Wide awake was written and directed by m night shyamalan and it's one of the few shyamalan films i haven't reviewed on the other one is praying with anger which doesn't really have an official release and i have seen the film because of a vhs rip and that's not really on the up and up and so i can't really review it but i will one day if it ever gets an official release until then wide awake is the last shyamalan film i've never talked about so let's do it the film came out in 1998 and follows a ten-year-old boy named joshua who's going on a search for god after his grandfather dies he goes to a catholic school for boys and so he's surrounded by religion constantly one of his favorite teachers sister terry is played by rosie o'donnell she loves to use baseball analogies when she's trying to teach class this film went through a lot of production issues namely in post-production while watching the beautiful calming soothing family-oriented opening credits we're instantly greeted with all
God harvey weinstein the shit-stained monster himself produced this film and according to everyone involved was a nightmare shyamalan said that he recut the movie after he shot it rosie o'donnell said that he called her a slew of profanity in front of a lot of people and made shyamalan break down and cry when he told him that he shouldn't work in hollywood he wasn't up to it and he would never be up to it and just give up and all that
Strangely harvey weinstein is in jail now and shyamalan has made some of the most successful movies of all time so sometimes stories do have a happy ending but to indicate how much trouble the film went through in post-production it was shot in 1995 wasn't even released until 1998 so clearly there were issues and i can only venture a guess that it was probably because they wanted to make a very fun lighthearted film for kids and families that had some spiritual undertones to it obviously but shyamalan probably wanted to make a film and his movie is a lot more ponderous and far more adult than most kids films like this and sometimes that's to the film's detriment because kids in this movie don't really talk like kids granted these are kids in a catholic school for boys and so it's a lot more strict and the environment is sort of conducive to that type of language and they speak like adults and so there is sort of an excuse for them to sound so much more adult than they are but at the same time there are scenes where kids are just talking and you're like kids don't talk like that man because sometimes they're out of school and they're they're playing and they're just having a good time they're not looking over their shoulder every two seconds to make sure one of the teachers doesn't slap them with a ruler and even then they still sound way too adult so that's an issue with this movie and sometimes shyamalan's films can take themselves a little too seriously and his dialogue can feel a bit unapproachable and wide awake suffers from that what's the matter i think i'm having a biological reaction what and strangely early on in shyamalan's career wide awake was viewed as a bit of an embarrassment his worst film by far but after films like the last airbender and after earth wide awake is actually kind of refreshing it feels like a real film it feels like shyamalan is really trying to say something one of the reasons i never reviewed this film before because i reviewed every shyamalan film that i hadn't reviewed before the visit came out was because i felt like i couldn't really talk about this movie and how i feel about it unless i was honest about my upbringing and now that i've been very open about being raised a jehovah's witness and how i left that faith
That came with that it's a lot easier for me to discuss a movie about a kid who's dealing with a crisis of faith because i fully understand that and by the way i just want to say i have read so many comments and tweets and messages and emails and all kinds of just you guys are amazing thank you so much for the support and i am i'm just floored by by it and it made my my whole life thank you so much for listening for understanding for getting it and just being
Real about it thank you i love it i love you guys on with the review and young joseph cross is really good as joshua a kid who when his grandfather dies feels that he has to go on a mission to find god and ask him why things like this happen i find that very fascinating especially for a kids movie it's a lot more heavy-handed than you might expect there's a lot of sad scenes and very real conversations there's a lot of really serious
Dialogue for these like grade school age kids and while at times it can be a little unnatural i have to admire shyamalan for taking a swing like this so early in his career i would say my biggest issue with the film is that it can get very sappy sometimes a little bit melodramatic and corny there's a lot of long hugs with soaring music and sometimes it's just you don't really feel it julia stiles is in the film as well one of her earliest roles and dana delaney who i just want to say is like the best lois lane ever that's just a side point i'm just saying it's true i mean you say whatever you want but she's
Amazing as louis and andrea beaumont and mask the phantasm that's some that's some good voice work i'm just some i'm just saying man rosie o'donnell as sister terry surprises me in this film she's actually really good she's very likable and she is that type of teacher figure that every kid wishes they had just somebody that could very easily inspire you to make the right choices and and they don't feel like they're forcing you they're just showing you that there are things you can do in life that are meaningful and it makes sense when they talk about it post-production issues aside i don't really think shyamalan should be embarrassed by this movie especially since it was so early in his career is it as good as his other films no it's not he clearly hadn't quite figured out exactly what he wanted to say and do but as a film it does feel like a director and a writer in this case is really trying to make something that feels different from other family entertainment that explores spirituality one of the bigger missteps in the film though and i'm going to avoid spoilers because i'm assuming that a lot of you haven't seen this film shyamalan unfortunately confirms certain things where ambiguity might have been better besides that white awake is fine it's it's not that bad at all it's got good performances there's some really nice cinematography and even though there's clearly a lot of post-production issues i don't consider this film to be an embarrassment perhaps the way the director does i'm to give wide awake a b-minus but i also want to give a big thank you to the sponsor for this video skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people explore new skills deep in existing passions
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