Trailer for the 2007 thriller Awake.
A psychological thriller that tells the story of a man (Hayden Christensen) who suffers "anesthetic awareness" and finds himself awake and aware, but paralyzed, during heart surgery. His young wife (Jessica Alba) must wrestle with her own demons as a drama unfolds around them.
Awake was originally going to star Jared Leto and Kate Bosworth. Scheduling conflicts for both stars led to the swapping in of Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba.
Although the film made a modest $32 million worldwide, it actually doubled its budget of just over $14 million.
Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba often seem like they are sleepwalking through their films, so it seems fitting they would star together to prove they can emote in a film called Awake. Hayden Christensen plays a rich guy who somehow owns half the city? I am not sure how the baby-faced Christensen could be believable as a guy who does his own taxes, let alone run an empire. I am not slamming the guy's intelligence, he just always seems to exude a sweet naïve quality which always makes it difficult to believe him as having any serious power. Hence, the whole Anakin Skywalker thing not working all that well for him.
The Awake trailer tells us what we need to know; Hayden has some sort of heart condition that requires him to go under the knife. He chooses his friend (Terrence Howard) to be his doctor because he trusts him, which he shouldn’t, and once the surgery is happening Hayden realizes he is still awake even though he is supposed to be put under anesthesia. But, oh no! Terrence Howard is actually planning on letting him die because he wants his money and he is apparently in cahoots with the dude from Short Circuit (Fisher Stevens). Man, it really must be hard out here for a pimp. The confusing part of the trailer revolves around the understanding of how anesthetic awareness works because the audience can accept that Hayden can hear what is going on around him, but why is he able to go out-of-body to explore the hospital and have visions/memories all at the same time?
Perhaps, the film will explain all this perfectly well, but I am not so sure it will be satisfying. The trailer features enough beautiful stars and intriguing qualities to muster up the desire to check the film out, but I can’t guarantee I’ll stay awake.
2 min 24 sec
Views
92,769
Posted On
November 09, 2007
Joby Harold
Writer
Joby Harold
Studio
The Weinstein Company
Release
November 30, 2007
Hayden Christensen
Jessica Alba
Terrence Howard
Lena Olin
Christopher McDonald
No Music Available