Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking (2008)  Director:  Bill Maher; Writer:  Zac Stanford

Stars:  Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb
 

 I’m not sure how many reviews you’d have to read before you found a reviewer who appreciated this movie.  So, up front, I recognize that my praise is relatively solitary and admit that the penultimate scene dangerously romanticizes or at least unjustifiably forgives parental neglect, which is ironic for this film.  That confessed, here’s why I value the film.

James self-actualizes in almost a text-book manner under the most extreme of disadvantages.  Fulfilling the three criteria for self-actualizing, he 1) accepts who he is; 2) rejects forced acculturation; and 3) contributes to a better world.

1.   James learns that he is not an “idiot” as his father has categorized him. Rather, he is a compassionate, generous, and resourceful human being.  He doesn’t so much develop those attributes as he discovers and cultivates them. He learns that he cannot go home, fix his past, or tolerate his father’s abuse. 

2.   He rejects the forced acculturation of the legal system and his father’s patriarchy. 

3.   Tenaciously, he salvages the paltry existence he’s left with and saves the life of his young niece.  He builds a meaningful and salvific relationship with his sister’s daughter though no one has a right to ask him to sacrifice so much for her sake. 

Yes, there are disappointments.  The film’s pace is very slow. And we’d like to see the acting of Theron and Harrelson much more.  (Hopper, not so much.) And bleakness turns bleaker and bleaker.  By the end of the movie, I was nostalgic for the nights when Jack slept in someone’s dark, unfinished basement on a deflated mattress.  By the end, those are actually the good olde days. That’s how rough his life becomes.  But the worst failure is the mother-daughter reunion, which is both unrealistic and romantic.  It’s both insipid and unethical.

Thankfully, the film continues for one more scene, which though not conclusive, affords hope. We see that Jack has opened up from his shut down personality, woken up from his abuse-imposed lethargy.  He has become not just a rescuing uncle, but a human on the brink of flourishing—for his own good. It’s hard to imagine that his life will be easy, but it’s easy to imagine that his life will be productive. And if there is hope for Jack, there is hope for each of us—no matter our upbringing, class, or self-image.

Afterthought: The set designs establish Jack’s slow, spiraling loss of hope.  From the damaged walls of Jack’s one-bedroom apartment stretched to house 3 to the dingy basement with hanging old rags to the dilapidated farm with rotting animals and manure everywhere, jutting out in the middle of nowhere and no time, the sets force viewers to journey deeper into emotional, mental, and physical ruin.  It’s no wonder that despite Jack’s exit in a run-down pickup truck, the scenery finally uplifts our spirits and invites our optimism.