Audiences: Don't sleep on 'Awake'

By Dan Moore

Published Dec. 4, 2007

"Awake," is 78 minutes long, it was shelved for two years before its release on the slowest movie weekend of the year and it was been hidden from critics until its release. It managed to hit a very rare trifecta of ominous signs for a movie, which is why it's so surprising that this movie not only avoids calamity but is legitimately good. This thriller won't be mistaken for Alfred Hitchock's work, but it might pass for an episode of his TV show.

Like those old TV shows, "Awake" is a high-concept suspense film. The concept: what happens when a classic Hitchcockian innocent-man-wronged somehow manages to stay awake under anesthesia, which allows him to hear a conspiratorial plot against him but prevents him from doing anything about it. Like a lot of twisty suspense movies, alliances shift and double-shift over the course of the movie. This movie executes its twists with a minimum of telegraphy and to generally surprising effects.

As if the trifecta weren't enough, "Awake" also stars two heretofore-terrible actors. Hayden Christensen, most famous for managing to make the terrible "Star Wars" prequel script sound even worse, stars as a filthy-rich investment prodigy following in his father's footsteps despite a heart condition. Jessica Alba, who has shown no talent thus far beyond a gift at playing really attractive women who talk like they're being played in a movie by a bad actress, is his fiancé. Alba is hopeless, but Christensen manages to inject a little life into what could be a very unlikable character. Most impressive is Lena Olin as his widowed mother, who, over the course of the movie, develops impressively from a one-note start as a controlling shrew without springing her character revelation on the audience. All the supporting actors, tasked with creating their characters without showing their true colors, do a wonderful job; Christopher McDonald, in particular, is great as a strange anesthesiologist brought into the surgery as a last-minute replacement. Writer and director Joby Harold, a newcomer whose only previous Internet Movie Database credit was as assistant director on something unpromisingly titled "Bacon Wagon," hasn't got much in the way of style, cinematically or dialogically, but his plot is well crafted, and he doesn't let his shortcomings get in the way of delivering it.

Some reviews have complained about the implausibility of certain scenarios, but they seem to be missing the point: this is not a movie about realistic operating room procedure, or about how actual people wake up during surgery. It's about creating and maintaining genuine movie suspense, and "Awake" does that better over its brief running time than most other movies have managed this year. It might not spend much time in theaters, but this puzzler should, trifecta willing, have a long life on DVD.