To Sleep, Perchance to Nightmare

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2006)

Very involving deep psychodrama (for me at least, it seems enough people here did NOT get caught up in the story that make me wonder what specifically failed for others). Definitely Hitch's shadow (though sadly not the bloated belly silhouette) is cast upon this fine film.
I was hesitant to see this, not sure why. Maybe the title put me off, I was afraid it would be Hollywood glitzing up the blue collar world. Or equally as bad, they would tilt the other way with excessive squalor and no humanity. Little did I know Hollywood passed on this, additionally, while the film does take place in machine shop, machinations (of the mind alone?) are more pivotal to the plot here.
So that being said, I guess this is recommended for Christian Bale fans (one of whom I was not), or perhaps for fans of Bernard Hermann scores (the soundtrack here I *must* track down for KFJC, it played like the weather...omnipresent and affecting every scene). I actually saw this over a month ago, and it has stuck to my ribs...if that's any sort of recommendation.
Spoilers may follow...
Gaunt haunting of the film by Christian Bale is only one aspect of the atmos-fear created here. When he initially strode shirtless across the screen, I first thought CGI. The comments here and elsewhere about body loss, even if I had read them ahead of time, I would have been jarred. Of course, body torture alone does not make a formidable flick, otherwise that "Sick" film would have made it off my list of maybes to have-seen long ago.
His weightless, while eye-catching is not so disturbing as several brutal scenes herein where machines injure people. Didn't bother me but a good friend mentioned that he had to sorta skip by them, definitely not a film for the squeamish, but as my friend did you can maybe not watch those scenes and still get a lot of this film.
I've seen others champion Jennifer Jason-Leigh's performance, I don't know I thought Aitana Sanchez-Gijon was far more compelling. When she's on camera, the film feels like it can breathe, color splashes in and the hesitant courtship adds a nice hint of sweetness to the dour proceedings...at least for awhile. Other actors like Reg E. Cathey (as watchable here as he was in Oz) and John Sharian also lend a little more muscle to this film's frames. Speaking of "Oz" this was sort of like that HBO series, I watched but stricken with a tight stomach of unease.
The payoff of the film (i.e. REALLY stop reading now if you haven't seen this and think you might want to) comes as the tarp is unraveled and nothing is there (nice tie to the lead-off scene and helping to feel your watching world fall apart). We find out about the car accident, and that connects to so many other things...and we realize that Reznick's mind has sprung up this alternate reality to try and rectify his misdeed. That I think is a very powerful human response, not as noble as honest atonement, but perhaps more real, or more likely to happen in such a horrible case.
Like I said a deep film, even without touching on the Doestoevsky references. Bale's performance along with the script and direction do a great job at placing you at the center of a tragedy without knowing you are there until its too late and everything comes crashing in on you. Surely not for everyone, but for fans of grim yet thoughtful suspense, this is a must. Watch it late at night, it will add to your appreciation of Reznick's insomnia and the dreamlike darkling in this film.
My review is not at all capturing this fine piece of work.
8/10