Chasing Sleep | Jeff Daniels, Emily Bergl

Chasing Sleep | Jeff Daniels, Emily Bergl | A Gripping, Interior Chiller

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Chasing Sleep

	Chasing Sleep Jeff Daniels, Emily Bergl Vidmark / Trimark, 2001 average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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A big surprise

Showtime really did me in - I didn't realize this was their idea of a halloween movie flick! I didn't mean to watch it, but the movie guide called it a 'suspense' and I kept waiting for tell-tale suspense stuff I guess. When it didn't happen, I found myself standing in front of the TV before I finally realized I could sit and watch. After a bit it was so intense I could barely watch. A perfect halloween night movie.

A Gripping, Interior Chiller

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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My cup o' tea

(3.5/5 stars) This film reminds me of Le Locataire, Roman Polanski's superb thriller about a man slowly succumbing to his neuroses and descending into madness. Most of the story takes place inside one home and the pacing is slow and deliberate, so it might not appeal to all tastes. Fans of Kafka and Polanski, however, are likely to find much of interest here. Jeff Daniels is quite good as Ed Saxon, a professor at a local college. He phones the police early one morning to report his wife missing and with their help he begins to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. The story unfolds from Saxon's point of view, so the viewer really knows as little as he does. Eventually, however, it becomes very apparent to the viewer that Saxon should be cognizant of more than he is. It is always fun to watch psychologically damaged individuals become unhinged in movies because reality becomes contemptuously and surreally distorted, though no one actually gets hurt. Worth watching at lease once.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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