Directed by: Christopher Nolan Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan.
Hailed as 'The New Kubrick' by some sections of the film press after his ground-breaking second feature 'Memento', writer / director Christopher Nolan is undoubtedly one of the most promising young directors to come out of Britain in the last decade. His new project 'Insomnia' is a re-make of a 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name, and marks Nolan's first major Hollywood studio venture.
This is not a direct re-make but more a re-examination of the existing material from a fresh angle. With the unanimous critical reception of 'Memento', anticipation of Nolan's next project was always going to be intense. Nolan, against all the odds, manages here to maintain his style and conceive a highly personal film within a mainstream structure, an apparent fixation with human behavior, his exploration of mental distress and his ambiguous approach to storytelling, all re-occurring themes in his work.
Veteran LAPD officer Will Dormer (Pacino) and his young partner Hap (Donovan) are sent to Alaska to aid the murder investigation of a 17 year old local girl. They are met by Ellie Burr (Swank), an enthusiastic young policewoman who idolizes Dormer having studied his former cases for her college thesis. With an internal affairs inquest hanging over his head from a previous Inquiry, a fateful mistake in the investigation and his inability to sleep in the perpetual daylight of Alaska,
It is interesting to see how the highly-talented Nolan, deals with being given full studio backing, a sizeable budget and his pick of the Hollywood A-list, three 'Oscar' winners, no less. Pacino is such a powerful screen presence he demands the audiences' strictest attention throughout, Hilary Swank makes the very best of a slightly under-written role, and Robin Williams is surprisingly adept at playing a disturbed and murderous loner. The casting of Williams and Pacino in converse roles is a particularly sharp and subtle move and the screen time shared by the two makes for essential viewing.
Nolan manages, with 'Insomnia' to give an exhausted format an incredible new depth, the hostile landscape of Alaska is given the perfect ambiance by David Julyan's potent score and the mastery of cinematographer Walter Pfister, both of whom worked, with such flawless effect on 'Memento'. Nolan has distinguished himself, beyond doubt, as a dynamic film-maker of rare promise, succeeding again in the construction of a stylish multi-level thriller, intelligent, atmospheric and diverse.
Sam Groombridge
samgroombridge@hotmail.com
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