# Wide Awake (1998)

### reviewed by
Oystein Brekke

    WIDE AWAKE (1998)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan With: Joseph Cross, Timothy Reifsnyder, Rosie O'Donnell, Robert Loggia, Denis Leary

First of all: Forget the tagline for this movie. It is for some reason trying to portray this film as a standard kids-getting-into-trouble-at-school comedy, when it is in fact so much more. Yes, it is funny, but calling it a comedy is an oversimplification at best. Somewhat like calling Shyamalan's later work, "The sixth sense" a ghost story, and nothing more.

The setting and time-span of this film is a year at a catholic boy's school. But fifth-grader Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross), has quite different things in mind than playing outrageous pranks on the teachers. That role is left to his best friend Dave (Timothy Reifsnyder). Just before school started, Joshua lost his grandfather (Robert Loggia in several flashbacks). The two of them were obviously very close, and his death has hit Joshua hard. The grandfather was a religious man, and firmly believed that he would be going to a better place when he left this world. Joshua wishes he was as certain. He is a very precocious kid, in one scene leaving his religion-teacher (Rosie O'Donnell in a mainly pointless humorous role), lost for words after asking if his aunt, who isn't baptized, will go to hell when she dies ("Look, nobody is going to hell, OK?" "You mean the Bible is wrong?" "...No, the Bible is not wrong." "I don't get it!"). So, he decides to go on a mission: He must find God, so that he can ask him is grandfather is OK. Of course, this isn't as easy as he hopes.

The quest for God soon occupies all of Joshua's attention. He tries practicing all the religious rituals he can think off, and not just christian ones. He tries to persuade his parents to go to Rome on vacation so he can meet the pope. His parents (Denis Leary as the father), and teachers worry, but are unable to completely understand him.

In spite of Joshua's precociousness, the film avoids the trap of portraying as nothing but a small adult. While troubled by heavy questions, he is still just a child. ("When my mum dropped me off [at the birthday party] she said: 'Try and have a good time.' Why did she say that? I knew I'd have a good time!").

The film is not perfect, the contrast is sometimes big between the school-comedy bits, and the religious/philosophical bits. Mostly it works fine though, and Shyamalan deserves praise for portraying children as thinking and emotionally complex beings, just like adults are. Cross and Reifsnyder both deliver good performances, and the narrative progresses in a natural and unhurried way. In particular the relationship between Joshua and his grandfather is brought across in a skilfull, and discrete way. It is a quite spiritual film, and it may come as a surprise to some that the writer/director himself was not brought up as a christian (he is Indian).

Who should see this film: People who are not afraid of religious subjects, people who don't mind some sentimentality in movies, people who want to watch a comedy with some more depth than Dumb & Dumber.

    My verdict: 5 (out of 6)

    By Øystein Brekke
    --
    oysteib@stud.ntnu.no

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