For a movie that calls itself a mystery, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is surprisingly uninterested in creating suspense. Now streaming on Netflix, the latest entry in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise follows a disgraced priest named Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) and a detective named Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as they investigate the death of Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a strange leader of a failing church in the isolated town of Chimney Rock.
The movie begins with a zoom out of a campfire with detective Benoit Blanc reading a handwritten letter. From there, the focus shifts to Jud Duplenticy, a former boxer who is looking for forgiveness through faith after a violent past. He is sent to a nearly abandoned parish that is overseen by Wicks. From the very start of the film, Wicks is seen as an unsettling individual due to his controversial sermons which are delivered to a small selected group. The only other individual who works in the church other than Wicks is Martha, the church’s caretaker, who has a lot of history with the church itself. While she is at first introduced as a brushed off side character, she ends up becoming a huge plot point in the future.
As Jud becomes part of this small community, the film introduces the group that attends the church. Among them are a local attorney with an adopted son, a recently divorced small-town doctor, a science fiction writer struggling with writer’s block, and a retired cellist with chronic pain. Later, Wicks suddenly dies in his side room during the sermons, in which these new attendees become the main suspects. However, after a public argument that Wicks and Jud had right before the murder comes out, everyone (including the police) suspects Jud as the killer. It is now up to detective Benoit Blanc to prove Jud’s innocence.
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Throughout the movie, pacing becomes the film’s most significant obstacle. Much of the first hour is overpowered by extended dialogue and subdued interactions that delay the central mystery. For a crime film, the lack of urgency the characters displayed was noticeable, causing me to feel a bit disengaged. Though the exposition is important, the film tends to dilly-dally longer than necessary. For example, the arrival of Benoit Blanc as an active investigator is around an hour in. For me, this made the film’s tension disintegrate the longer it took to get to the main point.
Moreover, the plot was complicated to understand at times, but then again that’s the point of a mystery. Given all of the plot twists that occurred I didn’t know who did what until the very end. My main complaint about this was that the film only started to feel like a real mystery halfway through. Having said that, the last hour of the film was the perfect amount of suspense and tension that would have been nice to have throughout the entirety of the movie.
One aspect of the film that I truly appreciated was the muted color palette used. The interior of many structures were shadow-heavy and used deliberate framing which made the movie appear haunting. The church itself becomes a symbolic centerpiece with beautiful colors that fit the movie’s overall aesthetic perfectly. Furthermore, the performances of the characters are consistently strong with a high-value cast. All of them had a specific contribution to the movie with distinct personalities that made the film seem relatable.
The film ultimately finds its footing during the final act. Despite it having a lot of flaws in the beginning, the outstanding ending makes them easy to forgive. The film’s bittersweet ending made me deeply attached to many of the characters and left a lasting impression as a viewer. The closing moments felt so human that the story no longer focused on the crime itself. Instead, the ending wrapped all of the guilt and sorrow that the church held perfectly, ultimately leaving the audience with something to think about even after the mystery is solved.
