Sleepwalking | Review

To be accompanied by a Sundance-approved annotation, this lucid example of independent filmmaking without risk is a cracked mirror portrait with stardust to spare and does very little more than superimpose recognizable faces onto bleak-looking settings, mismatched furnished apartments and cars outfitted with scrap parts. Working from a screenplay that fills its basket with formulaic childhood traumas and fractured characters, William Maher’s emotionally flat directorial debut resembles an indie production that was more concerned with a shooting schedule and making sure that Charlize Theron’s garb elicits some of the brilliance found in her white trash role she won Oscar for. Concluding with a 5 Mph truck drive that underlines a false, manufactured sense of resolve, Sleepwalking does more than open old wounds, it creates a entire set of new ones.

Written by scribe Zac Stanford, the unassumingly titled has nothing new to add to the working class discussion, in fact, it borrows from several worn out storylines. Commencing with a white trash mother whose only sense of worth is by throwing her weight at the next available truck driver and then follows up as an irresponsible mother who drops a load onto her sibling with little means, once Theron mysteriously leaves the picture, Nick Stahl and AnnaSophia Robb have only drab looking backdrops to help them access the miserable predicament of the characters. From there we have the male adult whose emotional disconnect with the world is miraculously re-adjusted due to a kitten that’s walks into his life, the blue collar worker (Stahl once again) who loses his job because he can’t get the only electronic piece of equipment he owns in an alarm clock to wake him up in time for three days straight, the road trip formula with enough pocket money for cheap motels and gas, and finally the son who finally defies his mental torturer – a portion of the film Stahl’s visit with father Dennis Hooper makes zero sense.

With clumsy zoom-in shots that feature players drowning in their shortcomings, viewers’ patience will be tested when the characters wince out the various emotional cues, for the most part, Maher’s picture comes across like a rushed project and even a Woody Harrelson cameo is of little importance. Less interesting is Stahl playing Uncle – he has difficulty in playing a character whose is measured by levels of intelligence and docility. The film’s best sequence a mash up between Boogie Nights and The Royal Tenebaums’ younger imagined version of Paltrow’s character in her youth might make for a comical moment in an otherwise disheartening subject matter but it makes zero sense to the picture and is about as ill-devised as a the foreshadowing sequence featuring a girl surrounded by mean-looking trucks at a truck stop.

Choosing a road often traveled, Sleepwalking might turn off viewers due to its gloominess, but worse yet, is shortchanges the viewer by exploring no new territory and by failing to accentuate the presence of its core two actors and supporting players. In the end we are left bad parenting is a curse that is difficult to break.

Rating 0 stars