When he tries to sleep, to escape from the consuming preoccupations of his days, it pitilessly shines through his shades, through his blinds, burning through his sleeping mask into his eyes. He's becoming unstrung. This first feature by director Erik Skjoldfb rg is so powerful, so gripping, so compelling that it burns the mind. Director of photography Thurmann-Andersen's shots of Norway smolder icily. They blend menace, natural beauty, and cosmopolitan style.
Sequences alternate understated action with psychological insight.
These are good performances, too. Her character is inevitably a step ahead of the others, the actress is lovely with a laser focus. The killer wrestles through his scenes unable to suppress his delighted, sheepish grin. He and Engstrom are well matched. Insomnia succeeds in challenging authority, undercutting narrative expectations, creating worldly, contemporary drama in a Norwegian backwater and performing exploratory surgery on its antihero's psyche, with kicking electronica music jangling your nerves in the background.