‘Awake’ Review: Eyes Wide Open – The New York Times
Humanity could lose the power to sleep on this Netflix sci-fi thriller, however relaxation assured viewers gained’t have this drawback.
There isn’t a getting round it: Mark Raso’s “Awake” is unhealthy. However a minimum of it’s so unhealthy that it’s typically ludicrously laughable: Netflix could nicely have a cult turkey on its fingers.
Sleep deprivation is frequent these days. A catastrophe film during which the situation spreads a lot that it turns into an extinction occasion — as a result of staying awake results in exhaustion, impaired cognitive skills, insanity and, finally, loss of life — looks like a believable waking nightmare for a lot of viewers. It’s an intriguing premise that “Awake” shortly and fatally squanders.
It occurs with out warning: all electronics all of a sudden stop to perform and no person can go to sleep anymore. It takes solely a few days for civilization to go to pot, with the compulsory tattooed dirtbags and freed felons roaming by-the-book desolate streets.
Oddly, 10-year-old Matilda (Ariana Greenblatt) appears unaffected and is ready to catch some Z’s, a lot to the shock of her mom, Jill (Gina Rodriguez, who acquired significantly better motion in “Miss Bala”). Matilda quickly attracts undesirable consideration, first from a crazed spiritual congregation, then from Dr. Murphy (a slumming Jennifer Jason Leigh), an amoral army psychiatrist — the pastor and the physician are equally reprehensible on this state of affairs.
The shortage of rationalization for the occasions (perhaps it was some form of “photo voltaic flare,” Dr. Murphy ventures) may need helped flip “Awake” into an apocalyptic fable à la “Blindness,” however the movie is relentlessly, clumsily pedestrian.
Jill, who occurs to be a vet, goes full mama bear to show her child the best way to survive. A gun can be utilized “not only for folks however for animals, too,” she helpfully tells Matilda. As if that line weren’t chuckle-worthy sufficient, Jill conducts her firearm instruction in the midst of an deserted library and nearly hits her teenage son, Noah (Lucius Hoyos), who had been lurking within the racks. The brand new world is in secure fingers.
Awake
Not rated. Operating time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
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