Guilt and Forgiveness

Wake Up Dead Man - Rian Johnson (2025)

SPOILERS

The conflict at the centre of the third instalment of the Knives Out franchise is between two opposing views on how religion, specifically Catholicism, should be practised and preached. The whodunnit setting of Wake Up Dead Man features two differing ideologies, represented by two Catholic priests.

On one side you have Jud Duplenticy, a young priest with a violent past who found forgiveness, salvation and peace in the church. On the other, the older, established priest of the parish, Monsignor Wicks. Wicks views his faith as a battle, with the modern world on one side and him on the other. He weaponises shame and sin to keep his close-knit and ever-shrinking group of parishioners in check. His inner circle all have some pain in their past that they hope to absolve or cure through their faith. They seem to take comfort in the idea that they can hold themselves apart from the rest of the population through their piety. They are clearly uncomfortable with Wicks' methods, but something in his shaming of newcomers, in the way that he doubles down on any perceived sin or indiscretion, gives them a comforting feeling of superiority.

This creates an atmosphere not just of anger and resentment, but also of fear, fear of being caught in the crosshairs of the Monsignor's righteous wrath. His own anger and pain stem from his upbringing with a single mother, who was roundly shamed and vilified by his family and the wider community and who's story is seen as a form of original sin for the parish as a whole. The problem with this approach is that if you cannot forgive others, you are also not able to forgive yourself, or even to admit to serious sins, for fear of being cast out. The true reward for forgiving your enemy is the ability to approach yourself with compassion.

Father Jud offers a counterweight here. He had been unable to forgive himself for killing an opponent during a boxing match and had turned to various vices and self-loathing as a response. He then found peace in the unconditional forgiveness offered by the Catholic Church. For him, Wicks' approach is the antithesis of everything he thinks the church is about. He wants to welcome the world with open arms, as Jesus did, not create a small radical group that looks down on the rest of humanity. In the end we see an act of grace, the detective investigating the case, Benoit Blanc, is inspired by Jud and refuses to name the murderer in front of her community, giving up his chance to "win" as he sees it and solve the case in front of a rapt audience. Instead he allows her to come of her own accord and confess to Father Jud. He chooses not to shame her, not to use the Wicks' tactics, but rather to allow her to confess her sins and be listened to, understood and forgiven, rather than publicly shamed and humiliated.

The message of the film is theological as well as political. We were not put on this earth to judge ourselves or one another. We are however given the chance to act with grace - to forgive ourselves and others. Creating exclusive groups that view the rest of the world with derision may feel comforting, but in the long run it only leads to pain, resentment, dishonesty and suffering for those who choose to view humanity, and themselves, in these black and white terms of good and evil, saved and damned.