Wake Up Your Faith, Dead Man: How 'Knives Out' Gives a Lesson in Spirituality

by Aprille Hanson-Spivey

Photo: Netflix

When I started watching the third installment of the ‘Knives Out’ movie series, “Wake Up Dead Man,” I was expecting the typical twists and turns of a unique mystery, with the humor and pridefulness of the beloved and brilliant detective, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) leading the way.

What I got instead was a lesson in faith.  

As a cradle Catholic, I’ll admit that when I watch secular media trying to portray something related to Catholicism, I get a bit nitpicky. It drives my husband nuts.

But honestly, consult any Catholic ahead of a big blockbuster movie or TV show, and they’ll be able to clarify things like how it’s called a Mass, not a service, and no one ever says “priest-in-training”; they are seminarians. It might seem small, but it irks me because it’s so easy to hire a consultant, and it’s clear to viewers who know the subject whether or not you genuinely care about portraying something accurately.

It's why I have so much respect and admiration for director and writer Rian Johnson for reaching out to some experts for “Wake Up Dead Man.” According to an early December article in OSV News, a Catholic wire service, Johnson, who was raised Christian but is no longer in a faith, realized while writing his script that something wasn’t right. He reached out to his Catholic aunt and uncle, who connected him with Father Scott Bailey, pastor at Risen Christ Catholic Parish in Denver, who ultimately became the film's faith consultant.

This move clearly changed everything. From the correct priestly vestments to portraying what priestly ministry should be, this movie checked off most of the Catholic boxes.

Set in Upstate New York, the film opens with a young priest, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), punching a deacon. While even the bishop admitted the deacon needed a sock in the jaw, Father Jud is reassigned as assistant pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, aptly named, of course, since Father Jud will need it between navigating the self-righteous Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) and a cast of parishioners that our bishop in Little Rock, Ark., would characterize as “high-maintenance sheep” in the flock.

The mystery angle is that somehow Msgr. Wicks winds up dead in a side closet off the altar during Good Friday service (the only celebration actually called a “service”). But, unlike the other ‘Knives Out’ movies, this one is not about Blanc’s brilliance, and he’s not the star.

It focuses instead on Father Jud, good versus evil and the way holy zeal can be perverted into something dark when the light is snuffed out by pride, vengeance and prejudice. It’s truly a movie about mercy.

O’Connor gives one of my favorite and most accurate portrayals of a young priest I've ever seen on screen. For seven and a half years, I was the associate editor of my diocese’s (essentially the main office for Catholic parishes within a state where the bishop resides) newspaper, and during that time, I had the great pleasure of getting to know the over 100 priests in our state. And the first thing I learned was that priests are not perfect. They are truly people, flawed individuals with a vocation in life to be “in persona Christi” (Latin for, “in the person of Christ”).

In Father Jud, I saw many characteristics of the young priests I knew who grew up under the guidance of Pope Francis and his call to have the “smell of the sheep,” ministering on the margins. There is no longer room in the world for priests on pedestals anymore. Respect must be given, not demanded, and it’s so easy to respect priests who are like Father Jud.

A former boxer-turned-priest, the character has a strong desire to meet the people he shepherds in their brokenness. It’s a challenging task against the old guard of Msgr. Wicks. If I ever met a pastor who embodied Msgr. Wicks, I’d run far away, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see some of his same arrogance, thirst for power and resistance to change in some priests I met. I absolutely did, in smaller, less outrageous doses.

Our country is wrapped up in an “us versus them” mentality, something some religious leaders, mostly evangelicals, but even some Catholic priests, are latching onto. It’s a warrior mentality, but Jesus didn’t come to us as a warrior. He came to us as a baby, a sacrificial lamb that transformed the world with his love and mercy.

The imperfect character of Father Jud is well aware that the Church’s stance on being “in” the world, not “of” the world, means being Christ’s light in the darkness, not shielding the light for only a few. It’s clearly a commentary on the direction we’re heading as a society, and which school of thought we should follow. We are ultimately all “dead men” needing to wake up. 

Amid all the chaos, Father Jud grows in beautiful ways throughout the script. While he gets caught up in clearing his name as a killer in Blanc’s quest to untangle the web, there’s a poignant moment that stops him, pushing him right back to his priestly mission.

At Blanc’s encouragement, Father Jud is trying desperately to find out a key piece of information from a construction company’s secretary named Louise (Bridget Everett). He’s quickly getting annoyed, rushing her babbling and even gives the go-ahead for Blanc to smash a statue of Jesus in his desire to find the next clue.

But everything changes when she asks him to pray for her. The camera zooms in on O’Connor’s face, and the shift in his expression completely pierced my heart. He stops, asks what’s wrong and learns her mother is in hospice care. He quietly walks into the other room, shuts the door and leaves a stunned Blanc to tend to this woman’s hurt.

He calls it his “road to Damascus” moment, hearkening to the spiritual awakening experienced by the Apostle Paul (formerly Saul). And from then on, Father Jud is firm on his footing in Christ and does his best to protect his parishioners, even to his own detriment.

At the movie’s end, Blanc will experience his own “road to Damascus” moment. Blanc, as he puts it, kneels at the altar of the rational and isn’t about to convert, but he can’t help but be changed and inspired by Father Jud. When the two first meet, Blanc explains his thoughts on religion, and Father Jud doesn’t argue with him, but rather emphasizes how the stories of faith can transform what we believe and how we live. Faith without action is dead, and Father Jud spends the whole movie living out that truth. It demonstrates how believers can transform lives by embodying the virtues of their faith, even among the most hardened non-believers.

It was beautiful to see such a positive, real example of a priest in a non-Christian-based movie. I hope that anyone watching this movie, whether they’re a believer or not, gets inspired by Father Jud’s spirituality because it’s in the small moments of mercy that we can change the world.