Sleepwalking

You hate to take shots at a film like "Sleepwalking", which was obviously a labor of love for producer Charlize Theron, who called in a lot of favors and assembled a first-rate cast and crew to make this film. But as Yogi Berra once said: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll probably end up someplace else". Apparently there was so much self-delusion going into the project that no one grasped the slow motion train wreck that this film would become after a very promising first 30 minutes.

If nothing else "Sleepwalking" illustrates that the constraining factor limiting the supply of "good" films is in the pre-production area, where producers must grasp at straws in a field of totally lame scripts in the hope that a lot of hard work in the production and post-production phases can make something out of nothing.

"Sleepwalking" could be described as a sanitized version of Terry Gilliam's "Tideland" (2005). Both films are about a young person dealing with an especially traumatic childhood environment and there are a lot of production design similarities. But "Sleepwalking" trades "Tideland's" American Gothic "Alice in Wonderland" quality for a somewhat muddled but very sincere and gritty redemption theme.

This effectively eliminates "Tideland's" off-kilter fans as likely viewers and leaves one wondering who might find the last hour of the film worthwhile viewing. Maybe longtime fans of Joni Mtichell's "Blue" album could tap into it during periods of sedation. Mitchell's comments about her album fit quite nicely into a discussion of "Sleepwalking": "The Blue album, there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either."

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

If you peer honestly at this film, it depicts familial dysfunction, and the havoc it engenders in children; they are the innocent creatures that are damaged irrevocably. They say all you need is one person while you are raised who attunes to you lovingly and with empathy; thats all it takes. When you are abused at an early age, you will lack individuation and psychosocial integration. Perchance if you have children, whether you want to or not, you will pass this information on, that is stored in every cell of your body. Braking the generational abusive cycle requires more than knowledge it requires healing. Nick Stahl is a great actor, who gets better with age, using little to say so much. The child actor is decent too.

My interpretation of "Sleepwalking" as extremely depressing may spring from the fact that I knew nothing about it when I started watching it. Charlize Theron plays down-and-out Jolene, who dumps her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) on her brother James (Nick Stahl) and disappears. James now has to reconsider how he has lived his whole life.

The wintry setting in this movie has the same effect as the setting in "Affliction": as bleak as can be...especially after what ends up happening after James and Tara go on the road. Definitely not a film that will leave you feeling good. Not to demean the movie at all; I do recommend it. You just have to understand that this is a VERY depressing one, exactly the sort of movie to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. I don't know whether or not you'll like it, but I still encourage you to at least check it out. Also starring Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson and Mathew St. Patrick (who played Keith on "Six Feet Under"). I assume that director William Maher is not the same as Bill Maher of "Real Time with Bill Maher".

Despite the mostly negative reviews I've read about 'Sleepwalking', I wanted to see if Annasophia Robb really did live up to what the critics have been raving the past couple months. And she does, in a huge way. With a natural presence and believable acting, Annasophia displays one of the best performances I've seen from a child actor/actress. While she did a great job in BTT and Have Dreams, she doesn't show any signs of the occasional stiff acting that she had in her previous films. Playing the part of the abandoned and emotionally troubled Tara is a very complex process that not many young actors can endure, yet Annasophia portrays her every emotion smoothly. Her chemistry with Stahl's character was convincing and heartfelt. At first I was a little bit on the skeptical side on whether or not her performance was Oscar-worthy; but after watching this movie, I immediately brushed said thoughts aside.

That said, this movie is James's (Nick Stahl) story, and he delivers. His performance really brought out the raw emotion that most of the film lacked. At certain scenes one could just sense the extreme pain and sorrow that James is going through as he grows more fond of his niece, only to see her get taken away, that and other aspects of his character makes a nice buildup to his climactic transformation near the end. Charlize Theron, though only present in a handful of scenes in the film, takes full advantage of them and helps create a truly believable troubled American family. Dennis Hopper is, well...Dennis Hopper. He can pull off playing any crazed and sadistic bastard in a snap and succeeds. Despite his character being as one dimensional as one can get, Hopper does a pretty good job making the film more morbid than it already is.

Positives aside, here is where the film gets it's real flaws: the story. Besides extremely powerful performances by the leads, Sleepwalking's story suffers from it's overtly dark tone and predictability. Yes, it's supposed to be a morbid take on abandonment and abuse, but unfortunately that's all there is. The characters stumble from one unlucky bump in the road to another without any real relief for them. Besides the budding almost brother-sister type relationship that James and Tara develops, it doesn't really stop the film from becoming increasingly bleak. And quite honestly, as much as I tried to defend it, I didn't understand James's notion to return to his abusive and bitter father's farm. Once he mentions going there in the film, especially with all the comments that he heard from Tara, predicting hell in Satan's frozen ranch wasn't very far-fetched. I enjoy films that are open to interpretation and don't give out easy answers. However, Sleepwalking's ending hardly even tries to put some sort of resolution. It's an all-throughout morbid storyline that DESERVED a true resolution, sadly it barely had one.

I enjoyed Sleepwalking. I loved the characters and the performances (Especially Robb and Stahl), but like the ratings that you've read throughout the web, it was just barely enough to carry the weight of a bland and predictable story.

"Sleepwalking" starts off a bit like "Frozen River," focused on a single mother struggling to make ends meet in rural America (though it was actually filmed in Saskatchewan). But the movie quickly veers off in another direction, shifting that focus onto her 13-year-old daughter, Tara, and her younger brother, James (the girl's uncle), who are suddenly forced to rely on one another for comfort and support when Joleen temporarily bows out of the picture.

When her boyfriend is arrested for growing marijuana, Jolene (Carlize Theron) and Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) are forced to move in with James (Nick Stahl), a soft-spoken, good-hearted fellow in his 20s who is two months behind in his rent and who barely scrapes by on what he makes at his low-paying construction job. Soon, Joleen has split the scene, James has lost his job, and social services has taken Tara to live in a foster-care facility. So James and Tara decide to head out onto the open highway, stopping off at roadside diners and motels, and staying one step ahead of the authorities who are in pursuit of them.

"Sleepwalking" is one of those gritty, slice-of-life dramas that sympathetically and accurately depicts what life is like for the working poor. It is rife with authentic details and rich in small town atmosphere. Director William Mahr and cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia really know how to extract the essence of a locale for mood and effect, making the bleak landscape and stark setting integral elements in the drama - an effect greatly enhanced by Christopher Young's rich and evocative acoustic-flavored score. Superb, naturalistic performances by the three lead actors make us truly care about the people they are portraying and the things that are happening to them.

"Sleepwalking" is not without its flaws, however. For one thing, the movie undercuts some of its carefully crafted verisimilitude with its casting of "name" actors in a few of the key secondary roles - primarily, Woody Harrelson as James' friend and work buddy, and an over-reaching Dennis Hopper as Joleen and James' abusive dad. These parts would have been more effective had they been played by less-familiar actors (though I do realize that, without such star power attached to the project, a movie like "Sleepwalking" might never have gotten made in the first place). More seriously, the otherwise excellent screenplay by Zac Stanford falls apart a bit in the final third, resorting to stereotyping and hokey melodrama when it most needs to stay true to its characters and their situations.

Still, despite the patness, "Sleepwalking" is a quietly powerful, richly atmospheric tale of a group of troubled but essentially decent people struggling, despite their all-too-human weaknesses, to make their way in the world.