Wake Up Dead Man

 

Jo and I watched ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ last night. It is excellent (and very long: we took a tea break part way through) and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The attention to liturgical detail is exceptional for Hollywood.

Some thoughts, hopefully not much by way of spoilers.

[1] The Whodunnit and How are pretty obvious to anyone with eyes in their head and a familiarity with misdirection. This is not a plot weakness. The Who and the How are always fairly banal in a good detective fiction. The real interest lies in motive, or motivation.

[2] While presented in the style of a cosy murder mystery, the story is more than a little inspired by JRR Tolkien’s majestic fantasy, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (don’t let this put you off if you aren’t a fan of fantasy).

Monsignor Wick is a Saruman, a man who is — inevitably — corrupted by the burden of institutional authority, amplified by the ways in which questioning voices that might hold him accountable are silenced by such hierarchical structures. A man who has come to believe that the only way to defeat evil in the world is to play by its own rules.

Father Jud is a Gandalf, a man who possesses no structural authority and who is shielded from its corrupting influence by the repeated humiliations of needing to persuade unwilling others of his insight into the times they find themselves in. A man whose experience tells him to love the little people. A man who is, ultimately, powerless to save himself; who loses his priestly vocation only to have it restored to him by a ‘eucatastrophe,’ (Tolkien’s word for) the unrepeatable intervention of grace.

Dr Nat is a Frodo, a fundamentally decent man weakened by the pain of great loss; a ring wearer who, in the final instance, and despite having a greater insight into the corrupting power of the cursed talisman than other characters, succumbs to the temptation that in his hands it can be welded to restore the world that has been lost. A man who is only spared that fate by another eucatastrophe.

Benoit Blanc is a Tom Bombadil, a clown character, who has no interest in taking power (and so is free) but only in the beauty of truth. A man who sees the goodness in others (in stark contrast to the cynicism of many fictional detectives, and an even greater proportion of real detectives) and who strengthens them to do what is right.

[3] I have seen some reviews that suggest that the film is anti-Christian — or, at least, anti the Church — but pro-Jesus. This is not the case. It is pro-Jesus and pro-Christian, pro-Church. A thoughtful exploration of grace, that avoids simplistic or sentimental understandings of how grace works, does not spare us the wounds that remain.

What we are also given is a thoughtful exploration of the Church as institution and as community. The Church is full of complex characters. People who come in search of hope, of inspiration, of re-birth, of healing, of a place to belong, of community, of acceptance, of identity and purpose, of certainty in an uncertain world that has left them disappointed, of somewhere to find significance through service, in search of God. So many motivations, all compromised, some considerably less healthy than others.

And the Church welcomes all. Welcomes all; but hopes for their transformation. Hopes for their transformation; but cannot make it happen. (When we attempt to, tragedy is at hand.)

Transformation involves ‘poio’ — choices we make — and ‘pascho’ — that which is done for us that we cannot do for ourselves, only submit to being done to us, or resist. And it is that capacity to resist — both the choices we know we must take, and the grace we must welcome — a resistance that is a deep survival mechanism — that leaves the Church a deeply flawed community.

This is its greatest weakness, and, in the end, its saving grace.