Camden New Journal - Movies: Awake

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 3 April 2008

Hayden Christensen as Clay and Jessica Alba as Sam in Awake

Taking an unhealthy interest in surgery

AWAKE
Directed by Joby Harold
Certificate 15

THE terrifying idea that a patient can fall victim to “anaesthetic awareness” under the surgeon’s knife is one of the nightmares of modern life. It means they stay awake while the operation is going on, and feel the pain.
Well, it has been known.
To get us in the mood, a sombre message in the initial credits informs us that it happens to one in 700 patients who wake up during surgery.
Hayden Christensen plays youthful New York billionaire Clay with a suspect heart who is busily involved in a shady deal with organised crime. He also has problems with his imperious mother (Lena Olin) who is against his impending marriage to a girl from the wrong side of the tracks (Jessica Alba).
On the night they secretly marry, he is rushed to hospital to undergo a heart transplant after a suitable donor is found.
“I’ve lost patients before,” says his old chum Jack (Terrence Howard) encouragingly, as he wheels him into the theatre. Since he’s going to perform the operation, it’s obvious we are being prepared for the worst.
And it happens. On the operating table Clay comes to the horrible realisation that although his body is numb, his mind and senses are fully alert thanks to a rookie surgeon who administered the drugs.
A flask we spy poking out of the anaesthetist’s pocket doesn’t bode well, either.
Clay can feel the doctors slicing into his chest, and prising his rib cage apart.
Worse, he can hear someone in the room planning to make sure he never comes through it alive. But he can’t move a muscle and can’t cry out.
There are some choice moments. Clay has out-of-body experiences, and one particular sequence shows him running through the streets at night – while behind him, one by one, the lights are going out as his life hovers on the brink.
It’s an unsettling premise for keeping us awake at nights, and both Hitchcock and Stephen King have tackled the subject – but only on TV. The full-length treatment gives it added – er, knife-edge – suspense.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment:

» Film Times
» Film Reviews
» Buy DVDs
» Rent DVDs