Mark Reviews Movies: AWAKE (2021)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 8, 2021

Fraternal screenwriters Joseph and Mark Raso have an intriguing premise for a global catastrophe in Awake, which the latter brother also directed. The formulaic and inconsistent plot, though, shows that the two don't possess many ideas beyond the central gimmick.

Here, an unexplained something or someone causes all electronics to fail (The fact that the screenplay reveals neither how or why this event occurred nor who or what did it is one of its theoretical strengths, although the cynical thought comes that the Rasos are holding that information close, in order to follow up this movie later). That's just the start, and it might simply be a side effect of the real damage being inflicted.

The incident makes it impossible for people to sleep, and because of another unrevealed reason, the effects of sleep deprivation are being hastened and intensified. What would have taken many days—forgetfulness, mood shifts, hallucinations, etc.—is only taking a few, and as the days for a sleepless population continue, people more or less start going insane.

If all of these combined details seem a bit contrived, they quickly feel that way, too, as a matter of narrative convenience. The Raso brothers want the complications and troubles to escalate as soon as possible, because the plot—getting from Point A to Point B, with a bunch of obstacles getting in the way along the way—is the primary driving force here. It doesn't matter if the characters are developed or even consistent, as long as they have a destination and a lot of problems getting there.

The central characters are a family of three: Jill (Gina Rodriguez) and her two children, 10-year-old Matilda (Ariana Greenblatt) and teenaged Noah (Lucius Hoyos). At the start, Jill works as a security guard at a science lab, run by a psychologist (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) who specializes in sleep (just another handy coincidence among all the rest in the script). Jill has been stealing expired pills to sell to a local dealer, while her kids live with her mother-in-law (played by Frances Fisher).

Our protagonist is a veteran and widow, whose husband—the kids' father—died overseas. Jill feels guilty, suspicious, and cynical on account of the torture she saw over there, with the sleep-deprivation side of it overseen by the psychologist for whom she now works. None of this really matters, not only because Jill keeps changing her mind to meet the requirements of the story, but also because the arrival of the disaster eliminates any need for character back story or development.

While Jill is out for the day with her kids, all electrical power suddenly stops. Their car ends up in a lake (The directing Raso does display a keen sense of making chaos intimate in this scene, which is shot as a one-take and in claustrophobic near-close-up, as well as in some other suspense/action sequences). Matilda has a close call, nearly drowning, and as day becomes night, no one in town or, for that matter, anywhere, it seems, is able to sleep. Matilda can, though, which makes her a potential target for desperate people who want a cure.

The story basically becomes a tour of the resulting devastation, both on the world and on the minds of everyone affected by this mysterious event. A group of parishioners in a local church, led by a sound-minded pastor (played by Barry Pepper), shortly turn from hoping for a cure from Matilda to considering her as a kind of religious sacrifice to save them. Looking for an older model car that might still run, Jill gets a close view of the violence that desperation brings. A group of escaped convicts threatens the family, but on the other hand, one prisoner, named Dodge (Shamier Anderson), shows a good heart beneath his tough exterior.

All of this amounts to little more than a road trip through the worst of humanity, driven there by something people cannot comprehend and are helpless to control. Jill, whose own mental deterioration comes and goes as the plot requires, tries to prepare Matilda for the girl's life on her own and in the wreckage of the old world. She has a plan, involving her old boss' study of another person who is able to sleep, and that results in a pretty obvious, if competently staged, and chaotic action payoff, as sleep-deprived soldiers start to see everyone as a potential threat.

The Rasos have written a gimmicky, shallow thriller, with little to explore and even less to say about humanity. Awake is more concerned with its sometimes odd payoffs (a memory test, air in a syringe, and the fairly predictable reason Matilda can sleep) than developing its world, characters, or ideas.

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