Awake
Awake The Movie
Every year more than 21 million people go through a surgery under general anesthesia. Thirty thousand of them do not fall asleep and remain awake, or speaking scientifically, in the state of internarcosis. They cannot say anything or move any body part. However, they can hear, feel and understand everything.
It seems that the protagonist - Clayton Beresford - has all one may wish for. A beautiful fiance, whose real self he does not really know, a family business. He has “a weak heart, yet a strong mind.” And he does not feel bad about himself (thanks to Hayden Christensen). He would live calmly as if he had no heart problems disturbing him at the most inappropriate moments. He just started making plans to marry as they inform him that a suitable heart had been found for him.
The name of the film in the Russian language speaks for itself (although it puzzles me as how they managed to translate the word “awake” as “anesthesia”). Ignoring his mother’s requests to have the best doctor “replace” his heart, he gives himself to the mercy of the scalpel taken by his “friend.” And here the most interesting part starts.
He feels everything, he recognizes everything, and he feels each touch of the edge or something else. He also hears everything … Things he hears are most interesting. It is now left for him not only to awake (the original title of the film) but to awake from that illusion that had been around him, to realise all the lies and to pay attention to the smallest details. A friend will turn out to be a betrayer, and love will turn out to be an empty sound, a sound which he will never hear surrounded by the walls of “a small house at the beach.”
What should a person do in order to pay off his dues? How many people can be betrayed, flinging from one angle to the other in pursuit of their interests? And how does it make you feel, lying on an operating table, to know that you are doomed to death, and that you spent a year of your life with a person who, through a sham marriage, tried to receive a hundred millions from you?
How can you think all of this through, extracting every little detail from the memory and remaining somewhere between life and death? How is it - to die and come back to life? He was lost at 6:32 six o’clock and rescued two and a half hours later.
It is impossible to describe the feelings after watching the film: There aren’t any of them except for chaotic thoughts. You are simply thinking. You are thinking a lot. You feel you want to tell something to someone, but you do not know what. Everybody left the cinema in full silence, and then, looking at someone’s thoughtful face queried, you could guess: This person just saw “Anesthesia.” And no confirmation was required because it was all clear.
Names on the poster were quite famous - Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, and Terrence Howard. Director Joby Harold is not very well known, but the film was fantastic. I feel like giving a credit to absolutely everyone and would give an overall “A” to all. The only one I would distinguish though, is Jessica Alba, as I don’t remember any film where she would not play a 100% positive character. Of course, a little bit unbalanced and sometimes shouting Jessica looked rather exotic and not so plausible. But if we forget what we know about her, we can say that she remarkably coped with the new role.