Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Movie Review: More than a mere puzzle box

Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise is a meta evolution of the murder mystery genre while also adhering to its classic structure. An impossible death/murder that almost breaks logic and rationality. A colourful set of characters and a shadow of doubt falls over all of them at some point in the story. A red herring here, a false end there, and then our charming detective drops a lofty monologue explaining all the machinations of the death/murder before zooming in on the perpetrator. Rian Johnson knows you know how all of this too well, and he also knows you still want the same while also somehow craving the rush of a puzzle being solved at the end. And that is where the director employs his extensive knowledge of the genre to create something outwardly simple, old-school, meta, whimsical, formulaic, while also packing it with enough winks, nods, subversions, so you know there’s more than meets the eye. Wake Up Dead Man is the most complex and thematically rich entry in the franchise yet.

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner

The actual puzzle of the crime is the least interesting part of the film. A pastor is dead; his congregation and, most of all, the newly appointed assistant pastor, are under heavy suspicion. He dies on Good Friday, and no points for guessing the twist that happens on Easter Sunday. The devil symbolism connected to the murder weapon; shadows casting over the empty space where a cross used to be; the treasure (which may have motivated the murder) being referred to as “Eve’s apple.” Rian Johnson runs wild with his biblical parallels, criss-crossing the screenplay like a figure skater on ice, with as many references as the story would allow. However, with both the murder mystery aspect of the story and its thematic explorations, there are two levels. One works as a playful and obvious touch while the other works on a richer, subliminal level. And the director gives us clear cues on which one of these is to be taken seriously. He does so by  redirecting our focus with his sharp, meta dialogues. We keep hearing variations of “Give us the answers soon,” and “Isn’t it all about how the murder is done?” By immediately acknowledging the “end goal” of the story through lines delivered by anxious, impatient characters, the director tells us not to seek the obvious. And so, we stop treating the film like a puzzle, to solve it and rush to the end, and allow the story to unravel like a reverse origami, the more it unravels, the clearer the shape becomes.

Wake Up Dead Man is a kaleidoscope of thematic musings. Approach it anyway, and there is a fresh new exploration of a different theological and moral discussion. Josh O’ Connor’s Rev. Jud grapples with tremendous amounts of guilt and tries to transform that into his drive to become a helpful preacher. Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) is a complex character who externalises childhood trauma in a way that makes him the centre of a personality cult. The most expansive dialogue the film has with itself is about faith and its intricate connections with the highs and lows of every character’s internal struggle. Faith in a belief system, family structure, hierarchies, unquestioning love, and even the power of wealth are all explored through various characters. Benoit Blanc, played by a charming Daniel Craig, stands as the level-headed voice of rationality and reason, the canvas against which the different shades of faith are painted. The most interesting aspect of Wake Up Dead Man is not how it unravels the mystery. It is with how, towards the end, Benoit Blanc becomes the one to receive the final answer instead of being the one to deliver it. Like the protagonist in a parable, the detective undergoes a revelation. He understands what Rev. Jud has been pleading with him to see all the while. To look beyond the mere solving of the puzzle. Benoit Blanc, in a moment of clarity, referencing the Road to Damascus story, looks beyond the mechanical procedure of ‘catching the murderer’. Wake Up Dead Man is an experimentation in form, in which Rian Johnson boldly pushes the boundaries by allowing the characters to argue moral and spirtual questions and lets the arguments organically simmer into a satisfying conclusion.