Sharper than ever

With a third instalment that’s even better than 2022’s Glass Onion, the Knives Out franchise continues to be a cinematic treat.

Filmmaker Rian Johnson and star Daniel Craig have pulled off a playful, theatrical, well-crafted entertainment, one that’s cleverly self-aware about its whodunit tropes while still thoroughly enjoying them.

And because Wake Up Dead Man sees dapper, witty private detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) solving a crime in a small, isolated church in upstate New York, all that pure murder-mystery pleasure is topped up with a surprisingly serious investigation into the nature of belief.

Jud Duplenticey (The Crown’s Josh O’Connor) is an idealistic young priest who’s been sent to this small-town parish to assist Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a controversial figure described by Father Jud’s bishop as “a few beads short of a rosary.”

The monsignor rules over the congregation of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude with a hellfire approach that relies on fear, rage and divisiveness — not to mention an odd fixation on “harlotry.”

Viewers concerned that the film is a hit on organized religion should be reassured, however, by the vision of grace and love offered by Father Jud and by O’Connor’s performance, which is an absolutely sincere miracle of radiant, goofy goodness.

When the monsignor is murdered in what seems like an impossible “locked room” crime, local police Chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) calls in Blanc, “the last gentleman detective,” as he’s called in Knives Out.

As the investigation unspools, complete with flashbacks, false starts, buried secrets and big reveals, Father Jud becomes Blanc’s newest sidekick, taking on the role played by Ana de Armas in Knives Out and Janelle Monae in Glass Onion.

Their offbeat pairing becomes the soulful centre of the story, as Blanc’s rationality — he describes himself as “a proud heretic” — meets the young priest’s faith in mutually respectful conversation, and both men find they have more in common than they first suspected.

As with the Golden Age mysteries Johnson calls back to, there is a limited pool of suspects, with the murderer lurking among the hardcore congregants who attend every service.

Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner) is the town doctor, who’s been drinking too much since his wife left him. Lee Ross (Andrew Scott from Fleabag) is a reclusive sci-fi novelist embittered — and politically radicalized — by the dwindling of his fame. Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny, Civil War) is a concert cellist living with chronic pain who hopes the monsignor’s prayers can heal her. Vera Draven (Scandal’s Kerry Washington) is a local lawyer living in the shadow of her devout late father, while Cy Draven (Peaky Blinders’ Daryl McCormack) is a toxic alt-right influencer, whose ever-present camera — and habit of posting private church feuds to social media — plays a key role in the proceedings.

Then there’s Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), who keeps everything running at the rectory, and the church’s loyal groundskeeper, Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church).

As with all the Knives Out films, the cast is strong — Brolin and Close, especially, doing excellent work — but the characters and their dynamics aren’t as developed as we saw with the ghastly Thrombey family in the first outing or the tech disruptor and his variously horrible guests in the second.

The mystery is smartly constructed, though, with the clues laid out fairly (well, more or less). Johnson has never been shy about his influences, and here he explicitly tips his hat to crime novelist John Dickson Carr, the American master of the locked-room puzzle, while adding a little of Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage to the vibe. (Johnson’s work, in fact, is far more faithful to the spirit of Christie than Kenneth Branagh’s increasingly overstuffed Poirot adaptations.)

Johnson continues his commentary on the Trump era. “Such a time to be alive,” sighs one exhausted character at a key point, and there’s a lot to despair about, from the monsignor’s us-versus-them pulpit strategies to the polarizing hatefulness of Cy’s social media feed.

Johnson mostly stays this side of the smugness that occasionally crept into Glass Onion, though. Here, the prevailing tones are the wry, world-weary compassion of Blanc and the daffy, hopeful decency of Father Jud.

Bless them both, and bless this fun, funny and still vital franchise.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca