Shayan Afzal

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery feels less like a film that failed and more like one that never tried, which makes its presence in Netflix’s top rankings genuinely baffling, not because it is challenging or divisive but because it offers so little beneath its carefully arranged gloom. Obscurity is presented as depth, silence as meaning, and restraint as seriousness, yet no ideas are developed, no emotional ground is explored, and no conviction ever emerges, leaving the viewer with the slow disbelief of realizing that nothing is being said at all. Scenes drift without purpose, moods replace thought, and ambiguity becomes a shield for emptiness, making the experience feel like time quietly lost rather than time well spent. That this film was elevated so aggressively exposes a deeper problem, not just with the algorithm but with an audience conditioned to accept the appearance of importance as importance itself, consuming content that feels serious without asking anything in return, until cinema becomes background noise and endurance is mistaken for engagement.