A mystery misfire

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 26th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Director Rian Johnson returns with his third Knives Out mystery.

The original debuted six years ago this week. It was a sleeper hit that brought in a box-office return more than seven times its budget.

Netflix later bought the franchise and released a sequel in 20-22. Now the third installment opens in select theaters before it hits Netflix December 12th.

Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino with his thoughts on Wake Up Dead Man.

COLLIN GARBARINO: Knives Out was a tightly constructed murder mystery with a cast of quirky suspects who all seem to benefit from the death of the family patriarch. But the quirkiest character of all was the detective Benoit Blanc played by Daniel Craig, with what one character referred to as a “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl.”

In Wake Up Dead Man, Director Rian Johnson keeps the tone as quirky as ever. But this time around, he tries to incorporate questions of faith into his whodunit.

REV. DELANCY: A priest is a shepherd. The world is a wolf.

FR. JUD: No. I don’t believe that, father, respectfully. You start fighting wolves, and before you know it everyone you don’t understand is a wolf.

The action in Wake Up Dead Man revolves around a small town Catholic Church. Josh O’Connor plays Fr. Jud, a young priest who’s sent to the small parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. He’s supposed to see if he can rejuvenate the dying flock by bringing a positive outlook.

FR. JUD: Christ came to heal the world, not fight it. I believe that.

The church’s current priest is Monsignor Wicks, played by Josh Brolin. Wicks is a hardliner who preaches fiery sermons and seems intent on alienating newcomers.

WICKS: Might as well beat that child. Yes. Might as well starve that child. Defy the family that the Lord intended and watch your child burn beneath that burden.

When Wicks is murdered in an exceedingly mysterious way on Good Friday, the police enlist the help of master detective Benoit Blanc.

BENOIT BLANC: I don’t want to take you away from your priestly duties now, do I?

All-star ensemble casts have become a signature of the Knives Out franchise, and Wake Up Dead Man is no exception. A small group of parishioners make up the list of suspects, and they’re played by heavy hitters like Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, and Andrew Scott.

In this film, Johnson gives the audience his version of a locked-room mystery. Plenty of people had a motive to kill Monsignor Wicks, but it seems impossible that any of them could have had the opportunity. As the movie itself acknowledges… This setup is a common trope in the whodunit genre.

But perhaps more significant than the actual mystery is Johnson’s exploration of religion in the film. It turns out Benoit Blanc has a distinct dislike for the Christian faith.

BENOIT BLANC: It’s built upon the empty promise of a child’s fairy tale, filled with malevolence, misogyny, homophobia…

Fr. Jud acts as Blanc’s sidekick in the investigation, but he also serves as his foil in spiritual matters. The earnest young priest tries to convince the skeptical detective there might be something to this whole Christianity thing.

FR. JUD: Guess the question is… Do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that’s profoundly true?

Johnson has said Wake Up Dead Man is a personal film for him. He grew up in a conservative evangelical household, but as an adult he abandoned the faith. Here we see him examining the intersection of faith and politics, and the result is entirely predictable based on his personal lens. Johnson uses Wicks as a stand-in for those he considers bad religious leaders in the age of Trump. Hateful, arrogant, and caring more about the culture war than they do about people. Jud is supposed to be one of the good guys who saves folks by teaching them to forgive their enemies. I suppose we can give Johnson some credit for attempting to allow various perspectives to have their say, but despite his upbringing he doesn’t really understand the thing he’s writing about.

The movie portrays religious experience as a strange dichotomy lacking nuance. It’s either about control or some subjective feeling. Don’t expect an accurate explanation of the gospel. Moreover, the religious tone of the film is off. These Catholics don’t talk or act like Catholics. The faithful of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude have a wild-eyed aura about them totally at odds with the church’s gothic architecture. I think Johnson was trying to be fair in his approach to religion, but in the end, he just doesn’t know enough about American Christianity to pull it off.

BENOIT BLANC: Touche, Padre.

Sadly, it wasn’t just the cliched perspective on Christianity that disappointed me. Wake Up Dead Man is the first Knives Out movie to be rated PG-13 instead of R, but that doesn’t mean the movie is more family-friendly. The film contains fewer bad words, but some of the dialogue is more explicit than anything in earlier films.

But this isn’t a terrible movie. It’s just got too many annoying aspects. The central murder was cleverly written, but Johnson adds a secondary hoax to the plot that is utterly nonsensical. The more you think about it, the dumber it gets. If you’re a Benoit Blanc fan, you would probably be happier queuing up the original this holiday season.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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