Insomnia

UK Release Date. 30 August 2002
Certification. 15

Running Time. 1 hour 58 mins
Director. Christopher Nolan
Cast. Martin Donovan, Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, Maura Tierney, Robin Williams.
Rating. 81%

Review.

Is Insomnia Christopher Nolan's most overlooked and underrated film?

Insomnia is the story of two Los Angeles homicide detectives who are sent to the Alaskan town of Nightmute to investigate the murder of a local teenage girl.

The haggard Detective Dormer (Al Pacino) already looks tired and exhausted as he steps out of the charter plane into the unforgiving 24-hour daylight of the Alaskan summer. Pacino's sleep-deprived, methodic, unravelling is spellbinding. Even his economy of movement seems to slow as each minute passes.

Hilary Swank and Maura Tierney elevate supporting roles. The former as the chipper, ambitious local detective, Elie Burr, and the latter as the warm-hearted and sympathetic hotel manager, Rachel Clement. "There are two kinds of people who live in Alaska..." she says, "the ones who are born here and the ones who come here to escape something else. I wasn't born here."

Playing against type, I felt Robin Williams was unconvincing in the darker role of novelist, Walter Finch. His portrayal of Seymour Parrish ('Si, The Photo Guy') in One Hour Photo released a couple of months later was considerably more disturbing.

After Christopher Nolan's directorial debut, Following and the breakout Memento, some may claim Insomnia was a vehicle to show a major studio - in this case, Warner Brothers - that the director could make the switch from independent neo-noir to mainstream feature and be trusted with a substantial budget. If that is the case, then the solid if not spectacular Insomnia is a success. However, when compared with some of his later body of work - The Dark Knight, Inception, Interstellar and Dunkirk - Insomnia does feel a wee bit run of the mill.

Incidentally, Insomnia is a remake of a 1997 Norweigan film directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg and starring Stellan Skarsgård. With my love of all things Nordic Noir, I would very much like to track down the original.