet still plenty silly experience that it is. 

 

Best among these, and truly, the best scene in the movie, involves a tonal switch that would’ve felt jarring in other, less capable hands.  O’Connor stands at the core of a murder investigation, the main suspect, and makes a call that could hold the answer… on the other end, a woman hesitates through tears as she confides the illness of her mother. The answer to the murder, to his innocence, it all feels one answer away… but he does not rush her, nor remind her that he is standing on the precipice; instead, he steps into the quiet of the next room and does what he does best: be a priest. ‘Call anytime, day or night.’ He holds an almost sacred tenderness; his body calms in realisation. He seeks the truth, but this woman needs him, and that tells the truth this film builds itself upon: that good is rarely loud, and compassion is rarely convenient. Within that small, quiet act, every frame paints the church he longs to believe in, a place where someone will sit with you when your world is falling apart, the kind of good that simply holds you, and through that, it may not save your soul… but it sustains it. I found myself oddly moved by this scene, a tear or two fell, and I was spellbound by the profound kindness of the whole matter.

 

When we have the big reveals, of which there are a magnificent many, Johnson never loses sight of the spiritual core that O’Connor carries with him. That it fits this all into one movie and comes out on the other side intact is a miracle, though one with the power to make even the director’s greatest doubters believers.

 

9/10 Can Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig make more of these for the rest of their lives? I’d watch every single one.

Now Streaming on Netflix.

Bolu
Website |  + posts

Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.