Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Notable cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh
Curran, Cliff Curtis
Doctor Sleep has all the ingredients to be either an
unmitigated disaster or an unambiguous victory. Positioning itself as a follow-up
to both the book and filmic versions of The Shining while having to tell
its own, largely unrelated story. That’s a lot of juggling for any film, but
add to the metaphor that two of those flying balls are hand grenades, and I
mean that in the sense that director Mike Flanagan has to show proper reverence
to two masters.
The Shining, as a book, is on the shortlist of
absolute Stephen King masterpieces and is unambiguously supernatural in its
telling. There is no question that the ghosts that Jack Torrence sees are
literal, and the whole thing, although thematically and metaphorically about
addiction, is real and is really happening. The Shining, as a film, is
on the shortlist of greatest films ever made period, directed by a man who
never produced a single dud and is nothing but ambiguous about everything in
its telling. Focused almost exclusively with Jack Nicholson’s far less hinged
and sympathetic take on Torrence, this movie is an exploration of abuse,
isolation and madness, while maintaining the theme of addiction. Suffice it to
say, King famously loathes the adaptation, which is the final wrinkle in what
makes the concept of a Doctor Sleep movie so wild.