Insomnia (2002 film)

Insomnia is a 2002 American psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Hillary Seitz. It is the only film directed by Nolan that he is not credited with writing. A remake of the 1997 Norwegian film, it stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank, with Maura Tierney, Martin Donovan, Nicky Katt, and Paul Dooley in supporting roles.
The film follows two Los Angeles homicide detectives investigating a murder in Nightmute, Alaska. After the killer witnesses an accidental shooting committed by one of the detectives, they create a plan for both parties to mutually avoid prosecution.
Insomnia premiered at the Tribeca Festival on May 3, 2002, and was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on May 24, 2002. It grossed $114 million worldwide against a production budget of $46 million. The film received critical praise, particularly for Pacino's and Williams's performances. At the 29th Saturn Awards, Williams was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and Seitz was nominated for Best Writing.
In Nightmute, Alaska, teenager Kay Connell is found murdered. LAPD detectives Will Dormer and Hap Eckhart are sent to assist the local police with their investigation. An LAPD Internal Affairs investigation is about to focus on Dormer, and Eckhart reveals that he is going to provide testimony against Dormer in exchange for immunity. Ellie Burr, a young local detective, picks them up when they arrive.
Dormer lures the murderer to the scene of the crime, but the suspect flees in the fog, shooting a police officer through the leg. Dormer fires at a figure in the fog with his 9mm gun. Rushing to the fallen figure, Dormer picks up a .38 pistol that the suspect has dropped. He discovers that he has shot and killed Eckhart. Because of Eckhart's pending testimony, Dormer knows that Internal Affairs will never believe the shooting was an accident, so he claims that Eckhart was shot by the suspect, and conceals the .38 pistol.
Burr is put in charge of the shooting investigation, and her team finds the .38 caliber bullet that pierced the officer's leg. That night, Dormer walks to an alley and fires the .38 pistol into an animal carcass, then retrieves and cleans the bullet. At the morgue, the staffer hands him the bagged bullet retrieved from Eckhart's body, but she is unfamiliar with its type. He switches the .38 bullet for the 9mm slug from Eckhart's body.
Dormer is plagued by insomnia, brought on by his guilt for killing Eckhart and further exacerbated by the perpetual daylight.
He receives anonymous phone calls from the killer, who witnessed Dormer kill his partner. When the police learn that Kay was a fan of local crime writer Walter Finch, Dormer breaks into Finch's apartment in a nearby village. Finch realizes that the police are present, and evades Dormer. Dormer returns to Finch's apartment and plants the .38 to frame Finch.
Finch contacts Dormer and arranges a public meeting on a ferry. Finch wants help shifting suspicion to Kay's abusive boyfriend Randy Stetz and, in return, will stay silent about the Eckhart shooting. Dormer gives advice on handling police questioning. As Finch leaves Dormer on the ferry, he shows that he has recorded the conversation.
Finch calls Dormer and tells him that Kay's death was "an accident" — he beat her to death in a fit of rage. The next day, Finch gives false testimony at the police station. When Finch claims that Randy has a gun, Dormer realizes that Finch has discovered his plant, and has hidden it at Randy's home. Randy is arrested when the gun is found at his house. Finch asks Burr to come to his lake house the next day to collect letters indicating that Randy abused Kay.
Burr finds a 9mm shell casing at the shooting scene, which conflicts with the bullet type from Eckhart's body. She reads old case files from investigations that Dormer was involved in and learns that he has carried a 9mm, leading her to suspect that he shot Eckhart. Meanwhile, Dormer confides in the hotel owner, Rachel Clement, about the Internal Affairs investigation; he fabricated evidence to help convict a pedophile who he was certain was guilty of murdering a child.
Dormer learns that Burr has gone to Finch's apartment. He finds Kay's letters and realizes that Finch intends to kill Burr. He rushes to Finch's lake house, where Finch knocks Burr unconscious as Dormer arrives. Dormer is too disoriented from lack of sleep to fight off Finch. Burr revives and saves Dormer while Finch escapes. Burr reveals that she knows that Dormer shot Eckhart, and he admits that he is no longer certain that it was an accident. Finch shoots at them with a shotgun, and Burr returns fire while Dormer sneaks to Finch's location. After a struggle, Finch grabs Burr's gun to shoot Dormer, who shoots and kills the former with the shotgun before his body sinks in the water. Burr rushes to the fatally wounded Dormer's aid and comforts him by affirming that Eckhart's shooting was accidental. She moves to throw away the shell casing to preserve Dormer's secret, but Dormer stops her as he dies, telling her not to lose her way and to let him sleep.
Jonathan Demme was originally attached to direct the film and considered Harrison Ford for the role of Will Dormer. According to Nolan, he became aware of the original Norwegian film even before the release of his directorial debut Following, and sought to remake it after watching it twice.
Insomnia has Robin Williams playing a villain, deviating from the comedic roles for which he was earlier known. Regarding his decision to cast Williams, Nolan said, "I think [audiences] will come away feeling like they have seen a 'new' Robin Williams. Seeing Robin Williams doing something they would have never imagined that he would or could do."
Nolan on Williams's acting:
Insomnia was filmed over a three-month period from April to June 2001. The opening aerial scene was filmed over the Columbia Glacier near Valdez, Alaska, and the float plane approach was over the Portland Canal near Hyder, Alaska, and Stewart, British Columbia. The town of Nightmute, Alaska, was primarily filmed in and around Squamish, British Columbia, including the hotel/lodge, police station, high school and cemetery. The scene in which Dormer shoots his partner on the rocky beach in the fog was filmed at Clementine Creek in Indian Arm, outside of Vancouver. The village of Umkumuit, where Finch's apartment is located and where the log-chase scene occurs, was filmed on Vancouver Island in Port Alberni. The waterfall road scene in which Dormer is on his way to Finch's lake house and spins his car 180 degrees was shot in front of Bridal Veil Falls on the Richardson Highway near Valdez, Alaska.
The final scene, on the fictional Lake Kgun at Finch's lake house, was filmed on the northwest end of Strohn Lake in Bear Glacier Provincial Park, outside of Stewart, British Columbia. For this final scene, the film crew constructed Finch's lake house and dock from scratch, and disassembled and removed it after filming was completed in June 2001.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92%, based on 205 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Driven by Al Pacino and Robin Williams's performances, Insomnia is a smart and riveting psychological drama." On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on a scale of A+ to F.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "Unlike most remakes, the Nolan Insomnia is not a pale retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a good play."
Erik Skjoldbjærg, the director of the original film, said of Nolan's reinterpretation:
Taste of Cinema complimented Nolan for being able to "capture the excitement of the original while still setting it apart as a notable film itself".
IndieWire included Insomnia in their "10 Remakes of Classics by Great Auteurs" list, writing, "Nolan shifts the moral ground from the snowballing moral corruption of the original to shades of guilt and accountability and Pacino's increasingly bleary and hallucinatory perspective becomes an evocative metaphor for his struggle."
Later, Christopher Nolan singled out Insomnia as his most underrated film:
A novelization by Robert T. Westbrook was published by Onyx in May 2002.