Awake

Awake (2007) starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, and Lena Olin.

Before...well the trailer was a muddled mess of confusion. It started off in fantastic fashion, but then it decided to reveal the whole plot of the film, including all the little twists. To say I was shocked would be an understatement and because of this I did not hold out much hope for the film. Rest assured I will not do spoilers without warning ever!

Clay Beresford (Christensen) is a genius of finance secretly in love of his mother's secretary Sam Lockwood (Alba). Clay has a complex, expecting recognition from his mother Lilith Beresford (Olin) that he is as capable as his father was, and he needs heart transplantation. When Clay finds a donor compatible with his rare blood, he requests his friend Dr. Jack Harper (Howard) operate him under the protest of his mother that wants the famous Dr. Jonathan Neyer responsible for the procedure. On the eve of his heart surgery, Clay marries Sam and during the surgery, he experiences an "anesthetic awareness" that leaves his conscious but paralyzed. Clay witnesses the dialogs in the room and discovers dark secrets about his surgery.

So having already seen most of the plot in the trailer, I kinda knew what to expect, which was rather disappointing. The plot was confused and jumbled, the director/writer seemed thoroughly confused about how to garner sympathy for characters when writing. There is a severe lack of sympathy garnered for Beresford, and that is not without trying. The first half hour of the film is focused around attempting to draw out sympathy for him, but it is a dramatic failure.

Onto problem number two...the crux of the movie...the raison d'etre of the plot. The fact that a person stays awake during surgery should be horrific and terrifying, instead what we get is an initial bit of shock theatre followed by a gentle amble with Christensen's voice over being used to push the plot forward. The use of anaesthesia awareness is used as nothing more than a plot device, what Joby Harold could have done more with it I have no idea. I think if you are trying to use a plot device simply because it sounds like a good idea you need to stop, think about the impact, think about the story relevance and realise that if there is no substance to it, throw that idea in the bin!!

Acting...the acting is actually not that bad, not good, but not bad. Christensen is unable to garner any sympathy for the character but you cannot put the blame on him for that, that is Harold's poor script. Alba is actually really good ...



*SPOILER WARNING*

...in her split personality role. I was actually really surprised when it was revealed that she was involved with the plot to kill Beresford and it is testament to her acting that I was surprised.

•SPOILER OVER*



Howard played the role as if he was on auto pilot, not putting enough to show the amazing actor that he can be, as critics thought with his role in Hustle Flow, and Olin was mediocre at best.

Overall there are just far too many plot falls that surround this film for me to enjoy it. I almost switched off half way through, but for the sake of my readers I kept going, so I could give you my honest review about the film and here is the resulting mark out of five...

★★☆☆☆