Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery treats faith with unexpected seriousness |
Sometimes, the old maxim holds true: The third time really is the charm. With Wake Up Dead Man, filmmaker Rian Johnson delivers the strongest and most compelling entry in his Knives Out series yet — a confident return to form after the clumsy, overwritten contrivances of Glass Onion.
A whodunit is only as effective as the impetus that sets it in motion. Here, the crime at the center of Wake Up Dead Man is cleverly conceived and patiently unraveled, unfolding with clarity and momentum. The writing is sharp, the plotting unpredictable, and the ensemble formidable. At the film’s emotional center is Josh O’Connor as Father Jud Duplenticy: a tattooed former boxer with a troubled past who enters the priesthood as an act of penance.
Johnson frames Jud as a walking question: Are we forever defined by our past sins, or can genuine transformation redeem us? Judging by how he is depicted throughout — profoundly selfless, altruistic to the point of exhaustion, and endlessly attentive to others’ suffering — the film’s moral architecture insists that growth is indeed possible.
Following a violent outburst at his previous parish — he punches a boorish deacon mid-argument — Jud is reassigned as assistant pastor to a rural Gothic church (the next alternative assignment might as well have been tutoring the Von........