Doctor Sleep (2019)
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Doctor Sleep Movie Review
Doctor Sleep is a 2019 horror film directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson. It’s such a terrific, wonderful sequel.
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“Alright, bitch-child“
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Struggling with alcoholism, Dan Torrance remains traumatized by the sinister events that occurred at the Overlook Hotel when he was a child. His hope for a peaceful existence soon becomes shattered when he meets Abra, a teen who shares his extrasensory gift of the “shine”. Together, they form an unlikely alliance to battle the True Knot, a cult whose members try to feed off the shine of innocents to become immortal.
First and foremost, I’ve not read the book, but I am certainly planning to after seeing this great film. In my opinion, Mike Flanagan should be congratulated the most for this film’s success. His direction is so fantastic as he had a hugely thankless role of making a sequel to ‘The Shining’ the movie and ‘The Shining’ the book, and he succeeded at both of these amazingly.
The overall story is very well adapted for the screen, and more on that later in the technical aspects. But the screenplay is excellent as it’s just detailed enough without ever being too meticulous and too unwelcoming for non-fans. It’s gloriously cinematic and honestly perfectly adapted.
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This is by far the most purely entertaining film that I saw this year. And the fact that it runs at two and a half hours and is consistently engaging and even riveting speaks in spades how great it is. And I adored how different it is from the original and serving almost as a whole new story that is set in this same universe.
I loved its superhero, action approach, but done right and never boring because the action here is never overdrawn as the fights are short and sweet. The plot is very intricate and incredibly rich with the mythology to it being particularly intriguing. The astral projects I loved, and the whole telepathy angle to it is amazing, and rarely has it been portrayed better in a film.
As for the Overlook Hotel, I loved how it looked the same. The production design was splendid, and the music on-point. They arrived only near the end there which was a great choice, and I loved the build-up to it, but honestly the conclusion is the only problem I have with this otherwise great movie.
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The villain was badass, though she could have been even more badass, but still she was amazing. And I liked how she died, but everything that came afterwards was quite messy with the obviously predictable outcome and rushed storytelling.
But my main gripe with it is that they chose to recast Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson. The former was okay, but the latter was honestly embarrassing. He only physically resembled Jack, but his acting was so horrible to the point of becoming cringy. I liked the scene, but the impact was blunted because it wasn’t Nicholson. They should have either computerized him or got rid of the scene altogether.
But let’s now talk about these characters. The movie features such stellar character development that I ultimate cared for every one of them and I was quite devastated when the good guys died. Ewan McGregor is reliably very good and so well cast in this deep role and his Dan Torrance is incredibly likable.
Abra Stone is such a badass young girl that ultimately I was quite disappointed that she didn’t use her powers more in the end battle, but before that she was so intriguing and powerful. I loved the relationship that develops between the two. I also liked Billy so much that what happened to him really hit me personally.
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The movie’s of course all about True Knot which is such a crazy, vampiric and honestly deeply unsettling cult that the whole film was lifted to much greater heights because of them. This is the type of villains I love, and they as a group, and the mythology surrounding them, were bloody fantastic.
Rebecca Ferguson has never been better than in the role of Rose the Hat. This villain is very over-the-top and sometimes even cartoony, but I love these classic, old-school Hollywood villains and she was right up my valley. Her immense power and willingness to go to extreme lengths to achieve her goals made her a formidable opponent, and Ferguson killed it.
Doctor Sleep is also technically stupendous. The score, the cinematography and the costumes are all top-notch. But in my opinion the pacing is so amazing and the editing is so incredible that the movie became immensely cinematic as all of those action scenes were cut gloriously for much creepier effect. As for the horror elements, the movie isn’t as atmospheric as the original, but it surely is scarier. It’s creepy throughout, but that one brutal child murder scene scared me how disturbing it was. Though bordering on bad taste, it was still very effective.
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Mike Flanagan should be congratulated for managing to make such a successful sequel to both ‘The Shining’ film and ‘The Shining’ novel, both very different. The third act was quite messy and the stand-ins for Duvall and Nicholson were mostly quite embarrassing and unnecessary, but everything else was excellent. The story is very intricate and so well adapted, the character development is fantastic and in particular Rebecca Ferguson killed it as the powerful, very entertaining villain. It’s a creepy movie with one child murder scene that is downright disturbing how graphic it is. The film is also technically stupendous with its editing being particularly masterful throughout. Consequently, whereas ‘The Shining’ was the impressively artistic, Doctor Sleep is the thoroughly entertaining side of this same glorious coin.
