Customer Reviews

Wide Awake

5 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was stunned by how much I loved this film. It's a hilarious personal exploration of insomnia and creativity. The filmmaker and main character, Alan Berliner, tries to bring the audience inside his tired mind -- to feel, first hand, the strains of being unable to sleep. And it works. In the first part of the film I actually began to feel as tired and anxious as the filmmaker seems to be. But, then, Alan drinks a cup of coffee and the film takes on an jazzy, energetic pace as it shifts into the night. Alan gives us a wild tour of his studio, and then gets to work on making the film. Through it all he faces the conflict of how to balance his work with spending time with his beautiful baby and wife. The scenes with his family are so funny and poignant, and the cinematic metaphors he uses throughout the film are so perfect, that I was smiling and laughing all the way through. This is a multi-layered, truly brilliant, beautiful film -- that gets better with every viewing. A DVD worth owning.

As with Alan Berliner's other films, including The Sweetest Sound, Nobody's Business, Intimate Stranger, and The Family Album, Wide Awake is a fact-based film that plays more like a subjective personal essay than an objective documentary. While providing a wealth of information from highly credible sources about insomnia, sleeping, and dreaming, the film also delves into the personal struggle of the filmmaker and his lifelong affliction with not being able to sleep at night.

A highly revealing film, Berliner opens his home to the camera and allows himself (and his wife) to be filmed while he sleeps -- or at least attempts to sleep. His visit to a sleep clinic is also chronicled, with embarrassing proof that he does indeed snore when he finally dozes off. Brief glimpses of old archival footage, quirky dream sequences based on his actual dreams, and a diverse collection of sound effects adds a fun twist to an otherwise serious subject.

Fueled by his middle-of-the-night artistic inspiration, ultimately Berliner finds himself faced with the question: If he starts sleeping like everyone else, will he turn into everyone else and lose his creative edge? But if he doesn't start sleeping like everyone else, will he lose too much precious time with his wife and son?

This film is a delightful must-see for everyone interested in sleeping and dreaming.

Leslie Halpern, author of Dreams on Film: The Cinematic Struggle Between Art and Science and Reel Romance: The Lovers' Guide to the 100 Best Date Movies.

I only caught part of this show when it was originally on HBO. It was much more interesting that I had thought it would be. I've been trying some of the tips for getting more sleep and some of them seem to have worked! I'm looking forward to watching the entire program on DVD. Thanks for another good feature, HBO!

I saw this on a recent flight and after 45 minutes decided that it was more painful than dealing with airport security. As someone who occasionally has bouts of insomnia, I thought this would provide useful information. Instead it was the most self absorbed display I can recall seeing in years. It was like watching an addict who wants to blame everyone else for his problems (maybe he has problems sleeping because his parent fought when he was a child?) but really has no desire to solve the problem. This was just painful to try to watch.

This has to be one of the most grating and pointless documentaries I have ever seen. The filmmaker is utterly self-absorbed and neurotic. He obviously believes his incessant thinking to be a marker of a superior intellect, when he is actually a rather typical worrier who never learned to quiet his mind. He overuses repetitive sounds to mark the passing of time (yes, ticking of the clock, we get it) and stock footage from the 1940's and 1950's (amusing a few times, but more than half the film is lame clips). In the end, I felt annoyed at his obvious desire for an instant cure (hence his sleeping pill addiction), his more-creative-genius-than-thou pride in his insomnia "problem," and hokey editing style.

We watched this last night. My partner wanted to stop after 30 minutes. I kept watching hoping the main character's wife would shake some sense into him. This movie sheds little light on insomnia but a lot of light on the filmmaker - he is VERY proud of himself. I found his constant assertion that he is different and brilliant annoying and not born out by the evidence: lots of people have trouble sleeping and/or are night owls and he clearly isn't brilliant. Most troubling is that he refuses, throughout the film, to do ANYTHING to try to sleep better. That left us with this question: how bad can it be if he doesn't care to change the status quo, for himself, his wife or his new baby?