Wake Up Dead Man on Netflix: what is the new Knives Out worth? (critical)
Bathed in a delectable neo-Gothic atmosphere, Benoît Blanc’s new adventure mixes political satire and whodunit mechanics.
Third shade of White: the dandy detective played by Daniel Craig returns for a new investigation, after At loggerheads (2019) and Glass Onion (2022). In terms of style, tone, atmosphere, everything was designed in Wake Up Dead Man: A tale of daggers drawn to get as far away as possible from the flashy bling of the previous part.
The plot takes place in a small parish in the eastern United States, where a young boxer turned priest (Josh O’Connor) is sent to officiate under the orders of Monsignor Wicks, a power-hungry priest (Josh Brolin), holding his faithful in fear – a thinly veiled Trumpian avatar. The watchmaking of whodunit begins when Wicks is found dead in a room from which no one has been able to enter or leave, a typical case of “closed room” mystery à la Gaston Leroux or John Dickson Carr.
References duly cited during the story by director Rian Johnson, a theoretician in love with the genre, who enjoys mixing its mechanics with his own obsessions as a political satirist and half-amused, half-dismayed pop-cultural columnist, worrying here about the way in which faith is being misused in America by the evangelical right and its rogue influencers.
In full possession of his means, he handles both the art of neo-Gothic suspense, on the edge of the fantastic, and the pleasures of the buddy movie, aided by the alchemy of the duo formed by Josh O’Connor (fabulous as an opinionated religious who more spontaneously throws punches than he turns the other cheek) and Daniel Craig, more chic and suave than ever.
By Rian Johnson. With Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor… Duration 2 hours 24 minutes. Available December 12 on Netflix
