Henry O'Brien
If there’s anything that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery confirmed about writer-director Rian Johnson, it’s that his Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) mystery series will always feature a Twitter-brained energy. From the Joe Rogan-esque YouTuber to an obvious stand-in for Elon Musk/Mark Zuckerberg, Glass Onion is a product of doomscrolling during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, and all our celebrities, politicians and business titans’ reactions to the lockdowns.
But as the United States re-elected Donald Trump and pundits hastily and foolishly rushed to declare a Gen Z Red Wave, Johnson went to church. Not literally—I don’t know Johnson’s religious beliefs or his church-going habits. What I do know is that Johnson uses the church in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, as a battleground of sorts to take aim at the pervasive sense of anger, distrust and hatred in the air of American society and the world.
With such a focus on hatred, love, faith and mystery, the third movie in the Knives Out series is another clever and winding entry. Johnson has a tremendous supporting cast at his disposal and a whodunnit case that keeps one hooked until the final moments of the 140-minute runtime. Wake Up Dead Man feels more similar to the first Knives Out in terms of the mystery and timing of the reveals, but the film features plenty of topical jokes that you could’ve easily just seen on Twitter. This melding of the first two films makes Johnson’s latest work the cleverest and the most satisfying of the franchise.
Blanc returns, this time to aid the ongoing crisis at a church where a young cleric, Jud (Josh O’Connor), faces the wrath of Msgr. Jefferson Wicks ( from Josh Brolin) and his devoted parishioners, otherwise known as his flock, which features the likes of Wicks’ assistant Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), a bitterly divorced doctor (Jeremy Renner) and a failed younger conservative politician (Daryl McCormack) just to name a few. All this tablesetting leads up to the firebrand priest’s death via a stab wound during a Good Friday service.
It’s a murder that defies convention, and it’s up to Blanc, who remains adamant in his skepticism of the church and a higher power, to solve the seemingly unsolvable. Even as the opening exposition dump from O’Connor’s character can feel quite grating at times, Johnson still packs the script full of jokes on shameless conservative grifting and Wicks’ masturbation habits.
Johnson also has the privilege of having accomplished actors want to hop on. Wake Up Dead Man features another amazing performance from O’Connor, whose character genuinely grapples with Wicks’ philosophy of anger and division and his own past as a boxer. Meanwhile, Brolin is cast perfectly in the role of firebrand priest/stand-in for Trump’s tendency to divide and enrage, and Close shines in devoting herself to Wicks’ church at all costs.
As in all of the Knives Out stories, the driving force of the plot revolves around a man who attracts followers, whether it be for personal gain or unwavering loyalty to him. The flock that Jud describes doesn’t have the sliminess as the spoiled family of the first film or the shameless gold digging of Miles Bron’s so-called friends. But Wake Up Dead Man’s potential suspects all have varying degrees of sadness and failure in their lives, making the third entry inherently the most somber.
Johnson looks to lightly interrogate modern Catholicism and Christianity by asking how can one who subscribes to this faith feel so much hatred to outsiders and so little compassion even as the scriptures argue for loving thy neighbor. More pointedly, how can Catholics be so supportive of a leader like Trump?
The rage and dark tidings leave the promotion for the film presenting a more Gothic atmosphere. But this really doesn’t hold up for most of the runtime as the movie maintains a similar enough tone, pacing and mood to the first two entries (namely, the jokes that come straight from being terminally online) with only some allusions to the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
But the mystery itself becomes not just another long-winding riddle for Blanc to solve, but a slight crisis of identity. Johnson’s writing uses the binaries of faith and reason to help Blanc navigate how to solve Wicks’ murder. The results are far different from anything else in the series and it creates a conclusion that has all the comfort of a massive monkey being lifted off one’s back.
Johnson’s thrills and jokes remain as timely as ever, and it proves that he is in full control over Blanc and the Knives Out franchise. But if Wake Up Dead Man were to be the last entry for Craig or Johnson, it would be a pleasant and perfect way to cap it all off. That being said, if Johnson made these like how any great mystery writer pens a ton of books and short stories, I wouldn’t be too upset.
