Awake
DIR/WRI: Joby Harold • PRO: Jason Kliot, John Penotti, Fisher Stevens, Joana Vicente • DOP: Russell Carpenter • ED: Craig McKay • DES: Dina Goldman • CAST: Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, Lena Olin

Poor Jessica Alba. It seems no matter how many films she stars in, none of them ever really seem to set the world alight (Sin City perhaps being the only exception). True to this pattern, Awake, the directorial debut of Joby Harold, will fail to do so either. Working on a rather interesting premise – that of patient, Clay Beresford (played by Hayden Christensen), still being awake during an operation, in a state of ‘anesthetic awareness’. The film opens with figures for the numbers of patients who encounter this every year – ‘Every year, one in 700 people wake up during surgery’ – and indeed this is a scary notion for anybody who has had surgery or may need to in the future. Yet, soon into Awake, Harold’s script loses focus and purpose and what started as an interesting examination of an altogether unnerving personal experience turns into a messy, stunted thriller.

While Joby Harold’s script suffers from a lack of direction and proper structure, the characters on show are all so underwritten and two-dimensional that come the film’s not altogether spectacular but somewhat interesting plot twists, the audience will care very little. Christensen, playing the film’s protagonist Clay Berseford, a young billionaire, is rather wooden and that monotone voice of his, so irritating in the Star Wars trilogy, comes back to haunt the viewer once again. His performance seems committed, but the script gives him so little to work with it that it’s no surprise his performance comes off uncommitted. The same goes for the film’s other stars, Jessica Alba as his wife, Sam Lockwood and Terence Howard as his best friend Dr. Jack Harper (Clay clearly doesn’t have many on the basis of their friendship). Awake isn’t terrible yet much of the blame for the film’s faults must lie with director and scriptwriter Harold. The romance between Alba’s character and Christensen’s is stunted and awkward and Lena Olin as Lillith Beresford, Clay’s mother, is perhaps the only person to come out of Awake with their acting credentials improved. Harold abandons what appeared the initial premise of the film, a worrying operation situation, being awake while under the knife, to pursue an ill-thought out thriller of double-crosses and triple-crosses. Unfortunately, many of the twists are signposted in advance and all of the characters suffer from Harold’s lack of directorial focus. In the midst of Awake, a good story was waiting to be told but got muddled as Harold tried to weave a thriller with little or no script. One hopes Christensen, Howard and indeed Alba make better career choices in the future. Too many more of these and they may all fall off the Hollywood radar.  

Jason Robinson
(Read biog here)

Rated 15A (ROI)/15 (NI) (see IFCO website for details)
Awake is released on 4th April 2008
Awake – Official website