Wake Up Dead Man
London Film Festival Film #3
“Young, dumb, and full of Christ”
Rian Johnson is back with yet another mystery (he never really went away for those who watch Poker Face). With yet another star-studded ensemble, and led at the helm by the wonderful Josh O’Connor - fulfilling his rightful place among the ever expanding list of actors who play hot priest - this was bound to be a recipe for delight.
And that is it. It warms my heart that we have another entry into this franchise which feels as refreshing and exciting as the others in the trilogy. The formula is tried and true; Set up the ensemble, give them all reasonable motives, introduce Benoit Blanc and let the chaos ensue. It may be played out, but man if that formula isn’t fun.
It also feels dramatically different to the previous instalments. They’re all playing in the world of murder mystery, but with slightly different takes. Here, is perhaps the best mystery of the three. Something seemingly impossible is always a good strategy to get an audience invested. If the detective isn’t able to figure it out, then it places it on a viewer to try and get there before he does.
Not unlike the previous films, the mystery itself is kind of obvious…well sort of. I’ve always found with these films that the main culprit, is easy to find. It’s how they did it (which in this film is so wonderfully complex) and why that becomes the intrigue.
The film goes on enough twists and turns though that really challenged whether or not I was right in my assumption and that’s the fun part also. That sudden feeling of I was wrong, well who is it? I thrive off that feeling.
It’s hard not to talk about this film and not mention Josh O’Connor. He is absolutely spectacular here, and I feel overjoyed with the sheer amount I got of him. He’s such a fascinating character, portraying this priest with a rough past. Somebody who is trying to write his wrongs, but still his past haunts him.
Out of all of the leads of these films, he’s by far the most intricate and well realised. This, I would posit, is because this film is the most intricate out of the trilogy. It’s interesting in exploring themes, on top of being a mystery, in using faith and religion as a way to explore our relationship to these things.
It may be the person in me who was raised Catholic but I got so much out of this. Struggling and grappling with faith is such a potent thing for a lot of religious people. And this really dug into the power of faith on those who believe in it, and finding faith in different things.
Even simpler than that the way that Johnson writes the churchgoers was pitched to perfection. The people who attend church often don’t practise what is preached, it’s an environment that is very cliquey. Now, place a radical religious priest in charge of that church, and the results create monsters. I just think he nailed this exploration of religion in the modern world.
There’s a scene in particular that absolutely devastated me and got me misty eyed. It’s initially a heavily comedic scene, a scene that perhaps goes on too long, and then it shifts, and lord what a payoff. It feels like this gorgeous moment of the power of faith, something which this movie spends a lot of its time criticising, so this scene juxtaposing this, made it all the more powerful.
I sort of disagree with this notion that this is the first of his movies to have some deeper meaning or explore themes. Both his previous ventures have flirted with this idea, particularly the wealth and billionaires of the previous film, but it’s just more so. It makes for such a rewarding experience.
Like all the other films, the cast of characters makes this film, we just need more Benoit Blanc and his immaculate fashion sense