Lost Sleep

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2002)

Although thrillers often affect me far more deeply than they do others, I decided there was no way I could miss this film. "Memento" was, in my opinion, the best film I saw last year, and I am still upset that I missed it in theaters. So last night, off I went.
Twelve hours later, I still haven't slept. I thought this film was spectacular. From the opening credits (after nearly twenty minutes of previews and commercials) to the closing shot, this film was brilliantly conceived and executed. I thought, for starters, that it was amazingly tight. At pretty much exactly two hours, Nolan knew what we could and could not handle. The editing was the other element that just blew me away. The intercut shots were often terrifying and mood altering. Just when I would start to relax (due in large part to the hibernation-inducing temperature of the movie theater and not the film), I would be jolted by an image that reminded me how important, fragile and scary this film is.
The acting was also fabulous!!!! I do not think I have ever enjoyed Pacino so much (except for in "The Godfather" and "Godfather II"), but Robin Williams was the one who really left my mouth open. One review I read accused (or praised) him of being the first actor since the release of "Silence of the Lambs" who was not imitating Anthony Hopkins, including Anthony Hopkins. I could not agree more. He is effective because of the nuances: a look, a gesture, a nervous laugh. If he always played villains, he could not be this effectives. The reversal is what shook me and kept me up all night. Ms. Swank's youthful idealism also worked for me, and I think it would have been more universally acclaimed if she had been given more time to develop her character.
I think the most important note about the acting is that none of these characters is sympathetic. These aren't villains and heroes, good guys or bad guys, no matter how much we want them to be. Just like the grey fog that blankets everything in the film, these are grey people caught in a situation in which they have ... but what is it that they have? Agency? Responsibility? Choice? Your answer to this question colors (pun intended) your response to the film. Much discussion, literal and figurative, takes place about "truth" vs. Truth and black/white vs. grey. In many ways, this was the heart of the film just as it was in "Memento." The coolest part about "Memento" I thought was the way Nolan manipulated our tendency to gravitate towards certain characters because of cinematic conventions and assumptions. I thought the same was definitely true about "Insomnia," except this time we were left in limbo rather than realizing we had been wrong the entire time. The scariest part of "Insomnia" is realizing you can't compensate, you can't correct for this. No matter what and who you choose, you are wrong in some way.
I also enjoyed seeing the emerging motifs Nolan uses: scenes with characters looking in mirrors, unlikely locations for chase scenes, dark vs. light cinematography, blending the typical and the extreme, and an intuitive sense of time. I would say that these are used in a less abstract, more accessible way, but the other user comments I read lead me to believe that perhaps the status "Memento" already had when people saw it influenced their opinions and reactions. So perhaps the best advice I can give is see this film with an open mind. But isn't that always true?
It is important, however, to realize that this film has more in common with "Double Indemnity," "Touch of Evil" and Alfred Hitchcock than with the typical "thriller" of today. The body count is considerably lower, and if you enter the theater demanding extreme violence, definitive answers and a sense of closure because of the genre of the film, you will not be satisfied. Perhaps Nolan's message has to do with the idea that he is going make the film he wants to make, tell the story he wants to tell and undermine our position/power in any way he can. I, at least, think this is a fabulous thing!
Verdict: 9/10 (But who am I to judge?)