Wake Up Dead Man Reminded Me Why I Love Knives Out

One of the biggest strengths of the anthology series format is its potential to explore new territory while remaining familiar, and working at the level he did with Wake Up Dead Man, Rian Johnson could make a dozen more Knives Out movies, and I would wait in line for them all. I ended up rewatching the first Knives Out before writing this review, which refreshed in my mind all the things I already knew about this franchise. This newest entry is both a celebration of everything that makes Knives Out special and an exciting foray into both new aesthetics and headier, more spiritual territory. If Glass Onion leans more into the cheerier tones of the first movie, then Wake Up Dead Man leans the other way into the gothic inspirations - and it works. Johnson's willingness to engage with religious elements in good faith notwithstanding, this third Knives Out entry is yet another fun and well-made modern celebration of the classic murder mystery. If you've seen the other two films, you know the drill by now - someone dies, and famed detective Benoit Blanc is assigned to the case. Except this time, everything transpires at a church instead of a rich man's estate or a private island in Greece. Wake Up Dead Man is more of the same, but in a different setting with different people and an entirely different emotional weight resting at its center.

This movie knows it will thrive as a character-driven narrative, and so it dives headfirst into introductions; its first section is essentially a smart and effective series of interviews with every character. Wake Up Dead Man immediately leans into emboldening what has been the greatest strength of its predecessors: the weird personality quirks of every character, and as it runs through each introduction progressively more quickly than the last, it also avoids turning into something as dull as Hi, my name is... The characters in this movie are vibrant and layered - Father Jud, a young, interesting, and deeply flawed priest, is the enigmatic standout of this cathedral of stone. This will likely be old news to you if you've seen the other Knives Out movies, but this third entry does an outstanding job of crafting a fun hybrid of classic, Agatha Christie-like tendencies and modern-day aesthetics. It finds a truly timeless tone amidst the draperies and stone of the monastery, and is also shot surprisingly well for a straight-to-streaming feature. DP Steve Yedlin puts his finger and his frame on a spiritually gothic influence that hasn't been touched by Knives Out and yet pays homage to it perfectly, sometimes seeming to turn the surroundings into characters of their own.

Wake Up Dead Man is also the type of movie to involve its audience in all the right ways. I loved how frustratingly impossible solving this particular murder seemed. Monsignor Wicks, a firebrand preacher in upstate New York, has died a baffling death at the hands of some unseen assailant during a Good Friday service, and now it's up to both Blanc and us to find out how. The murder is committed in a literal closet with an entire congregation watching the only entrance. There aren't many possible answers to the mystery, and Johnson is stopping just short of breaking the fourth wall and asking us, So, who do you think killed him? When the answers are finally revealed, it feels frustratingly obvious, in a good way. You'll probably wonder just as much as I did why you didn't predict everything, which I attribute to brilliant close-fistedness on the part of the movie. It's a restrained piece in all the right ways and very few of the wrong ones.

Nevertheless, one thing I don't like as much about Wake Up Dead Man is its reliance on expository dialogue. While I understand that there will and even should be a level of exposition when it comes to mystery movies, so much of what we think we know about this film is overturned by reveals that don't riff on older parts of the movie so much as they outright invalidate them. Granted, this movie is clever, and we see this when Blanc finally lays bare the truth about what's happening. Still, the pieces don't fit as well as they did in the original Knives Out - there's more direct contradiction between the initial assumptions and the final truth than there was in the first movie. This isn't to say that it isn't well done on many levels, but Wake Up Dead Man sometimes works more on directly changing the facts of the case, while the first Knives Out worked a little bit more on changing the context of the facts.

Regardless, Wake Up Dead Man does something better than either of the other two movies before it. As colorful and interesting as both Knives Out and Glass Onion were, they were a collection of characters that supported a collective aesthetic. However, this movie is ultimately a creative aesthetic in support of one character's story, specifically Father Jud's. Wake Up Dead Man is more heartfelt than either of its two predecessors, and Josh O'Connor's empathetic performance as Father Jud really gives this effect wings. Perhaps it was simply my history as a man of faith, but this movie touched my soul in some unexpected ways. It is easily the most emotionally weighty of the three films. This series is all about putting a group of interesting characters in the same room and seeing what happens. Put simply, it's as interesting as ever, and familiar in all the right ways. But for the first time, it also seems committed enough to variety to be unfamiliar in all the right ways, too. Emotionally, philosophically, and even spiritually, it raises some surprisingly ample food for thought. Once the mystery of the murder draws to a close in your mind, you may find that the mystery of your purpose on Earth is only beginning in your soul.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery - 9/10

Ephesians 4:26-27