{"id":12449,"date":"2026-01-07T18:32:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T18:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=12449"},"modified":"2026-01-07T18:32:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T18:32:53","slug":"wake-up-dead-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/07\/wake-up-dead-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake Up Dead Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"1767755124\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

To Dust You Shall Return<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The third Knives Out<\/em> movie encourages a Christian spirit of generosity in the face of anger, despair, and doubt.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Review by Maria Copeland<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

In Rian Johnson\u2019s murder mysteries, the love of money is the root of all evil. The villains of Knives Out<\/em> (2019) were the riotously despicable members of a family of privileged elites, who after the passing of their patriarch showed up desperate for their share of his empire. Glass Onion<\/em> (2022) targeted shallow celebrities and soulless tech-bro billionaires. The exterior consultant brought in to render a judgment of the facts and the morals at play always remains amusedly aloof. Benoit Blanc, a snappily dressed, Southern-drawling detective, has no real stake in the games of the rich. He recruits a likable, lower-to-middle-class protagonist (in the first movie, a nurse; in the second, an elementary school teacher), and shakes his head over the woes of the wealthy. But Wake Up Dead Man,<\/em> released in November, presents Blanc with a new kind of investigative challenge\u2014one that requires him not only to follow the money, but to examine his own soul. He must contend with another type of person equally unfamiliar to him as the rich: the religious.<\/p>

As in the prior two movies, Blanc makes his entrance late. The narrative opens with the introduction of Jud Duplenticy, a young priest played with wry, tender honesty by Josh O\u2019Connor. A former boxer who came to faith after accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, Jud carries on a continual battle against his own quick temper. When he hurls a punch at a fellow man of the cloth, he is dispatched to a remote parish, both to patch together his clerical career and to overcome his temperamental failing.<\/p>

As it turns out, Jud\u2019s work is cut out for him at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude\u2014a hornet\u2019s nest of people much angrier than he is, presided over by a charismatic lead priest or \u201cmonsignor,\u201d Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Wicks capitalizes on fraught family history to keep the church under his thumb with fiery messages about the evils of modernity. His chief followers are bound together tightly, both by his ire and their own grievances. Martha (Glenn Close) directs parish operations while harboring their secrets. Lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington) is embittered after being landed with the family business and the care of her half-brother, avid YouTuber and aspiring GOP candidate Cy (Daryl McCormack). Former cellist Simone (Cailee Spaeny) awaits healing of her chronic illness, growing more desperate daily for a miracle. Sci-fi novelist Lee (Andrew Scott) is in \u201cSubstack hell\u201d and casting about for a publishing win. Dr. Nat (Jeremy Renner), abandoned by his wife, descends into alcoholism and seeks someone to blame. And then all hell breaks loose, fittingly, during Holy Week, with a public post-homily murder in the church.<\/p>

A church offers an appropriately \u201cthin place\u201d\u2014a site of permeability between the material and the supernatural\u2014for the setting of a crime and subsequent interplay of known and unknown. Here, confession is both forensic practice and holy rite, rendering necessary the involvement of both detective and priest. Jud and Blanc become collaborators in an attempt to unspool a particular instance of human evil against a cosmic backdrop of faith and cynicism. Jud is a purveyor of \u201cfoolish grace,\u201d Blanc a rationalist who casually calls God a fiction. This is not a conversion account for either character. But it is the first time we have seen Blanc disclose anything about his own relationship to the metaphysical dimension of the world he generally navigates with consummate psychological deftness. As it turns out, he has more in common with the zealous Jud than his initial assessment allows.<\/p>

Although the movie remains firmly in the realm of the practical, rather than the proposed miraculous, Johnson grants reverence for the religious types of his story. While the rich may be skewered for being rich, the religiosity even of fallen parishioners is never satirized for its own sake. And Jud\u2019s desire, operating from his own brokenness, to renew the life of the church, is mocked neither by Johnson nor Blanc. In fact, it is the primary recommendation on offer for engagement with the world: Generosity\u2014rather than anger, defensiveness, or despair\u2014is crucial for repairing our faith in each other.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The believer and the cynic can meet on equal ground in the search for justice and for grace.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Jud has abundant reasons to retreat into frustration. Wicks, in an effort to tighten his hold over his parish and devotees, maliciously counters Jud\u2019s every move. But since he has had a real encounter with grace, Jud\u2019s desire to invite others into the same is threatened by neither his own missteps nor his opponent\u2019s swings. He persists in offering the goodness of Christ to the world\u2014administering the rite of confession to Wicks, inviting to a prayer group those who like him least. Even when all seems lost, when he is accused of murder and running low on time to clear his name, he immediately puts the investigation on hold for hours to take a phone call from a hurting parishioner. If Jud had been any less sympathetically rendered, this scene could easily come off as saccharine or comical. But because we are so acquainted with the seriousness of his struggles and faith, it is one of the best in the movie. The shock of it went tangibly through the audience when I saw it in the theater, a reaction to a sacrifice made without reserve or hesitation, one that astonishes even the impatient and hardened Blanc.<\/p>

Steve Yedlin\u2019s camera work gorgeously evokes the film\u2019s posture of humility and generosity. Absent sleek, streamlined technology or maximalist manor rooms for subjects, Yedlin makes much of the ordinary textures of an old New York town. The beautiful interior of the church and its surrounding settings receive the most careful treatment\u2014made radiant by velvet light, concealed in disorienting forest shadows, shot through cloudy curtains of Eastertide rain. Of particular importance is Johnson\u2019s and Yedlin\u2019s attention throughout the movie to human hands. At the beginning, Jud articulates aloud a belief that will carry him through a terrifying series of anger-spurred events: his job, as a priest, is to meet the world with hands not clenched to fight, but open to give mercy. Throughout the movie, images of hands reveal as much as eyes, clenching in wrath, raising for self-defense, clasping in prayer.<\/p>

Wake Up Dead Man <\/em>inhabits familiar Knives Out<\/em> territory, where Johnson intends the foibles of his motley crew to illustrate the fragmentation of modern American politics. Its script, however, is much more sympathetic to the failings of human character. Its subjects are real people, moved by real anger, real pain, and real faith. As a result, Wake Up Dead Man<\/em> is both humbler and more serious than its predecessors. Blanc\u2019s investigative project has always been about getting down to \u201cbrass tacks\u201d (a phrase that rings well in his characteristic accent). This film carries on this project in its most unabashed form yet, stripping away glamor and concealment to delve down to the roots of the mystery and of man\u2019s very being: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The same is true of your fellow man.<\/p>

What is truth? <\/em>one character asks\u2014as Pilate once did, before sentencing Christ to crucifixion. In our modern moment as in Johnson\u2019s movie, our different answers to this question result in increasingly deep and bitter division. Wake Up Dead Man <\/em>proposes that to reconcile requires not a miracle, but a reminder that we have more in common than our anger. The believer and the cynic can meet on equal ground in the search for justice and for grace. Remembering this\u2014about our enemies and ourselves\u2014should encourage us to extend our hands, open, to the world.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Maria Copeland<\/strong> writes from Washington, D.C., where she works in nonprofit donor relations. She formerly taught writing and literature at a classical school in Northern Virginia.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery<\/em><\/strong> was released on November 26, 2025. You can stream it here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third Knives Out movie encourages a Christian spirit of generosity in the face of anger, despair, and doubt. Review by Maria Copeland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":12450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767755124.png?fit=1500%2C1372&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12449"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12461,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449\/revisions\/12461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}