*** Spoilers ***
Chasing Sleep is one of those movies becoming very subjective for every viewer. Here are some of the questions that come to mind:
1. How many characters are real people in the movie? - Are the cops real? - Is the college girl real? - Are the neighbors real? At all times? - Is the pill prescribing doctor real? - How bout the worried friend or adulterer?
2. Where is the wife? - Did she leave the insomniac for the gym teacher? - Is she buried in the woods? - Was she disassembled and stuffed in the plumbing? - Maybe she never existed in the first place?
What are our clues?
* Based on clues, routine detective work would have focused on the husband early, presenting a search warrant that would have broken the chain of suspicious activities. Therefore, we conclude that the detective was an hallucination. As well, the 911 voice was unlike any 911 operator you would ever encounter. Which in turn would make the entire missing person report an hallucination. Which in turn makes the doctor fictional.
* The college girl. The odds are quite opposed to this reality. We know that the character may have been a reader of Hustler magazine, concluding his state of fantasy. Supporting this was the image of the neighbors lovemaking, also implausible. Maybe this supporting character was designed as a retaliation against his wife, returning adultery for adultery.
I think we get the picture, though not all questions are answered.
I see this movie as follows:
* The character has a REAL wife who is having an affair with another man. He cannot deal with the reality of losing his wife to another man. No doubt, he found the diary revealing how his wife really feels about him.
* He loses his mind and kills his wife, disposing her in the house plumbing.
* This depravity escalates into a state of insomnia, which in turn causes severe mental illness, spurred on by immense guilt.
* In this state of mental illness, the man is haunted by ghosts in his imagination. He tries to deny reality of what he did, yet all the more being tormented and confronted by his hideous deed.
* Most, or all, supporting characters are hallucinations, much like depicted in "A Beautiful Mind," except these hallucinations have a mission to expose a murderous mind.
* Ed Saxon finally realizes his depravity and is overwhelmed, totally disabled, by his guilt.
* Sooner or later, the real cops will come and arrest the character, charging him with the brutal murder of his wife.
Yet another interpretation
I give the movie a 6.5 out of 10 for my interpretation, and 4 out of 10 if the characters are not hallucinations.
Chasing Sleep is one of those movies becoming very subjective for every viewer. Here are some of the questions that come to mind:
1. How many characters are real people in the movie? - Are the cops real? - Is the college girl real? - Are the neighbors real? At all times? - Is the pill prescribing doctor real? - How bout the worried friend or adulterer?
2. Where is the wife? - Did she leave the insomniac for the gym teacher? - Is she buried in the woods? - Was she disassembled and stuffed in the plumbing? - Maybe she never existed in the first place?
What are our clues?
- We immediately start with an insomniac that may be sleep starved beyond imagination. See the movie "Insomniac" with Al Pacino and Robin Williams.
- Because of the character's sleep-starved state, hallucinations run rampant. The first obvious clue is the phone call from the detective stating that the wife was found dead in the woods; it is revealed that the vivid phone call never took place. We now have an opportunity to place the character's mental condition to that of the character in "A Beautiful Mind."
- Implausibility of supporting characters
* Based on clues, routine detective work would have focused on the husband early, presenting a search warrant that would have broken the chain of suspicious activities. Therefore, we conclude that the detective was an hallucination. As well, the 911 voice was unlike any 911 operator you would ever encounter. Which in turn would make the entire missing person report an hallucination. Which in turn makes the doctor fictional.
* The college girl. The odds are quite opposed to this reality. We know that the character may have been a reader of Hustler magazine, concluding his state of fantasy. Supporting this was the image of the neighbors lovemaking, also implausible. Maybe this supporting character was designed as a retaliation against his wife, returning adultery for adultery.
I think we get the picture, though not all questions are answered.
I see this movie as follows:
* The character has a REAL wife who is having an affair with another man. He cannot deal with the reality of losing his wife to another man. No doubt, he found the diary revealing how his wife really feels about him.
* He loses his mind and kills his wife, disposing her in the house plumbing.
* This depravity escalates into a state of insomnia, which in turn causes severe mental illness, spurred on by immense guilt.
* In this state of mental illness, the man is haunted by ghosts in his imagination. He tries to deny reality of what he did, yet all the more being tormented and confronted by his hideous deed.
* Most, or all, supporting characters are hallucinations, much like depicted in "A Beautiful Mind," except these hallucinations have a mission to expose a murderous mind.
* Ed Saxon finally realizes his depravity and is overwhelmed, totally disabled, by his guilt.
* Sooner or later, the real cops will come and arrest the character, charging him with the brutal murder of his wife.
Yet another interpretation
I give the movie a 6.5 out of 10 for my interpretation, and 4 out of 10 if the characters are not hallucinations.