Awake

Awake

Starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, Lena Olin

Directed by Joby Harold

The Story:
Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen) is a 22-year old billionaire, a business entrepreneur and one of the most powerful men in New York.  He's also dying, requiring a heart transplant, but due to his rare blood type, it's difficult finding a donor.

A year ago, he meets Sam Lockwood (Jessica Alba), who is the personal secretary to his mother, Lilith (Lena Olin), an overbearing woman who meddles in her son's life at every twist and turn.  They're able to keep their relationship secret, until Sam pesters Clay to tell his mother.  He does, and she is outraged, but they still get married that night, before learning there's a donor heart available.

Against his mother's wishes, Clay chooses troubled doctor Jack Harper (Terrence Howard), the doctor who saved his life once before, to perform the operation, instead of Lilith's friend who is a world renowned surgeon.  As Clay goes under, he realizes that the anesthesia didn't work, and even though he can't move or speak, he can hear what's happening around him and - more terrifyingly - feel what's being done to him.  Unfortunately, that's just the beginning of a terrifying night.

The Synopsis:
I had seen "Awake" when it first came out in 2007, basically because it featured my Hollywood crush Jessica Alba (yes, I know she can't act, so you don't have to bring that up).  After watching the film, I totally forgot about it.  Then my friends mentioned the film while going through my collection, and for the life of me I couldn't remember a thing that happened.

After watching it again, I realized why I had forgotten.  There wasn't anything to the film.  Sure, the director (Joby Harold, the first and only time he sat in the director's chair) was new and untested, but there's several new directors out there with far better films.

"Awake" was supposed to focus on the condition known as "Anesthesia Awareness," where a patient is supposedly put under during a very important operation, but has a coherent awareness of what's going on around them.  They're immobilized due to the drug and cannot move or speak, but they can still feel what's happening to them.  This is the most terrifying part of the film, as we're treated to Clay's operation as his voice-over tells the pain and fear he's experiencing in a stunningly decent performance by Hayden Christensen (his voice-over work, not his actual acting, which is kind of a cheat since he probably did the voice-over work in a studio with lots of takes).  If the film had simply focused on this aspect, it could've been a lot more unnerving.

Unfortunately, this part of the film is abandoned quickly, and replaced by a haphazard crime thriller that focuses on Clay's life and how much it's worth.  The whole caper part (which I won't go into details because it might spoil the film) seems added on, and doesn't make a lot of sense in the grand scheme of things, and everything gets resolved with a neat little bow at the top.  In the end, it could've been a Lifetime movie if it weren't for the excessive language.

The main problem with the film lies with its actors.  After his Oscar-nominated performance in "Hustle & Flow," somehow Terrence Howard figured this would be a role he could really sink his teeth into.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, but he was still one of the standout performances.  The other comes from "Chocolat" and "The Ninth Gate" star Lena Olin as Clay's overbearing mother.  She's stone cold, but has a warm heart for her son, almost in a strange Oedipus complex fashion, but she delivers the goods when it's time to act.

Now THAT'S a creeper.

So you wonder where the acting goes bad?  Well, look no further than the two leads - Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba.  If you had taken cardboard cutouts of the stars and had them in every scene, you couldn't tell the difference. 

Clay: "We're in love."
Sam: "Yes.  Love."

Both actors gave completely wooden performances, they were totally phoning it in, and led to the film being a disappointment.  The only highlight is when Christensen did his voice-over work during the surgery, but that's the one pinpoint of light in an otherwise dull film.

The Summary:
For a film being called "Awake," it should make the viewers stay awake during it.  Unfortunately, it did the opposite, making this a surefire way to put people under for operations in the future if no anesthesia is available.

The Score: C+