new video loaded: ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ | Anatomy of a Scene
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transcript
‘Wake Up Dead Man’ | Anatomy of a Scene
The writer and director Rian Johnson narrates a sequence from his film.
“My Name is Rian Johnson. I wrote and directed “Wake Up, Dead Man.” “All right, everyone!” This is a scene that’s about halfway through the movie. And Father Jud right here, who’s Josh O’Connor, he is the prime suspect in the murder of Monsignor Wicks, kind of the local priest that was his colleague. And all the parishioners who you see here have suspected. Jud, have given him a lot of guff, and he’s finally hit his limit, and he’s teamed with Benoit Blanc. “And they’re going to get to the bottom of this. And we’re going to start with what happened that night right here in this very room.” “You mean the time Judd admitted to all of us that he killed a man.” “O.K, no, that was the boxing thing.” So these movies really run off of scenes like this and getting all the suspects together and then having them all bounce off of each other in sometimes terrible, abrasive ways. And it’s about the relationships between everybody. It’s about Glenn Close and Cailee Spaeny in the same frame. So you get that great moment where Glenn screams. “Ahhh!” “Jesus!” “It’s a miracle!” “I can walk, Martha. It just hurts.” We’re getting movie stars who were all number one on the call sheet on their own films to come in and be a part of an actual ensemble. So this scene was one of the first scenes that we shot, because I thought it was really important to get everyone in the same room. And so you can see these actors, some of the best actors working today get in there and you can see the joy they’re taking in watching everyone else’s performance and seeing where everyone else is pitching it, especially on day one and all kind of finding their level. And I don’t for me, it makes my job very easy. But it’s amazing seeing them, seeing them work. “Who wants to go first?”
The writer and director Rian Johnson narrates a sequence from his film.
Describe This Movie In One Jewel of the Nile Quote: TARAK: Ralph, that is not the Sufi way. RALPH: I don’t know what got into me, Jewels. Every time I’m around this guy he makes me crazy.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Like if that Southern colonel from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons solving crimes.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Our Time in Edens out of 5.
Better Tagline: “The best priests are the ones who murdered people in their past lives.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Murder! Murder most foul has been committed at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, and Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) is the victim. The list of suspects is both lengthy and colorful. Is it newly installed Father Jud (Josh O’Connor)? Or perhaps Wick’s right-hand woman Martha (Glenn Close)? And let’s not forget the flock, which includes lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), the town doctor (Jeremy Renner), a former bestselling author (Andrew Scott), and a celebrated cellist (Cailee Spaeny). Thanks goodness famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is on the case.
“Critical” Analysis: The Knives Out movies — of which Wake Up Dead Man is the third — aren’t really about the mysteries. The first two films solved their whodunits by the second act, backfilling details we’d assumed were tangential to the main event. Glass Onion threw in a second act twist that some felt was a cheap trick, though my problems were more with the second movie’s pacing and performances, especially compared to Knives Out’s cast.
Writer/director Rian Johnson, closing out his 500 million dollar Netflix deal, leans more into character development this time around. Father Jud’s pre-clergy background, Vera and Cy’s shared past, and Martha’s pained history with the church and Monsignor Wicks. We’re aware of the so-called “Good Friday Murder” almost from the jump, but Johnson takes a while building to it.
Wake Up Dead Man is at least somewhat less cluttered than its predecessor. There are still a healthy number of red herrings and fakeouts, but setting the film in a less exotic location and eschewing any body-double shenanigans keeps the action focused. It also doesn’t hurt that O’Connor, Close, and Brolin are all bringing their “A” game. Brolin especially is enjoying a one-two combo of scumbag roles (he’s Dan Killian in last weeks’ The Running Man).
Johnson also doesn’t shy away from social commentary, though he’s less overt about it than Jacob Thrombey’s incel subreddit or Birdie Jay’s racist Tweets. Cy and Andrew Scott’s fading author Lee Ross are both hoping to ride Monsignor Wicks’ coattails to social media fame, with the former presented as an opportunist in the vein of George Santos and the latter a possible stand-in for Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
Case in point: after sharing his litany of failed issues he tried to use to jumpstart his political career, Cy unironically remarks, “People are just numb these days. I don’t know why.”
And then there’s Craig. The vaunted Benoit Blanc is still apparently the World’s Greatest Detective (sorry, Batman), but in Wake Up Dead Man, he’s fallible as well. Craig clearly enjoys the hell out of this character, and Johnson here gives him some refreshing moral ambiguity. Not everything needs to be shared with the police, after all. And if withholding ill-gotten gains makes life difficult for someone, what’s one more disgruntled asshole in the world?
Wake Up Dead Man also marks the first time Johnson addresses questions of faith (not counting Princess Leia’s “She Is Risen” moment in The Last Jedi). The Roman Catholic Church still holds some hope and mystery for young Father Jed, while for most of the “hardened cyst of regulars” at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, it’s a cudgel. Monsignor Wicks wearily refers to himself as a “warrior for Christ,” taking up spiritual arms against the forces of modernity (and, one assumes, progressivism) assailing it.
Due respect to the Monsignor, but the Church really has no one to blame for its massive list of enemies but itself.
One the other end of the divide is Blanc himself, who emphatically rejects the dogma … until he doesn’t. And as is the case with all these movies, you find yourself wondering if Blanc’s florid statements aren’t in service of the deeper plot.
Is it too early to say that Johnson is Shyamalan-ing himself? I don’t think the comparison really fits, since there’s a difference between mere formula and the inevitability of one big twist. Wake Up Dead Man still suffers from the familiarity of the Knives Out blueprint, but is more thoughtful than its predecessors. All the same, it’s probably just as well we’re finally laying Benoit Blanc to rest. Figuratively speaking.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is in theaters Wednesday.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery centers on detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) attempting to figure out his most dangerous case yet. The first trailer (below) teases the mysterious death of a charming priest.
“To understand this case, you need to look at the myth that’s being constructed,” Craig says in the footage. “A man gives a sermon. He then, in plain sight of everyone, walks into a sealed concrete box. Thirty seconds later, that man is lying dead. A classic, impossible crime.”
Johnson helmed the movie from his own script. The filmmaker produced the project alongside Ram Bergman.
Here’s the logline: “Benoit Blanc (Craig) returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery opus. When young priest Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor) is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. Wicks’ modest-but-devoted flock includes devout church lady Martha Delacroix (Close), circumspect groundskeeper Samson Holt (Church), tightly-wound lawyer Vera Draven, Esq. (Washington), aspiring politician Cy Draven (McCormack), town doctor Nat Sharp (Renner), best-selling author Lee Ross (Scott) and concert cellist Simone Vivane (Spaeny). After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic.”
The franchise kicked off with the original Knives Out, which Lionsgate released theatrically in 2019. Not quite two years later, Netflix bought the exclusive rights to a pair of sequels, with the first follow-up — Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery — launching in late 2022.
In his review of Wake Up Dead Man for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney praised the film’s “considerable plus of Josh O’Connor as a former boxer turned priest who becomes both a murder suspect and a Watson to Benoit Blanc’s Sherlock Holmes.”
See more first-look photos, below.
Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack.
