Kerry Sandomirsky | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched the classic 2017 Lifetime film, Sleepwalking In Suburbia.

Why Was I Watching It?

I was watching it as a part of the #MondayMania watch party! We’ve been watching the Stalked By My Doctor films and Sleepwalking In Suburbia, along with being a stand-alone film, leads into the fourth Stalked By Doctor film. While I watched, I realized that I hadn’t reviewed this film yet so I decided to get on it.

What Was It About?

Michelle Miller (Emillie Ullerup) has a nice house in the suburbs and a successful husband (Giles Panton) but she also has a sleepwalking problem. At night, she’ll get out of bed, leave the house, and, while in trance, go inside someone else’s house and either have sex in the living room or join them in bed. She’s been diagnosed with “sexsomia.”

One sleepwalking incident leads to her having sex with her neighbor, Luke (Carlo Marks). Now, every time that Luke sees Michelle, he’s like, “When are you coming by again?” and Michelle is like, “What are you even talking about, weirdo?”

Michelle’s pregnant! Her husband is all excited but is he the father or is it Luke? And when Luke’s wife seemingly vanishes, Michelle suspects that there might be murder in suburbia as well!

What Worked?

What worked? The entire movie, that’s what worked! Seriously, this was one of the greatest Lifetime films ever made. It embraced the melodrama. The plot featured twist after implausible twist. The performances were enjoyably over-the-top and I defy anyone not to smile when the kindly doctor announces that Michelle has “sexsomia.”

Here’s the thing: sexsomia is a real thing. Now, if you look it up on Wikipedia, it redirects to “sleep sex” but this is a Lifetime film and it’s obvious that it was understood that “sexsomia” just sounds better than “sleep sex.” Was this film a realistic portrayal of sexsomia? Who knows and who cares?

The title was absolutely brilliant. Anytime you see the word “suburbia” in the title of a Lifetime movie, you know you’re about to see something special. And I have to say that the film made the suburbs look very nice. All the houses were big and well-decorated. No one in the Lifetime universe lives in a small house (unless they’re living in a trailer parker, which does happen on occasion.) That’s the way things should be.

Emillie Ullerup gave a great performance as Michelle. Her intense sleepwalking stare was one of the thing that made this film so entertaining. Giles Panton and Carlo Marks also gave good performance as two of the men in her life in her waking and sleeping life. The scene where Panton, as Michlle’s husband, reveals that he wants to handcuff Michelle in bed so that she won’t leave is both horrifying and slightly funny. “Not kinky!” her husband assures her.

Finally, the film ended with one of those out-there twists that Lifetime is known for. Seriously, when you’re in a Lifetime film, trust no one! The film’s ending was also open-ended enough that it allowed Michelle to return for Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Nightmare.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked! This is a film that relentlessly and unapologetically embraced the melodrama in the best Lifetime tradition! When I talk about the best Lifetime films being self-aware without being too in-your-face about it, this is the type of film that I’m talking about.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Wandering around in your night clothes in the middle of the night? Hey, I’ve been there! Of course, in my case, I was actually awake and I was checking on a cat. I have never broken into a house while just wearing a slip. I usually at least put on a robe before doing something like that.

Lessons Learned

Lock the door before you go to sleep. And the windows!

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OY5J11CWrE

Last night, if you were up at 2 in the morning, you could have turned over to Starz and watched the atmospheric 2002 mystery, Insomnia.

I have to admit that I’m cheating a little bit by including Insomnia in a series about obscure films that you might find on cable late at night. While Insomnia does seem to often turn up during the early morning hours, it’s hardly an obscure film. A remake of an acclaimed Norwegian film, it not only stars three Oscar winners (Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank) but it was directed by Christopher Nolan. Insomnia got a lot of attention when it was first released in 2002. But, doing an insomnia file about a movie that’s actually about insomnia was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

I should also mention that I didn’t have insomnia last night. I was up because I currently have a cold and I watched Insomnia in a feverish and congested haze. And yet I couldn’t help but feel that, somehow, that was actually the ideal way to watch Insomnia. With its ominous atmosphere and Nolan’s eye for the surreal, Insomnia plays out like a semi-lucid fever dream.

A teenage girl has been murdered in a small Alaskan fishing village. The chief of police (played by the great character actor Paul Dooley) asks his former LAPD partner, Will Dormer (Al Pacino), to come to Alaska and help with the investigation. Accompanying Dormer is his partner and friend, Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan).

Dormer has issues that go far beyond anything happening in Alaska. He’s burned out and he’s plagued by rumors that, in the past, he was a crooked cop. He’s being investigated by Internal Affairs and, shortly after they arrive in Alaska, Eckhart admits that he’s been given immunity as part of a deal to testify against Dormer. While pursuing the suspected murderer through the Alaskan fog, Dormer fires his gun. When the fog clear, Dormer discovers that he’s killed Eckhart. Was it an accident or did Dormer intentionally shoot his partner? Not even Dormer seems to know for sure. He lies and says that the murderer shot Eckhart.

Working with a local detective (Hilary Swank), Dormer tries to solve the Alaska murder, with the knowledge that, once he does, he’ll have to return to Los Angeles and he’ll probably be indicted. Because of the midnight sun, night never falls in Alaska and, tortured by guilt, Dormer cannot sleep. Add to that, the murderer knows that Dormer shot Eckhart. And now, he’s calling Dormer and cruelly taunting him.

Who is the murderer? His name is Walter Finch. He’s a writer and, in a stroke of brilliance, he’s played by none other than Robin Williams. To me, Robin Williams’s screen presence always carried hints of narcissism and self-destruction. Even in comedic roles, there was a transparent but very solid wall between Williams the audience. When he was shouting out a thousand words a minute and rapidly switching from one character to the next, it always seemed as if it was all a technique to keep anyone from figuring out who he really was. In Insomnia (and, that same year, in One Hour Photo), Robin Williams reveals an inner darkness that he rarely showed before or after. Finch may possess Williams’s trademark eccentric smile and nervous voice but, underneath the surface, he’s an empty shell who views human beings as being as disposable as the characters in his paperback novels.

Christopher Nolan takes us directly into the heads of these two enemies, with shots of the desolate Alaskan landscape seeming to perfectly capture the inner desolation of two minds destroyed by guilt and paranoia. (Neither Finch nor Dormer is capable of connecting with the world outside of his damaged psyche.) As seen through Nolan’s lens, Alaska becomes as surreal and haunting as one of the dream landscapes from Inception. For those of us who found both The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar to be so bombastic that they verged on self-parody, Insomnia is a nice reminder that Nolan doesn’t need a pounding Han Zimmer score to make a great movie. With Insomnia, Nolan gives us not bombast but a deceptively low-key and atmospheric journey into the heart of darkness.

Ironically, for a film about two men who cannot sleep, Insomnia will haunt your dreams.