(4 / 5)
Its title sounds like a declaration of an in-built twist, but Wake Up Dead Man, Rian Johnson’s latest addition to the Knives Out universe, has loftier ambitions in mind.
After the classic manor-house intrigue of the original Knives Out and the sunlit satire of its sequel, Glass Onion, we find ourselves in the isolated parish our Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, in Chimney Rock, upstate New York.
The local priest, self-titled “Monsignor” Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), presides like an Old Testament patriarch – a shaggy, charismatic prophet whose sermons curdle faith into fear. He preaches purity, sows paranoia. There’s no space for absolution here, not even a crucifix above the altar – only a ghostly absence, the white outline where one once hung, long ago.
Into this haunted parish steps Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) – a pugilist in a dog collar, searching for peace. O’Connor plays him with a restless, wounded grace. He wants to heal, not fight, but in Wicks’ world, religion is a weapon. At one point, he literally throws a Bible.
When Wicks is found dead on Good Friday under seemingly impossible circumstances, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) arrives to investigate. “The textbook definition of an impossible crime,” he drawls, like the cat who got the cream – the Holy Grail of mysteries. Blanc’s logic meets Jud’s faith, two forms of belief circling the same mystery.
Wake Up Dead Man is a quieter film than its predecessors – a corrosive character study about the ways conviction can be exploited and turned to cruelty. Chimney Rock’s parishioners aren’t mere caricatures. They’re casualties of a corrupt dogma, but no less potentially dangerous for it. The political allegory, though apt, is left understated.
Few in number, their roll call is as follows:
Martha (Glenn Close), the church’s housekeeper who worships Wicks with wide-eyed fervour and makes a Frau Blücher-like habit of sudden, startling materialisations. The town doctor, Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), is a self-pitying drunk, deserted by his wife, who takes solace in the misogyny of Wicks’ teachings. Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), a lawyer, bright and brittle, is saddled with her half-brother Cy (Daryl McCormack), an insufferable ex-GOP hopeful turned right-wing influencer. Meanwhile, former sci-fi author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) is seeking refuge from the “woke hive-mind”, turning his home into a fortress. Simone Vivane (Cailee Spainy), a cellist debilitated by pain, is praying for a miracle. Only the loyal groundskeeper, Samson (Thomas Hayden Church), seems relatively untouched by the surrounding mania – a man of habit rather than devotion.
It’s a packed and starry cast, not all equally served by the two-hour-and-twenty-minute runtime. Mila Kunis is effectively side-lined as Chimney Rock’s understandably annoyed sheriff, and Jeffrey Wright pops up in a glorified cameo as a sympathetic bishop. That said, all sparkle effectively, making the most of Johnson’s zingy dialogue.
Steve Yedlin’s sharp, textured cinematography makes remarkable use of chiaroscuro – ominous shadows, shafts of illumination breaking through like the touch of God.
In one of the film’s most affecting moments – indeed, one of the most affecting moments I can remember in recent film – Jud and Blanc, mid-investigation, are interrupted by someone in need – a literal call for grace and. For a moment, deduction gives way to communion. It’s a minor miracle, performed with absolute sincerity amid the machinery of the puzzle box.
What begins as a locked-room puzzle ends as a meditation on faith: on how reason and grace, logic and mercy, might coexist. Wake Up Dead Man deconstructs its own cleverness, trading irony for sincerity – the whodunnit reborn as spiritual parable, both intellectually and emotionally rewarding.
There’s even a great Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back gag along the way, though what lingers is more an echo of Johnson’s own The Last Jedi.
“We don’t win by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love.”
And that, more than any ingenious reveal, is the film’s true epiphany.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery was part of the 2025 London Film Festival. It’s due for release in theaters on November 26, and will be available on Netflix from December 12, 2025.
