Some films make it their mission to make viewers (including Stephen King) physically uncomfortable. By nature, these are usually extremely graphic horrors – like “Martyrs,” “A Serbian Film” or “Inside,” to name a few – but there are exceptions. Think Pedro Almodóvar’s 2011 revenge thriller, “The Skin I Live In” or Gaspar Noé’s 2002 classic, “Irreversible.” And somewhere in between those two is Joby Harold’s “Awake,” a 2007 psychological thriller best remembered for star Jessica Alba that was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress in 2008. But the truth is, if you saw this as a teenager like I did, its gruesome medical storyline must have stayed with you even if your brain managed to bury it somewhere deep in your subconscious.
“Awake” follows Clay (Hayden Christensen), the son of a billionaire suffering from heart failure in need of a transplant as quickly as possible. Luckily, he knows the right surgeon, Dr. Jack Harper (Terrence Howard), a friend of his who is more than happy to operate on him. But just before he lies down on that operating table, Clay quickly marries Sam (Alba), his mother’s personal assistant, whom he has been seeing in secret for about a year. As the operation begins, Clay realizes that something has gone wrong with the anesthesia since he is still conscious and awake but completely paralyzed at the same time. While he is blindfolded and breathing through a tube, he can not only feel every physical incision made on his body, but also hear what his supposed friend and the medical team are talking about. And it turns out they’re discussing how they’re going to kill him on this table and make it look like a medical complication.
Awake was both wild and absurd, but it managed to capture the attention of moviegoers and turn a profit.
There’s no denying that Harold’s only feature film as writer-director was riddled with inconsistencies, medical implausibilities, stupid decisions, and poor acting. But its anxiety-inducing staging served as a kind of “you can’t look away” spectacle, so intense at times that it made your palms sweat. Sure, these days we probably see more nauseating moments in more realistic medical dramas like HBO Max’s terrific “The Pitt,” but back then, “Awake” had powerful shock value that kept viewers’ attention. If you could get past the often melodramatic acting and over-the-top plot twists, applying a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief, you could actually understand what Christensen’s Clay went through in less than 90 minutes.
Naturally, most critics lambasted the film for its cheesy and soapy direction, but general audiences weren’t so harsh. Despite the terrible reviews, Harold’s film became a mild box office success, grossing over $32 million worldwide against a rather modest budget of $8.6 million. Of course, it helped a lot that Christensen and Alba were both hot properties in 2007, with the former capitalizing on his fame in “Star Wars” and the latter dominating romantic comedies while also delivering a surprisingly impressive turn in Robert Rodriguez’s riveting masterpiece, “Sin City.”
The truth is that “Awake” had a bad reputation early on and was buried relatively quickly, but it’s not as horrible as it seems. In fact, if you’re looking for viscerally off-putting medical thrillers, this one might surprise you — or make you physically uncomfortable, at the very least.
