The dreams of an adopted boy will save or wreck the married couple who adopt him, in “Before I Wake”. “Oculus” director Mike Flanagan writes and directs this latest psychological thriller about Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Thomas Jane), an on-the-rocks couple after the tragic death of their son, who decide to take in a sweet and loving 8-year-old boy, Cody (Jacob Tremblay). Cody has bounced from house to house throughout his life, and unbeknownst to them, Cody is terrified of falling asleep. At first, they assume his previous unstable homes caused his aversion to sleep, but soon discover why: Cody’s dreams manifest physically in reality as he sleeps. In one moment they experience the incredible wonder of Cody’s imagination, and in the next, the horrific nature of his night terrors. To save their new family, Jessie and Mark embark on a dangerous hunt to uncover the truth behind Cody’s nightmares. “Before I Wake” is rated PG-13 for violent terrors, including disturbing imagery.
“Before I Wake” is applauded for a rich and heartfelt idea for a modern horror fright. There’s a warm tapestry here for the idea of moving on after death, and the kinds of effects that this can have on a once prosperous family. Flanagan has always been someone to write good family pieces first, with characters who you find it easy to root for. It’s no secret that I enjoyed “Oculus” until the final ten minutes of the movie, which felt very sloppy and rushed. The same problem seems to have plagued him here for his newest film, because things reach ridiculously silly levels when all of the rules that the film built up for itself to that point, are thrown out in a cheesy CGI blaze. For those unaware, this movie sat on the development shelf for more than three years before getting a release date. After watching the spectacle of anything goes rules, combined with lack of enthusiastic performances, it’s clearly understandable why nobody took a chance on such a film, because this one is a convoluted mess with all of its unnecessary subplots. It settles for far too much of the status quo when it comes to horror movies, and serves as ultimately a disappointment for a young, ambitious horror director.
The movie opens with a brief rundown between two families; one for Cody’s past, and one for the past of Mark and Jessie after losing their son. It was beneficial to the heart of this script to see these three people embracing one another after that void of love had been unfulfilled for so long. What I loved about this position of the script is that all three feel like victims here. There’s an original angle displayed that would usually play itself off as the child being evil or possessed, but “Before I Sleep” satisfies with a solid first act that lays the ground work for a sleep plot unlike anything you have seen recently. Then it all falls apart. The second act starts introducing subplots not only to do with Cody’s past, but within the dream world itself. This gave the movie some suffocating convolution considering these subplots are introduced with about fifty minutes left in the film. It almost feels too late to explain some things that frankly don’t need explaining. Where it got really confusing for me was in the holes of scenes that needed further explanation. There’s a definite feel that this finished project came at the cost of some brutal scene edits, as a lot of the movie’s set-up is sacrificed for a smoother transition. While that sounds like a positive, you start to feel like big chunks of important scenes are missing here, longing yet again for another director’s cut that will probably never come. There’s immense disorientation here, and the gaps go unfilled when it comes to important developments to subplots that we have been force-fed to endure.
In the third act, somewhere around the final half hour of the film, the movie begins to depend a little too heavily on its horror elements, and it feels very weak because a lot of the violence or actions of the film’s antagonist simply aren’t shown on camera to keep keen on the PG-13 handicap that the film is subjected to. The creature concepts are cool, but the execution looks like something out of a late 90’s M Night Shyamalan movie, in all of its laughable delight. I didn’t mind that this film tried to mix two different genres in the psychological and horror categories, but it’s definitely been executed better. Films like “The Sixth Sense” or “Gone Girl” really communicate the dependency on both, mirroring a desire for psychologically satisfying characters with top notch frights when it feels welcoming. The problem here is that the movie’s creative direction often feels like a tug of war that wants to do both at the same time, and it just never gels. If Flanagan kept this to just a psychological movie on the human psyche of grief towards great loss, the film would’ve satisfied far beyond just pieces of wonder. Nothing ever feels memorable, and this is sure to be a movie that you will forget in a day or so.
The performances are just OK. I’m someone who is a fan of Thomas Jane, but it’s clear that he has lost a step or two over the last decade, accepting roles that are far beneath his stature. The problem here besides Jane not getting enough screen time to satisfy his disposition, is that his character often plays the cliche role of disagreeing with his on-screen significant other. Nothing stands out in her performance as anything, but plain, but I guess that is better than the wooden performance that Bosworth gave me. Kate’s a decent actress, but horror just isn’t her stick, and because of that, we get a lot of scenes that need a little more emotional response to the very madness that is going on around her. Kate always plays it far too safely, and we never feel any great danger to these characters because of a fire that depends greatly on her emotional wick as the character with a majority of screen time. If there is one saving grace here, it’s within Jacob Tremblay once again stealing the show. This performance happened about a year before his should’ve-been Oscar turn in 2015’s “Room”, and it’s clear to see why this little boy has captured the hearts of many who watch him. Jacob plays being a child so effortlessly, while counting on the empathy of the audience who watch him. There’s something simply innocent about all of his portrayals that go far beyond just age, and Tremblay tiptoes the edge between two world brilliantly in this film. I can’t wait to see more from this little boy, and hope his range will continue with age.
“Before I Wake” certainly isn’t anything special, and a lot of that has to do with the chopping and editing that three different film studios have operated on over the course of three years on the shelf. This is a Frankenstein product of disoriented proportions, and the movie adds very little to a bedtime story fantasy concept that serves as enough to reel its audience in. It finishes as just another horror film with too many loose ends that doesn’t add anything new or exciting to the genre.
4/10