With Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man, Murder Feels Right At Christmas |
Part whodunnit, part theological debate, the third Knives Out film pits religion against reason to ask why death feels oddly comforting at Christmas. Louis Bayman writes.
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MURDER has never been as comforting as in the Knives Out series, whose third instalment, Wake Up Dead Man, is available to stream as one of Netflix’s Christmas offerings. It clocks in at nearly two and a half hours of suspense, comedy and enough asides about religion and politics to get any traditional festive arguments going.
Daniel Craig’s quick-witted but laconic southern private investigator Benoit Blanc doesn’t show up until about an hour into proceedings. Narration is handed over instead to Father Jud (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer who became a Catholic priest after killing a man in the ring.
O’Connor carries the film, not to mention this winter season more generally in cinemas, occupying the starring role in Kelly Reichardt’s arthouse heist film, The Mastermind, last month, and The History of Sound, which will be released next month.
Father Jud recounts the events leading up to murder in a far-flung parish in upstate New York, where a small group of parishioners have fallen under the unorthodox preachings of the cultish Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). To say anything more would risk giving away some of the mystery that Wake Up Dead Man advertises in its title, so let’s just say that the setup of a priest battling perdition and the weird parishioners he is stuck with makes up a cast of characters who each have their reasons for murder. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. |
This potential is amplified by the fiery sermons of the Monsignor, who is less a guiding shepherd to the credulous flock and more a vengeful wolf. He details his vivid fantasies in confession to the cringeing Jud, as the very definition of a loose canon.
Wake Up Dead Man is an engaging comic mystery with an all-star cast, with Craig, O’Connor and Brolin joined by Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott and Glenn Close, who hams up the gothic elements of the script with relish. This is a “locked-room mystery”, a genre begun by Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue, where murder is committed in the apparently impossible conditions of a completely closed room. The film is then not only a whodunnit but a howdunnit.
Wake Up Dead Man is aware of its own literary inspirations, which, if they weren’t already clear, are listed as the subjects of the parish reading group. The film is set over Easter weekend, but the idea of a good murder has become staple Christmas fare, making it no surprise that Netflix has scheduled this film for the holiday market. But what is it in the genre that makes murder so Christmassy? |
DEATH AS A PUZZLE
Detective fiction is unique in the way it treats death. Unlike horror, it does not dwell on the terrifying vulnerability that is our mortal condition. And unlike the war film, death is not the price for adherence to a civilisational ideal. Nor is there much sense of the sacredness of life, for death in detective fiction is treated less as a tragedy to mourn than a puzzle to solve.
Detective fiction depicts a world where mystery is no longer proof of the ultimately unknowable workings of the divine. Mystery is instead a problem to be met by the calculations of logical deduction. But as the various lustful, greedy characters of detective fiction demonstrate, if rationality provides the only source of meaning, what is there to stop us from pursuing total amoral self-interest? What is there to stop us, indeed, from murder?
The shared narration between detective Blanc and Father Jud means that Wake Up Dead Man becomes an enquiry not only into a murder but the antagonism between reason and God. Blanc states his atheism as soon as he arrives at the church, which is now a crime scene. But a heavenly light shines through its windows to brighten its gloom as Father Jud provides his justification for faith.
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Wake Up Dead Man nicely satirises how charismatic leaders can elicit the irrational passions of their followers for self-interested ends, but the film is not itself a rejection of belief. Of course, the intensity of a closed setting, where a lifetime of stored resentments, jealousies and greed spill over into brutal hatred, may also be why murder mysteries seem so appropriate at Christmas. My main disappointment with Wake Up Dead Man is how underused its supporting players are; the ensemble nature of the whodunnit works best when attention is divided among a cast of characters, each of whom could be a potential murderer. But its closing revelations layer twist upon twist with enough force to make for a satisfying ending to an entertaining story. Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man is currently streaming on Netflix. Watch True Detective, Only Murders In The Building and other intriguing mysteries with OTTplay Premium — Get JioHotstar, Discovery +, ZEE5, Sony LIV, Fancode and 25 OTTs for only 149 per month. |
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