I’ve closely followed the Knives Out franchise since the first mystery released in 2019. Each film has a gripping plot, a large ensemble cast, and our own 21st-century Sherlock Holmes at the heart: detective Benoit Blanc.
The second installment, Glass Onion, fell flat for me; flashy, hollow, and with an extreme tonal shift away from the first movie. So when I sat in the theater to watch Wake Up Dead Man, I was excited but not expecting much.
By the time the credits rolled, I was absolutely blown away.
Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson (director and writer of the Knives Out franchise) at his best. The jokes hit hard, the plot is satisfyingly confusing, and the cinematography by Steve Yedlin is breathtaking. Everything about the film feels intentional. Even with a runtime of two hours and 24 minutes, I never got tired of watching, not even in my multiple rewatches on Netflix.
So, what is there to talk about when the whole movie stands out? The lighting? The setting? The comedy? Josh O’Conner’s neck tattoo? As much as I could discuss all of these, I want to focus on the scene that I believe makes the entire movie: the phone call.
Setting The Scene
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and Father Jud (Josh O’Connor), our two main characters solving the crime, are at full throttle. The scene comes right after the film’s halfway point, where Blanc and Jud are tearing apart the church’s office, trying to find the missing $80 million inheritance left by the murder victim’s grandfather. Excitement is high, and Father Jud gives Blanc permission to smash a Jesus figurine. They finally discover that the inheritance’s location has something to do with the crypt in the back, so Jud calls a forklift company and has a frustrating conversation with the worker, Louise.
The conversation leads to nothing — until the pause happens. Louise suddenly breaks down and asks Jud to pray for her and her mother, who is sick. Father Jud agrees, and as the screenplay reads:
“We don’t hear Louise’s side of the call now. Jud drifts out of the office, closing the door on Blanc behind him.
Blanc stands in Martha’s office, stunned and confused. But he knows better than to interrupt. He waits.”
And all of a sudden, Blanc, Jud, and the viewer are forced to stop solving the murder-mystery, sit with Blanc in silence, and hear Jud’s prayers for Louise murmuring from the other room.
Pure cinema: Why i love this scene
Now, plot-wise, the phone call with Louise serves a point. It leads to Jud and Blanc separating so that the mystery can continue and bring us to the infamous moment the movie is named after. But more than that, this scene does something a Knives Out film has never done: oppose Benoit Blanc.
Jud says that the act of pursuing the crime is inherently against his core values. He wants out. “It is a game,” he says. “Solving it, winning it, getting your big checkmate moment. And by using me in it you’re setting me against my real and only purpose in life which is not to fight the wicked and bring them to justice but to serve them and bring them to Christ.” After that, Jud sticks to his core values and leaves the case, abandoning his role as the Watson to Blanc’s Sherlock.
I felt so torn watching this. I sat down in the theater expecting a classic whodunit murder-mystery, and I wanted a solution, a killer brought forth. But Jud’s departure put a wrench into my expectations.
He didn’t care about the fortune or the reveal. He simply wanted to live his life as a priest with his purpose: building empathy and caring for others.
Changing the ‘Knives Out’ Formula
Wake Up Dead Man and this scene made me wonder: is detective work moral?
Often the pursuit (or as Jud calls it, the “game”) of catching a killer comes with a cold, calculating look at clues and the people involved. Take Knives Out, Glass Onion, and Wake Up Dead Man for example: in each story, a person who is not the original murder victim ends up dead due to the intense investigation.
Wake Up Dead Man still has a big reveal, and Blanc still solves the crime with Jud’s help. So was this momentary pause for nothing?
Absolutely not. Instead, it gave our main detective a chance to reflect, and showed Blanc’s character development over the last two installments. In Knives Out and Glass Onion, Blanc solves the case, gives the viewers and a large audience all the clues, and then rightfully accuses the murderer in front of everyone. Wake Up Dead Man switches it up. Blanc states it directly: “I cannot solve this case.”
And then, when everyone has left except Blanc, Father Jud, the police detective, and the murderer, Blanc finally gives the killer the option to confess of their own free will. He’s inspired by Jud’s empathy and purpose, the care with which he treats Louise, and the willingness to put others like Louise in front of himself. Blanc sacrifices his satisfying finger-pointing to give the killer a chance to do it themselves and be greeted with empathy from Father Jud.
In my opinion, the third Knives Out installment is the best one, not just for its approach to a detective story, but the way Rian Johnson uses empathy as a core part of the plot. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching it (and hope I haven’t spoiled too much) — and if you have seen it, watch it again! The film reminds us, as Father Jud says himself, to approach others with hands out, not fists up.