Awake
A new dystopian thriller reveals a world in which sleep is no longer an option, but can’t help feeling tired itself.
Eyes shut wide: Lucius Hoyos, Gina Rodriguez and Ariana Greenblatt
They tell us to listen to the science. But the science doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in this week’s dystopian thriller. Every microchip on the planet has been fried and the world has jumped back in time. Once again old cars and real books are all the rage as they are able to operate off the grid. This is not a new idea, but one worth repeating, although Mark Wages and Joseph Raso's screenplay is less concerned with new ideologies than being a zombie pic stuck at the blueprint stage. Jennifer Jason Leigh, in a fleeting cameo and lab coat, explains (breathlessly): “It was some sort of solar flare, we think. It… changed our electromagnetic wiring. It affected our glymphatic system.” And so nobody can sleep anymore, except for one special child, the ten-year-old daughter of executive producer Gina Rodriguez. Rodriguez plays Jill Adams, a security guard and petty thief desperate to protect her child from the grabby attentions of the scientific elite, religious zealots and a lootin’, trigger-happy populace. She’s one tough cookie, but even she could do with forty winks without going completely mad…
Our world has survived environmental disasters (so far), world wars and pandemics, but this conveyor belt of cinematic dystopia is becoming a real threat. Awake would like to be profound, and the Canadian director Mark Raso (brother of Joseph) throws in the occasional eye-catching shot, but basically this is more of the same old. It’s a notch down from the not dissimilar allegorical pandemic thriller Blindness (2008), from Fernando Meirelles, and suffers from the comparison. While it’s worthy to see a Latino actress in a take-charge leading role, Sra Rodriguez is not entirely up to the task, although Ariana Greenblatt as her daughter turns in another star-making performance (cf. Love and Monsters). Other recognisable faces turn up to be dispatched with proficient zeal, but nobody has time to register as a sympathetic character. So, as the cast begins to look increasingly bleary-eyed, it’s hard not to beat them to it and invite Freddy Krueger into our nightmares.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Gina Rodriguez, Ariana Greenblatt, Frances Fisher, Shamier Anderson, Finn Jones, Lucius Hoyos, Gil Bellows, Barry Pepper, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sergio Di Zio, Brigitte Robinson, Elias Edraki, Michael McDonald.
Dir Mark Raso, Pro Paul Schiff, Ex Pro Gina Rodriguez, Screenplay Mark Wages and Joseph Raso, Ph Alan Poon, Pro Des Andrew M. Stearn, Ed Michele Conroy, Music Antonio Pinto, Costumes Michelle Lyte.
Entertainment One/Paul Schiff Productions-Netflix.
96 mins. USA. 2020. Rel: 9 June 2021. Cert. 15.
