7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Gripping, Interior Chiller, August 16, 2006
This movie contains echoes of Edgar Allen Poe's "Telltale Heart," and also perhaps a few suggestions of the cult movie "Eraserhead." In all three works, the protagonist inhabits a house that becomes more and more animate. The plumbing growls and knocks and oozes strange effluents. There are ever-growing spots on the walls and ceiling. There is something on (or under) the floor.
But this is an essentially realistic rather than a surrealistic portrayal of a man trapped - in either his own imaginings or else in some actual, eerie conspiracy of natural phenomena. Jeff Daniels gives a tour de force performance as the man who reports his wife missing, and who then spirals down into a gnawing, insomniac worry that she may have met with foul play.
This movie becomes especially intriguing in light of all the recent publicity given to men suspected of murdering their wives. We think of Lacy Peterson and all the others as we watch Daniels' increasingly bleary and disoriented response to the police, to the outside world in general. Is he just being consumed with fear about what might have happened to his wife? Or is it a guilty conscience that is corroding him? The movie kept me guessing - until very near the end.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Shockingly Twisted Lynchian Thriller, October 22, 2001
If you're expecting a typical thriller upon viewing Chasing Sleep, you're going to be extremely surprised by this powerful work. When I first saw Chasing Sleep during a recent visit to France, I was blown away. Weaving a complex story with sparse dialogue and fantastic cinematography, the film is like a David Lynch work filtered through a less frenetic David Fincher lens.
The film, which starts with the simple premise that a man can't fall asleep after his wife fails to return from work one day, combines numerous genre elements with great success. It ranges from realistic drama to surreal science fiction, with some horror, thriller, and action jimmies thrown in.
The talent behind this film is amazing. The highly underrated Jeff Daniels plays the central character, Ed Saxon, a discombobulated college professor whose life is falling apart at the same rate as his house. He brings a silent force to his character that leaves the viewer unclear as to his true state of mind and motives. Director Michael Walker forges a world unlike any other captured on film, using cold colors and shadows to paint a depressing portrait of self-imposed exile. The directory of photography allows powerful images to linger on the screen just long enough to be burned into your memory.
No other film that I have seen has spawned as much post-viewing conversation as Chasing Sleep. The details of the events that transpire during the course of the story allow an immense amount of personal interpretation, and fuels speculation as to what Bridges' Saxon really was capable of. The fact that this film was never given a theatrical release in the US certainly sours my perspective of American taste in film.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
atmosphere, October 19, 2010
Although the movie has been credited as being rather slow to reach the climax and there's a lack of constant dialogue it's exactly what makes for an amazing atmosphere and creates an amazing tension that constantly keeps you guessing, thinking and wondering.
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