By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
Rian Johnson’s mini-franchise Knives Out has been billed as breathing new life into “the British drawing room murder mystery,” with its titular first installment in 2019, followed by Glass Onion in 2022 and now Wake Up Dead Man, which came to theaters in late November and started streaming Dec. 12 on Netflix.
Whereas the first and second films planted the ever-stylish, razor-sharp sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) in the center of the action, Wake Up Dead Man makes room for another core personality in the shape of Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), which makes this Knives Out entry a much deeper and fully realized ensemble that its predecessors.
In fact, Blanc doesn’t even feature in the film until well into the first half, as Johnson’s script gives time and space to develop Father Jud’s complex history and even more complex relationship with his religious faith — both being major themes throughout.
When we meet the priest, he’s being sort of reprimanded for punching a deacon, and will sort of be punished with a reassignment to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in rural upstate New York. His bishop (Jeffrey Wright) knows the deacon had it coming, and knows all about Jud’s troubled past as a troubled boxer, but he sees something profoundly authentic about the kid’s faith and admires his commitment to the Gospel of Love, which is sorely needed at his new church.
There’s good reason for that, as Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude is helmed by the tyrannical Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (a ferocious Josh Brolin), who inherited leadership of the parish from his even more monstrous father, Rev. Prentice Wicks (James Faulkner).
The Wicks family has apparently held such a strong and pervasive grip on the church for so long, that the congregation has dwindled to a core of devotees bound together as much by fear as belief. Everyone has secrets, and Monsignor Wicks knows them all, holding leverage over the bodies and souls and his terrorized flock.
There’s Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), who serves as Wicks’ righteous right hand and has spent her entire life in the service of the church. With her husband Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), the couple knows where all the bodies are buried — literally and figuratively.
Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) is the successful local lawyer who chokes on her resentment for caring for her half-brother Cy (Daryl McCormack), who has recently failed as a right-wing politico-bro and now spends his time spreading incendiary social media content in an effort to remain relevant. Still, Vera’s checkbook helps keep the lights on at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude.
Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner) is the village doc whose wife left him and now he’s also the town drunk, and Simone Vivane (Caliee Spaeny) is a gifted classical musician suffering from a painful illness that she hopes Wicks will be able to cure through his connection with the almighty.
Finally, there’s Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), the once renowned author whose mind has been rotted by online conspiracy theories and who worships not at God’s altar, but the cult of personality surrounding Wicks.
With this jewel box of a cast in place — which also includes Mila Kunis as the unflappable Chief of Police Geraldine Scott — the murder mystery gets underway amid dangerous divisions within the faithful. Father Jud has been labeled an unwelcome outsider and suffers a strained (to say the least) relationship with Wicks. Meanwhile, the others are also coming to question the motivations swirling around the church and its members.
When Wicks is apparently murdered under seemingly impossible circumstances after a particularly fiery sermon, Father Jud is immediately blamed. When Blanc arrives, he must team up with the priest to untangle the threads while also managing his own suspicions. Along the way are deep ruminations on the nature of faith, the power of the stories we tell ourselves and whether we can truly know the minds of others — or our own.
Wake Up Dead Man is easily the finest Knives Out addition since the original, which despite the relative diminishment of Blanc’s screen time does a stellar job of showcasing one of the key treats of these films — that is, enjoying how much Craig enjoys himself while playing one of the most charismatic detective characters since Poirot or even Holmes.
