Wake Up Dead Man (dir. Rian Johnson)
The opening night film was the latest entry in the perennial Knives Out series, which aims to make its central detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) into our generation’s Hercule Poirot. His exacting style of solving complicated mysteries is a wonderful addition to the culture at large, and much like his detective forbears, Blanc will always be welcome in my cinematic/literary diet (yes, Mr. Johnson, this is me saying you should write a Blanc book), but with this, the third film in the series, a formula has become apparent, and it’s to this formula that Wake Up Dead Man adheres to a fault.
This time around our resident nice guy is Father Jud Duplencity (Josh O’Connor) a former boxer who has taken up the frock to atone for killing a man in the ring. He’s been assigned to a small Parrish led by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a brash priest with little by way of morals, and a lot by way of unique characters who attend his masses. Jud aims to clean things up within the congregation, but faces resistance from the cult of personality around Wicks.
Naturally, Jud is the first person everyone suspects when Wicks turns up dead.
This is the outright darkest of the Knives Out films, and it has invokes heavy thematic material surrounding faith, blind faith, and the still unexplainable connection between the lofty spiritual aspirations of organized religion and the dichotomous behavior of its most ardent practitioners. It’s ambitious as Hell on that front (pun sorta intended), but given the “eat the rich” material of the first film and the “right wing celebrity cult” angle of the second, it feels thematically repetitive. Granted, in a world like ours where bullies and criminals rule the day, it’s important to drive these themes home, as well as to tell stories where being nice actually pays off, but I was still struck with a feeling of “yes, I get it.” Add to that a criminally underused supporting cast, including Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Thomas Haden Church, and Kerry Washington, and it feels like a missed opportunity.
Still, it remains a tremendously entertaining movie, and even if it’s slightly lackluster by series standards, it’s head and shoulders above many films of its ilk. The direction — most specifically the crafty use of lighting — is the best in the series thus far, while the script is consistently funny and frequently moving. Josh O’Connor’s star continues to rise, and Glenn Close proves why she remains one of the best to ever do it. Craig, as Blanc, is a delight. He seems to be having a ton of fun in every moment, and he brings a depth to the character that the recent spate of Poirot adaptations fail to do. And it’s all Craig — his character is developed on screen much more than on the page. When he finally gets to deliver his big “here’s what happened” speech, it’s absolutely glorious, even if the film approaches Saw-sequel levels of not playing fair with the information release system.
One hopes that Johnson continues to make these movies in perpetuity, but that with the next entry he attempts to break the mold.
Hysteria (dir. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay)
The imagery of all-consuming flames is a frequent refrain in this deliciously ambiguous mystery where on-the-job power structures clash with religion, culture, and the desire to make provocative art. It all begins when ambitious filmmaker Yigit (Serkan Kaya) hires locals to perform as extras. Their job is easy: explore the burned wreckage of a building and react as if it were once theirs. This backfires when the men, all Muslim, come across a burned Quran — a very big no-no for practitioners of Islam. Did Yigit place this item on purpose to stoke a response, or is it just one of many items strewn across the charred set?
Intern Elif (Devrim Lingnau) gets caught in the crossfire with many masters to please, and during a moment of high stress and low sleep she makes a boneheaded decision; one that could mean not just the end of the project, but a potential threat to the safety of everyone involved. Naturally, she takes pains to cover up and correct her mistake. It does not go well.
Büyükatalay‘s script takes its time setting the cast of aggrieved parties against one another, and does so organically. It isn’t until about the halfway point that the shape of the story coalesces into a full-on mystery, and when it does, each player’s motivations are clear and compelling. This is a film that rewards a patient viewer. It’s the “frog in boiling water” metaphor in cinema form. Viewers seeking clear answers to the story’s many ambiguities will be left in the dark, however: While the film reaches a satisfying emotional conclusion, the whodunit is never given a resolution. Hysteria is more interested in “whydunit” with a side of “given why they would have dunit, do you think maybe they did?”
It’s a conversation piece, really.
The film’s literal last second undercuts the explosive final reel and robs it of a bit of its punch. This is a small complaint, and one that may fade the more that I think about it. Hysteria is a slow burn until it’s not, and it’s absolutely unforgettable.
