For movie night this week, we saw Wake Up Dead Man (2025), the third of the Knives Out mysteries starring Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, left), a posh Southern-accented detective who draws inspiration from classic murder writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh.
This one involves Father Jed (Josh O'Connor), a boxer who accidentally killed his opponent in the ring, and became a priest to expiate his guilt. When he loses control and punches an a*hole deacon, he is assigned to a struggling parish in upstate New York.
Left: Exteriors were filmed at the Anglican Church of the Holy Innocents, in Epping Forest, near London, built in 1873, praised as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture.
It is struggling because of Monseigneur Wicks (Josh Brolin). Monseigneur is an honorary title bestowed by the Pope, but this Monseigneur has bestowed it upon himself. He has turned the congregation into an evangelical cult, preaching about the End Times and the War against Christianity, promising eternal damnation to anyone who challenges his authority, and screaming at visitors who he thinks are disobeying God's law: first a single mother, and then a gay couple.
The gay couple is played by HIV activist Hugh Wyld and Matthew Jacobs-Morgan, who runs Coven, a queer bar and art venue in Hackney.
Father Jed thinks that the Church should be about love and forgiveness, a place where "everyone is welcome," but the Monseigneur thinks that this is ridiculous: why would you open the Church to the enemies of God? This is War!
In fact, the Monseigneur has only seven True Believers left:
1. Lee Ross (gay actor Andrew Scott), a formerly best-selling author who has retreated into conspiracy theories, and is currently writing a 6,000 page biography of Monseigneur Wick.
2. Vera Draven, a lawyer who was suddenly told "you're going to raise this boy," with no further explanation.
3. The boy, now grown up, Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack). He tried to jump start a career in politics by blogging against everything the Orange Goblin hates from trans people to Portland, but he couldn't get any doors open. Being black won't help you win over MAGA, buddy.
4. Simone Vivane, a concert cellist who had to give up music due to chronic pain, and is handing over thousands of dollars in the hope that Wick will cure her. Faith healing is evangelical thing, not really Catholic.
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.