Just like fruit, the longer franchises persist, the greater chance they have of spoiling. The returns on the once beloved John Wick diminished of late, and it looks like the same ghost is coming for Knives Out. The most frustrating part is just how close Rian Johnson was to pulling off a complete heist of a third entry in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. 

The first Knives Out became a sensation because of its ability to have its cake and eat it too. It was both the most mystery to ever mystery while also subverting the genre almost entirely. Now a proper IP of its own, the series has created its own tropes in need of subverting or risks a return to mediocrity: the grand unraveling speeches at the conclusion, fishbowl locations with little meaning beyond their function, the hyper-timely characterizations of the suspects, and even Benoit Blanc’s insufferability. Wake Up Dead Man pushes its own form past these now predictable trappings and genuinely does its best to not allow the brand demise to genre irrelevance. 

The location and its context matter more than ever. Rev. Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a young parish priest with a tempered past but a good heart, is sent to a micro parish in the fictional Chimney Rock, New York called Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude as a symbolic punishment for taking divine justice into his own hands (he punched a dick of a deacon). It’s only really a punishment because the charismatic and cultish Msgr. Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) is gleefully diminishing numbers with his fiery culture war homilies, creating a smaller and more loyal core congregation. 

The casting calls for the series read like a report card who’s-who in Hollywood, so it’s no surprise to find a ridiculous number of A-listers in the ranks again. Glenn Close gives an admirable performance as Martha Delacroix, the church’s secretary and longest-lasting member. Jeremy Renner also gets a large amount of screentime as Dr. Nat Sharp, Chimney Rock’s lone physician it would seem. Brolin gives the most charismatic performance of his career, and Mila Kunis is formidably confident enough as the chief of the local police. And, if it needs to be said, Daniel Craig of course returns as Benoit Blanc. Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, and Daryl McCormack all pulled the shorter straws this time around. Scott and Spaeny’s talents are particularly overshadowed by their lack of opportunity. Their talents are wasted in roles barely more desirable than cameos. 

In a sea of bigger names, though, Josh O’Connor gives the defining performance of the film. Fr. Duplenticy never hides his first instinct in the face of fear: violence. He killed a man in the boxing ring as a young man, and his priestly vocation is a way to make amends for that. He fights that demon though rather than acquiescing to the temptation (or even celebrating it) like Monsignor Wicks. The difference in title between the two priests—the more affectionate reverend or father for the one, the more prestigious and self-indulging monsignor for the other—gets at the difference between the two clergy persons. 

And, in many ways, Christian theology is near the heart of the film. Duplenticy teaches Benoit about both grace (receiving that which we do not deserve) and mercy (being exempted from that which we do deserve) in a way that no character has challenged him so far in the series. The father’s own goodness baffles Benoit so profoundly that he doesn’t know how to account for it when solving the mystery. At the heart of this lesson is teaching his flock how to confidently take responsibility for one’s actions and to be held accountable for one’s sins rather than being publicly shamed and “cancelled” until justice is had. This is repentance: to turn around. Johnson then damages this by having the entire “confession” of the guilty party that the film climaxes in be a literal sacramental confession… where not one but two third parties listen in without shame. For context, the official church teaching here reads: “For whoever shall dare to reveal a sin disclosed to him in the tribunal of penance we decree that he shall be not only deposed from the priestly office but that he shall also be sent into the confinement of a monastery to do perpetual penance.” Technically speaking, the seal isn’t broken by the actual confession, but given that the two are in various ways law enforcement or conspiring with law enforcement, it’s a careless mistake no good priest would make. 

In attempting to cinematize the confessional, Wake Up Dead Man does a lot worse than creating an oopsie-doopsie “he’s still a good priest” moment. It’s not a shameful scene because it will offend Catholics; it won’t (maybe some priests, but that’s okay). It’s shameful because of how it undoes the character development of Fr. Duplenticy, who speaks of his priestly duties as the only thing he was put on this earth to do, a vocational calling that Benoit recalls to him in the film’s pivotal moment. Taking a note from his new priest friend, Benoit verbalizes the phrase “Road to Damascus” to help incite a holy feeling of repentance in the guilty. And that’s so frustrating because breaking the seal of the confession is basically a full rejection of the priestly vocation; it’s like a carpenter who refuses to hurt wood. I also don’t think this is what Johnson meant to communicate either, because, in an earlier scene, he has Duplenticy leave a room for more privacy just to pray with someone over the phone. A priest even served as a consultant on the film! Regardless, I suppose it’s at least a nice change to have good priests back in the movies.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
2025
dir. Rian Johnson
144 min.

Screened as part of the 2025 Toronto Film Festival
Opens in theaters 11/26 and on Netflix 12/12