Sleepwalking

If you peer honestly at this film, it depicts familial dysfunction, and the havoc it engenders in children; they are the innocent creatures that are damaged irrevocably. They say all you need is one person while you are raised who attunes to you lovingly and with empathy; thats all it takes. When you are abused at an early age, you will lack individuation and psychosocial integration. Perchance if you have children, whether you want to or not, you will pass this information on, that is stored in every cell of your body. Braking the generational abusive cycle requires more than knowledge it requires healing. Nick Stahl is a great actor, who gets better with age, using little to say so much. The child actor is decent too.

Despite the mostly negative reviews I've read about 'Sleepwalking', I wanted to see if Annasophia Robb really did live up to what the critics have been raving the past couple months. And she does, in a huge way. With a natural presence and believable acting, Annasophia displays one of the best performances I've seen from a child actor/actress. While she did a great job in BTT and Have Dreams, she doesn't show any signs of the occasional stiff acting that she had in her previous films. Playing the part of the abandoned and emotionally troubled Tara is a very complex process that not many young actors can endure, yet Annasophia portrays her every emotion smoothly. Her chemistry with Stahl's character was convincing and heartfelt. At first I was a little bit on the skeptical side on whether or not her performance was Oscar-worthy; but after watching this movie, I immediately brushed said thoughts aside.

That said, this movie is James's (Nick Stahl) story, and he delivers. His performance really brought out the raw emotion that most of the film lacked. At certain scenes one could just sense the extreme pain and sorrow that James is going through as he grows more fond of his niece, only to see her get taken away, that and other aspects of his character makes a nice buildup to his climactic transformation near the end. Charlize Theron, though only present in a handful of scenes in the film, takes full advantage of them and helps create a truly believable troubled American family. Dennis Hopper is, well...Dennis Hopper. He can pull off playing any crazed and sadistic bastard in a snap and succeeds. Despite his character being as one dimensional as one can get, Hopper does a pretty good job making the film more morbid than it already is.

Positives aside, here is where the film gets it's real flaws: the story. Besides extremely powerful performances by the leads, Sleepwalking's story suffers from it's overtly dark tone and predictability. Yes, it's supposed to be a morbid take on abandonment and abuse, but unfortunately that's all there is. The characters stumble from one unlucky bump in the road to another without any real relief for them. Besides the budding almost brother-sister type relationship that James and Tara develops, it doesn't really stop the film from becoming increasingly bleak. And quite honestly, as much as I tried to defend it, I didn't understand James's notion to return to his abusive and bitter father's farm. Once he mentions going there in the film, especially with all the comments that he heard from Tara, predicting hell in Satan's frozen ranch wasn't very far-fetched. I enjoy films that are open to interpretation and don't give out easy answers. However, Sleepwalking's ending hardly even tries to put some sort of resolution. It's an all-throughout morbid storyline that DESERVED a true resolution, sadly it barely had one.

I enjoyed Sleepwalking. I loved the characters and the performances (Especially Robb and Stahl), but like the ratings that you've read throughout the web, it was just barely enough to carry the weight of a bland and predictable story.

My interpretation of "Sleepwalking" as extremely depressing may spring from the fact that I knew nothing about it when I started watching it. Charlize Theron plays down-and-out Jolene, who dumps her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) on her brother James (Nick Stahl) and disappears. James now has to reconsider how he has lived his whole life.

The wintry setting in this movie has the same effect as the setting in "Affliction": as bleak as can be...especially after what ends up happening after James and Tara go on the road. Definitely not a film that will leave you feeling good. Not to demean the movie at all; I do recommend it. You just have to understand that this is a VERY depressing one, exactly the sort of movie to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. I don't know whether or not you'll like it, but I still encourage you to at least check it out. Also starring Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson and Mathew St. Patrick (who played Keith on "Six Feet Under"). I assume that director William Maher is not the same as Bill Maher of "Real Time with Bill Maher".

You hate to take shots at a film like "Sleepwalking", which was obviously a labor of love for producer Charlize Theron, who called in a lot of favors and assembled a first-rate cast and crew to make this film. But as Yogi Berra once said: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll probably end up someplace else". Apparently there was so much self-delusion going into the project that no one grasped the slow motion train wreck that this film would become after a very promising first 30 minutes.

If nothing else "Sleepwalking" illustrates that the constraining factor limiting the supply of "good" films is in the pre-production area, where producers must grasp at straws in a field of totally lame scripts in the hope that a lot of hard work in the production and post-production phases can make something out of nothing.

"Sleepwalking" could be described as a sanitized version of Terry Gilliam's "Tideland" (2005). Both films are about a young person dealing with an especially traumatic childhood environment and there are a lot of production design similarities. But "Sleepwalking" trades "Tideland's" American Gothic "Alice in Wonderland" quality for a somewhat muddled but very sincere and gritty redemption theme.

This effectively eliminates "Tideland's" off-kilter fans as likely viewers and leaves one wondering who might find the last hour of the film worthwhile viewing. Maybe longtime fans of Joni Mtichell's "Blue" album could tap into it during periods of sedation. Mitchell's comments about her album fit quite nicely into a discussion of "Sleepwalking": "The Blue album, there's hardly a dishonest note in the vocals. At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn't pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there were no defenses there either."

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

I watched this movie today and I must say that it was absolutely amazing. It is drama by genre but most of the time this kind of movies are much better than we thought. With four amazing main actors this movie couldn't fail although only two actors, AnnaSophia Robb and Nick Stahl are keeping this movie so good. After Tara's (Robb) mother Joleen (Charlize Theron) leave's her with her uncle James (Nick Stahl) their lives are start to fall down. James gets fired from his job and social service takes Tara to foster home. One day James comes to visit Tara and by her request they leave the city by car in unknown direction. On they trip they would get more closer, and some events will open their eyes from a long dream. Nick Stahl is great as James. His character's childhood was abuse by his father as his sister Joleen. Charlize Theron is solid, but real star of this movie is AnnaSophia Robb. She has only 14 years old and already playing complex roles like this one. She is going in the right way by now.