Rating of
2/4
Cure for Insomnia?
Chris Kavan - wrote on 06/22/21
Netflix originals can be hit or miss - with things veering towards more miss than hit usually. Awake does have an interesting premise but fails to make much of it and devolves into a hybrid action/family drama that is uneven throughout.
As I said, the reason I tried this in the first place is because the story is something that has been done before, but at least with a unique twist. A worldwide phenomena knocks out power (later attributed to some kind of shift in the Earth's magnetism). But it also does something else - prevents almost everyone from being able to sleep. Like all good zombie movies and other such end-of-the-world scenarios before it, seeing how things play out in the beginning is the best part. Coma patients suddenly wake up, people struggle to get any kind of sleep aid and, of course, you can't have this kind of film without some kind of religious angle thrown in for good measure.
Our players are: Gina Rodriguez as a harried mother who has landed a plum job after what appears to be some earlier issues with addiction. But she isn't over everything as we find her scoring some soon-to-be-expired drugs for a local dealer. While she is clean, she seems to still be trapped in the game. And while she seems to truly love her teenage son (Lucius Hoyos) and young daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) she doesn't have full custody and relies on her mother (possibly mother-in-law) Doris (Frances Fisher) to help take care of her children.
But everything changes when a the Earth experiences that shift - landing the family in a river and knocking out the power. Things shift rapidly as Jill's boss, Dr. Murphy (a wasted Jennifer Jason Leigh) quickly sets up a hub area when is becomes apparent no one can sleep - well, almost no one. It seems an elderly patient can sleep - and, we soon learn, so can Jill's daughter. Not trusting the military with her daughter, the fraught mother seeks an escape, frantically trying to teach her survival skills on the run - after that little religious aside where Barry Pepper plays a pastor trying to make sense of this new world while keeping a sleep-deprived congregation in check (spoiler - he can't).
But the rest of the film is a series of questionable decisions and I'm sure of even more questionable science. I know sleep deprivation can cause some pretty terrible side-effects, but civilization seems to fall apart a bit too conveniently early on. And I figured out the twist well before the ending - and ending which was anti-climactic to say the least and not at all satisfying in my book.
Chalk this one up to another passable but utterly forgettable Netflix original. You can do worse but also much, much better with your time.
