Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery – BFI London Film Festival Review

Azrael Tay explores Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out mystery. A gripping tale of murder, faith and moral reckoning, the film is expected to be an instant hit.

In a moviegoing year that seems to have rejected extended franchise storytelling in favour of new originals, the Knives Out series of murder mysteries has beaten the odds, remaining as relevant and entertaining as ever. Three films in, writer-director Rian Johnson has crafted an impressive, appetising palate of a franchise where each entry has its own distinct flavour of social commentary. 

The third instalment in the popular mystery franchise is arguably its most intimate and incisive one yet. Wake Up Dead Man eschews the tongue-in-cheek, upper-class snobbery of Knives Out and the lavish summer-island excesses of Glass Onion for something more intimate, and much darker.

This year, Bradford’s Pictureville Cinema played host to the BFI London Film Festival. 

The film once again follows genial gentleman sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), this time teaming up with young and charismatic priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor). Father Jud has just taken up parish duties at a small neighbourhood church in Chimney Rock, New York and is now the prime murder suspect in an “impossible crime” straight out of a John Dickson Carr detective novel. As the devout congregation turns against him and the threads of this mystery begin to unravel, Jud’s vocation, faith and personal convictions are challenged – all while Blanc discovers an unholy web of violence, greed and sin lurking beneath the church’s facade.

Father Jud begins the film “young, dumb and full of Christ”, imbued with an innocent enthusiasm, desiring to serve the community (or “flock”) with methods and values which seem most godly indeed. Yet, arriving at the church of ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude’, Jud finds himself at odds with Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a radical fire-and-brimstone preacher with his own cult of personality: the townsfolk who eventually become murder suspects. 

Josh O’Connor proves himself a more than capable pair of shoulders upon which to anchor the film. As the narrator, audience surrogate and central character, the actor is called upon to deliver a multidimensional range of emotions while also needing to convince unbelieving audiences of his almost unshakable faith. O’Connor cements this film as the latest landmark on his journey to international stardom, meeting each challenge with his own distinct brand of vulnerability, assuredness and charm.

Johnson once again wields the Whodunnit narrative as a magnifying glass, this time examining the relationship between a radicalised congregation and personal faith. Benoit Blanc’s partnerships with key murder suspects (Ana de Armas, Janelle Monáe) have always been the driving narrative force behind the Knives Out films. Here, Jud’s oppositional dynamic with Blanc makes for the most effective pairing thus far from a purely ideological standpoint – the former a man of faith and idealism, the latter a man of logic and self-admitted hedonist. 

The atheistic Blanc tries to solve the case with the cold, hard facts (with Craig on top, drawling form as always), while Jud cannot reconcile the town’s violent dark side or his own sense of guilt from a chequered past – with core tenets of the Christian faith like grace and forgiveness. The result is a multifaceted exploration of power within modern-day organised religion, peppered throughout with the trademark zingers that helped cement this franchise’s significance within both its genre and contemporary culture. 

The “stars in attendance” for the Opening Film, Wake Up Dead Man.

Best of all, the film is good old-fashioned Hollywood fun, with each clue once again hidden in plain sight until the time comes for the proper pay-off. Director of photography Steve Yedlin and composer Nathan Johnson once again work wonders. Yedlin creates grand visual splendour, painting with light and shadow, whilst Johnson crafts another immaculate musical score full of screeching strings. Besides the two leads, supporting players Josh Brolin and Glenn Close steal every scene of theirs, and it feels good to see Jeremy Renner back in the pink of health in a big-budget role – if only there was an app with which I could express my enthusiasm at his return… 

All of this to say, Wake Up Dead Man deserves to be seen on the big screen with a packed crowd, as each twist and turn will surely elicit communal bursts of laughter or gasps of shock and awe. Waiting for its eventual release on Netflix will, in this reviewer’s opinion, be doing the film a disservice. Above all, Rian Johnson establishes the movie theatre as the ultimate church, and the theatrical experience as the ultimate spiritual enlightenment – “Damascus”, as Blanc so succinctly puts it. As a fan of the genre, cast and crew, and someone who  has grown up reading murder mysteries and finds a sense of comfort in these films, Wake Up Dead Man is proof that cinema is alive and well, and that the prayers of expectant moviegoers around the world have once again been answered.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery opened the BFI London Film Festival. See it in cinemas from 28 November and on Netflix 12 December.

Words by: Azrael Tay