Waking the Dead - 2000
Director: Keith Gordon
Cast: Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly
Rating: 
It is a passive movie that never made it to the top ten or was a promised success from the day it hit theaters… a low profile movie indeed.
The title caught my minimal attention; but as I was watching, events intrigued me and I was eager to know what is going on and what is going to happen, then it ended and I was blown away with mixed emotions… love & anger, owe & sorry, peacefulness & skepticism.
It is about Fielding (Billy Crudup), an aspirant gentleman who has grown up to be unlike his family members that all seem to be ordinary. Success was evidently written on his forehead as he always perceived impossible dreams as regular feasible plans… his ultimate goal was to be the president of the United States. Destiny threw him at his brother’s office one day, when he met his assistant Sara (Jennifer Connelly). Sara was a rebel, she packed up her head with revolutionary principles and beliefs and consumed all her tiny powers to fight against a cause and to justify her reasons for being alive… her ultimate goal was love and peace around the world… a dream that was pretty sought after during the seventies.
Not long enough until the couple hits it off and find the missing part of each other’s souls. However, their other halves starts fighting and struggling to eliminate their opposites. All Sara’s liberal beliefs were clashing with Fielding’s future plans.
The movie doesn’t stick to this phase…. It moves in parallel with two time frames, the seventies and the eighties…. Therefore it is more of telling a story and witnessing its effect ten years later, right after it opens with tragic news that you will know the reason for it later on.
The movie keeps moving in parallel until events reach the tragic accident the movie started with…. Sara’s death! Then it catches up with you in the eighties and how Fielding became to be… a determined stubborn man with a fragile heart, tearful eyes, and a delusional mind.
Why delusional? Because he starts to visualize Sara in everything around him; feminine figures, distinct voices, & gazing eyes. Illusions take their full figure when Fielding starts to see Sara herself passing by him or looking at him in the eye then vanishing away.
I would have loved to share with you what happens but I want you see it for yourself and judge your own feelings towards it. I can only say that the movie has an open ending to the question of whether it was all real or bizarre. One can end up saying it is a tragic romance and another would say it is a heart aching mystery.
I don’t know if its crucial or not, but the movie has no sense of time, since it was set back in the 70’s and didn’t rely on any visual or sound effects so you won’t be able to tell if the movie was made in the 80’s, 90’s, or 2000’s.
Jennifer Connelly never impressed me as a person though she proved her supernatural acting capabilities more than once. In “Waking the Dead” she is so sincere, real, and repentant… you can feel her words, her tears, and all the love she had for her lover.
A movie that left something for me to think about… to value and appreciate, though depression is a granted feeling when watching it… if you have fallen in love with Vanilla Sky & Jacobs Ladder…. Then you must watch this one.
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