Wake Up Dead Man digs deep for a darker, more powerful Knives Out

Over two films, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series has offered something largely absent from the modern movie landscape: intricate murder mysteries full of humor and gasp-worthy moments. The original Knives Out started things off relatively small with a cozy whodunit, which then became a larger and more elaborate puzzle with the sequel Glass Onion. Both were crowd-pleasers, and in a lot of ways Wake Up Dead Man follows the same formula, with its stacked cast and plentiful revelations. But it’s also much darker and deeper, showing off the franchise’s range.

First off, this is a somber-looking film, particularly compared to the bright and colorful Glass Onion, thanks to a combination of the gothic grandeur of the setting and lots of gray and stormy weather. The plot reflects that tone throughout the film.

This time around, world-famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is investigating the murder of a priest in a small town in upstate New York. The story, of course, starts well before that. Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) is a former boxer who was assigned to assist at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude after a violent run-in with another man of the cloth. There he found a church in a sorry state. The rigid Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) was tending his flock with a Trump-like hand, intentionally keeping the parishioners angry and afraid, setting up an us-versus-them mentality with Wicks as the savior. When Jud shows up, Wicks’ first reaction is to ask: “Are you here to take my church away from me?”

The church has a sordid history, which includes a lost fortune tied to Wicks’ father, and it’s currently home to a small group of regulars that run the gamut from unsuccessful political influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack) to sci-fi-author-turned-Substack-blogger Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) to the stereotypical church lady Martha (Glenn Close) who takes care of everything and knows every secret, especially the unsavory ones. Even before the murder, it’s a place full of intrigue and secrets, and that’s only exacerbated when the seemingly impossible happens: In the middle of the Good Friday service, Wicks is killed while purportedly alone in a closet. It’s a classic locked-door murder mystery, and its unsolvability is the reason Blanc is called in to help.

In a lot of ways, Wake Up Dead Man follows the same structure as the past films. Blanc isn’t really the main character; instead, someone assists him in his investigation, and that person is also the key figure in the mystery and a possible suspect. In this case it’s Father Jud, who, by teaming up with Blanc, puts himself firmly against the rest of the parish, who stick by Wicks even in death for reasons that become apparent as the story progresses.

What really makes Wake Up Dead Man different than the rest of the series, though, comes down to tone. There are shocking revelations and dramatic reveals, but it’s not consistently “fun” in the way the past films were. There’s a sense of uncertainty lingering over everything. Blanc, in particular, often seems lost and confused. He can still be playful and charming, but this is also an angrier version of the detective. While his backstory remains largely a mystery, we do learn that he grew up with a religious mother, but is now a “proud heretic.” There’s something about the religious setting of the investigation that really gets to Blanc. The result is a more vulnerable side of the detective we haven’t seen before.

Jud and Blanc play off each other in fascinating ways. Not just in terms of their chemistry, which is great, but also in their questioning of the situation before them. The murder of the monsignor, and the harsh details revealed during the investigation, leave Jud often uncertain in his faith, and unsure of what it means to do the right thing. Meanwhile, those same events, and their seemingly miraculous nature, complicate Blanc’s previously unshakable faith in facts and logic.

This ongoing tension provides the crux of the movie, and ultimately changes both men. In the previous Knives Out movies, the big finale when all is revealed is a moment of satisfying triumph, usually with a good punchline. Here it’s more likely to make you cry through a touching act of forgiveness and absolution. (Though it still has a good punchline.)

This is still Knives Out, so it’s not like there aren’t any jokes or satisfying solutions. Jeffrey Wright is hilarious despite only appearing in the movie for a few minutes, and you do get moments to laugh at the suspects, like when the paranoid author builds a literal moat around his house. As for the mystery itself, it consistently grows in scope and impossibility, in a way that makes it hard to predict the outcome. As always, the movie gives you all of the pieces, but, as Blanc learns, fitting them together isn’t so easy.

But this is a more muted Knives Out story, one that deepens your understanding of Blanc. It’s not necessarily better or worse than its predecessors, but it’s different in important ways. Wake Up Dead Man shows that Knives Out can be something more than jokes and dramatic flourishes — which makes me excited to see what turn it takes next.

_{Wake Up Dead Man starts streaming on Netflix on December 12th.}