WAKING THE DEAD (USA Films) Starring: Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, Hal Holbrook, Molly Parker, Janet McTeer, Paul Hipp. Screenplay: Robert Dillon, based upon the novel by Scott Spencer. Producers: Keith Gordon, Stuart Kleinman and Linda Reisman. Director: Keith Gordon. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, sexual situations, nudity, adult themes, brief drug use) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
[WARNING: Elements of this review may be considered spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.]
On the off chance that the rest of the film hadn't already irritated you or bored you to distraction -- and trust me, it will do one or the other -- Keith Gordon's WAKING THE DEAD offers a special treat during its climactic scene. It's the scene to which the whole film has been building, a scene in which our hero Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) encounters his long-lost love Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly) -- maybe. Nine years earlier, in 1974, the tense but passionate relationship between social activist Sarah and would-be politician Fielding ended when a car bomb killed Sarah and two Chilean dissidents. Now, with his dreams of reaching Congress nearly come to fruition, Fielding is seeing Sarah everywhere, and has become convinced that she is still alive. Thus is the stage set for a confrontation between them that takes place ... in a Congressional office building.
The wrongness of that setting may not strike you immediately, until you consider the context. WAKING THE DEAD's brooding character study attaches itself to one crucial question: Is Sarah really alive, having stepped out of the way of Fielding's ambition the only way she knew how, or is Fielding hallucinating her as the manifestation of his fear that political aspirations are costing him his soul? The effectiveness of their final encounter hinges on uncertainty over the answer to that question. So rather than have them meet in a bedroom, or a park, or a church, or virtually any-freaking-where else, they meet in a Congressional office building. Where Sarah -- her life theoretically in danger if anyone finds out she's really alive, if in fact she's really alive -- just wanders into a Congressman's office. Without any identification. In the middle of the night. Any guesses as to whether a real, living person would have pulled off that tidy little stunt?
It's a truly logic-numbing moment, but it's indicative of why WAKING THE DEAD is such a catatonic failure. A tale of obsessive love-cum- insanity based on a novel by Scott Spencer (who also penned ENDLESS LOVE, and seems inordinately fascinated by obsessive love-cum-insanity), WAKING THE DEAD revels in its atmosphere of all-encompassing mourning. Gordon lays on the brooding score, the lingering close-ups and the ominous fades-to-white, apparently intent on creating a Phil Spector-like Wall of Despair. As a tone piece, it's beyond reproach; if you don't clue in to how WAKING THE DEAD is supposed to make you feel, you've probably fallen asleep.
Not that anyone could blame you. WAKING THE DEAD may do a splendid job of manufacturing gloom, but it's incapable of giving you any reason to care about its characters. Crudup and Connelly are steady, competent actors, but there's nothing they can do to make the relationship between Fielding and Sarah as transcendently life-changing as we must believe it was. Gordon has no idea how to give their ideological sparring any of the passion present when two people who love each other begin to realize they just can't coexist. In fact, Gordon shows almost no understanding for how to play his most critical emotional moments. When Fielding breaks down and confesses his delusions to his political inner circle, Gordon cuts away before there's a chance to see anyone reacting; when Fielding breaks down in front of his family, Gordon lingers on the tortured monologue so long there's nothing left to do but marvel at Crudup's inhuman cheekbones.
Gordon's litany of miscalculations adds up to a film that clearly wasn't constructed to build characters. Every supporting character is an afterthought -- wasting Janet McTeer, as Fielding's sister, should warrant some sort of fine -- but that doesn't explain why even the main characters are afterthoughts. In an ironic late piece of dialogue, Sarah warns Fielding to view her as a complete person, "not an image, not an idea." Images and ideas are all Gordon and company have in WAKING THE DEAD; there's not a complete person to be found in this scattershot narrative. There is plenty of atmospheric intensity, though, plenty of bodies wracked with sobs and plenty of evocative lighting and/or iconography. And there's a final confrontation that effectively evokes surreality. It's effective because there's nothing to ground it -- or anything else in WAKING THE DEAD -- in the reality of human experience. Certainly not the reality of wandering into a Congressional office. Without any identification. In the middle of the night.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 really endless loves: 4.
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