Awake (film)

This article is about the 2007 movie. For the 2012 TV series, see Awake (TV series).

Awake
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joby Harold
Produced by	Jason Kliot John Penotti Joana Vicente Fisher Stevens
Written by	Joby Harold
Starring	Hayden Christensen Jessica Alba Terrence Howard Lena Olin Arliss Howard
Music by	Graeme Revell (Theme Samuel Sim
Cinematography	Russell Carpenter
Editing by	Craig McKay
Distributed by	The Weinstein Company
Release date(s)	November 30, 2007 (2007-11-30)
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English Japanese
Budget	$8.6 million
Box office	$32,685,679

Awake is a 2007 American crime/supernatural/conspiracy thriller written and directed by Joby Harold. It stars Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard and Lena Olin. The film was released in the United States and Canada on November 30, 2007.

Synopsis

Capital-investment firm chief Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen) is in love with a woman named Sam (Jessica Alba) but is unwilling to tell his mother (Lena Olin) of their relationship. We later find out this is due to Sam being his mother's personal assistant. Clay suffers from a heart condition that requires a heart transplant to be carried out by Dr. Jack Harper (Terrance Howard) who had previously saved his life and is now his good friend. His mother and her boyfriend, a famous surgeon, try to dissuade him from going through the operation, due to Dr. Harper's spotty medical history. In the interim, he has to disclose his relationship with his fiancée, Sam. Clay's mother does not take kindly to Clay's haste and asks him to wait until he is older.

Clay becomes upset and leaves with Sam, and asks Dr. Harper to arrange a wedding. They marry privately at midnight. Clay then goes to the hospital for the operation. His mother tries to dissuade him again and refers him to a better clinic and a more experienced doctor. Clay brushes aside her concerns as attempts to interfere with his life and proceeds with his original plans. During surgery, Clay encounters "anesthetic awareness" and finds himself awake, but paralyzed. To escape the pain, Clay has an out-of-body experience and uncovers a murder plot against him.

During his out-of-body experience, Clay discovers that Dr. Harper and two others are planning to inject his transplanted heart with a chemical that will cause rejection upon transplantation. Dr. Harper is having second thoughts when Sam comes in to encourage him to go through with the plan. The rejection of the heart would prove fatal, because Clay, like his mother, is O negative. An emergency transplant would not be readily available.

In the operating room, one of the conspirators fails to show up and a seemingly inept anesthesiologist with a drinking problem shows up to replace him. Meanwhile, Clay's mother anxiously awaits for the results of the operation. Sam tries to win the affection of her mother-in-law during her moment of vulnerability.

Clay's mother grows suspicious of Sam, and looks through her purse, only to find that Sam was a nurse before she became her assistant. Clay discovers that Sam worked at the hospital under Dr. Harper. He is dejected, and, accepting his fate, walks to his home and awaits death.

Clay's mother intentionally overdoses and calls her boyfriend, played by Arliss Howard, to return and save her son. Her boyfriend returns to remove Dr. Harper and transplants the mother's heart into Clay. Dr. Harper locks himself in his office awaiting his inevitable arrest and Sam claims innocence in the matter, but Harper holds onto the syringe with her fingerprints all over it. Harper expresses remorse for his actions and does not try to stop being arrested. It is revealed that all of this was Sam's idea in order to get Clay's money to pay for all of the malpractice suits against the team.

Although the transplant is a success, Clay refuses to leave limbo believing he has nothing left in the outside world after his mother's death and fiancée's betrayal. His mother appears to him and reminds Clay that limbo with his mother and an afterlife with his father may not be ideal. She tells him that his father was an abusive drug addict. During a quarrel she accidentally murdered him to prevent him from harming her son. Clay decides that his life is worth living, and he turns to leave limbo. Dr. Harper closes the movie with the words, "He is awake."

Production

Portions of Awake were filmed on Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus (Lowenstein Hall is converted to look like a hospital; the statue of "St. Peter: Fisher of Men" is visible in the film). In addition, many scenes, including Dr. Jack Harper's office, the cafeteria where Lilith commits suicide, and the elevator bank, were filmed in Bellevue Hospital.

Reception

The film was not screened in advance for critics. The film opened at #5 at the U.S. Box office in its first opening weekend. As of July 11, 2008 it had a domestic box office gross of $14,377,198 in the U.S., and a total of $32,685,679 worldwide.

Awake received generally negative reviews upon release. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 24% of 54 critics gave the film positive reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 34 out of 100, based on 11 reviews. Dennis Harvey of Variety said the film "does have an attention-getting plot hook, but piles on too many narrative gimmicks to maintain suspense or credibility." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times defended the film, saying, "I went to a regular theater to see it Friday afternoon, knowing nothing about it except that the buzz was lethal, and sat there completely absorbed. ... I did not anticipate the surprises, did not anticipate them piling on after one another, got very involved in the gory surgical details, and found the supporting soap opera good as such things go". Frank Lovece of Film Journal International said he appreciated it as, "A pulp-fiction suspense drama that doesn't imagine it's anything else ... delivering on its paperback promise and not gussying itself up with any pretensions to emotional or psychological insight". Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter said "[Harold] succeeds in creating a quietly ominous tone that never lets up, with this being the rare modern horror effort that relies on suspense rather than bloodshed."

A group representing anesthesiologists in Ontario blasted the film following its release for having its "science completely wrong." Ontario's Anesthesiologists, a section of the Ontario Medical Association, declared numerous scientific and procedural distortions in the film such as the presentation of improper anesthetic techniques. The group disputes the film's claim that anesthesia awareness occurred as frequently as one in every 700 patients, although this in turn is debated by anesthesia awareness advocate Carol Weihrer.

DVD releases

The Region 1-DVD was released on March 4, 2008. Bonus material included an audio commentary by writer/director Joby Harold, seven deleted scenes with optional audio commentary, a behind the scenes featurette, and storyboard-to-film comparisons.

A "Blockbuster Exclusive" edition is also available for rental through Blockbuster Video which includes audio commentary, theatrical trailer, as well as outtakes and bloopers. However, it does not include the other extras included with the original DVD release.

A Blu-ray version was released on November 18, 2008.

External links

• Awake at the Internet Movie Database
• Awake at AllRovi
• Awake at Box Office Mojo
• DVD Talk discusses the Awake release delay