Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead 

I saw a reviewer on IMdb who hated this movie. He wrote that Billy Crudup can't act and "warned" that this is a "chick flick."

[sigh]

In the commentary by director Keith Gordon (remember him as the guy from Stephen King's "Christine" back in the '80s?), he recalls early screenings of the film in which guys in their teens and 20's just didn't get the movie. Women and older men did. The younger men were uncomfortable with the emotion shown by Billy Crudup in the lead role.

I certainly "got" this movie.

It tells the story of a romance that ends in Billy Crudup's 20's that affects him in his 30's. The unresolved nature of his relationship with Jennifer Connelly comes back to literally haunt him, in a sense, as he grows older. He misses her. He questions the path that his life has taken since they were together. Is he a sell-out? Slowly, he goes a little nuts agonizing about this.

Then Jennifer Connelly reappears...or does she? Was she dead? Has he conjured her? What's going on?

All of this is brilliantly played out on Billy Crudup's face. I'm dumbfounded by the remarks of that one reviewer who says Crudup can't act. On the contrary, I think this is the most emotionally raw performance I have seen in quite some time. Perhaps it takes some life experience to understand the subject matter here.

Jodie Foster, a producer of the film, describes it as "Ghost" for grown-ups. So if you are over 30, this makes for a fine film. If you are into the details of film-making, this DVD has one of those commentaries that tells you how shots were done, which sets were used, which locations worked better. Plus there's 45 minutes of deleted scenes. As the director says, that's almost 2 movies for the price of 1. So few people saw this in theaters, but it's really worth the time to see on DVD.