the anti-summer movie

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2002)

"Insomnia" is not the kind of movie you expect to see this time of year. It's the kind of dark film studios usually save for fall release. The logic is that a) audiences are expecting more serious, dark material that time of year and b) it's positioned better for Oscar attention. Something has happened this summer, though. We seem to be getting back to the idea that summer is not just the time for dumbed-down action. It's the height of the movie box office season, period. If a movie is good, it has the best chance of being seen during this season. That has not been the way things have gone in recent years. The high-profile release of "Insomnia" release may be a sign that major movie studios have finally wised up.
This summer, if schedules hold, we'll get Cold War thrillers "Sum of All Fears" and "K-19: The Widowmaker." We'll get the first major studio, serious crime film in a while, "Road to Perdition." Are the days finally gone that true movie fans must spend spring and summer waiting for anything good to watch, settling for what amounts to garbage? I'm hopeful.
By the way, I loved "Insomnia." It's the best film of the year so far. The film is a rare instance of a project living up to and far exceeding its potential. Sometimes the collaboration of great talent actually creates something great.
Director Christopher Nolan, who only four years ago released his first film, "Following" on a shoestring budget shot with friends over a year of weekends. Only one print was made of the film at the time. Not knowing this, I was lucky enough to see it screened back in 1998 at a theater in Santa Monica. Only two other people were in the theater. The night before I saw it, Nolan held a Q & A session after the screening. I'm kicking myself now for not attending that. If only I'd had any idea what would happen next. In 2000, at the Toronto Film Festival, came "Memento," and everything changed. A couple of struggling producers named Clooney and Soderbergh immediately recognized Nolan as having big-time potential and tapped him to direct "Insomnia," their remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name.
I saw "Insomnia" on Memorial Day Sunday. The theater was packed.
So now here is Nolan, having directed three Academy Award winners in a thriller that found itself taking advantage of a Memorial Day weekend left wide open by schedule shifts. The choice to release it at such a time would not have been made had this film not been so good. I believe that the studio took a look at it and said, 'this is great, people are going to love this. Now, when can we open?'
Despite its big stars and probably big budget, "Insomnia" is remarkably tight. There's a subdued, perfectly channelled intensity throughout. Stylistically it's only a few clicks removed from `Memento.' The two films look a lot alike.
Each of the great actors, Pacino, Williams, and Swank accept themselves as pieces of Nolan's puzzle, snapping themselves in perfectly. They're the kinds of roles actors live for.
Grade: A