A mea culpa for Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man tackles almost all of the same ground with a much more deft hand. While this thing is still too of-its-time in some of its dialogue to be timeless in the way I’d personally prefer from a murder mystery, it is successful enough at tackling the present moment to make that aspect the true beating heart of the film.
That does mean the whodunnit of *Wake Up Dead Man *is maybe its weakest building block — leaving Daniel Craig surprisingly sidelined in this Benoit Blanc mystery1 — but it instead allows for Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud to shine and to soul-search within not only hims…
A mea culpa for Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man tackles almost all of the same ground with a much more deft hand. While this thing is still too of-its-time in some of its dialogue to be timeless in the way I’d personally prefer from a murder mystery, it is successful enough at tackling the present moment to make that aspect the true beating heart of the film.
That does mean the whodunnit of *Wake Up Dead Man *is maybe its weakest building block — leaving Daniel Craig surprisingly sidelined in this Benoit Blanc mystery1 — but it instead allows for Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud to shine and to soul-search within not only himself but within the hearts of everyone his light can reach.
I am not religious by any stretch these days, but I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about faith recently regardless. I deeply resonated with the way Rian Johnson** **was able to tie his own musings about faith equally between agnosticism and the believers alike.
Faith can give people hope in the impossible, but it can also lead people toward one another. It can be corrupted and it can be a balm.
It’s the extension of grace which has the capacity to heal. And it allows this one to soar much higher than its two predecessors.
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You know what’s not sidelined, though? Those outfits. Extremely good ’70s energy radiating at all times. ↵