Reviews 
 

Doctor Sleep

Cult Classic

By Muhammad Ali Khan | January 2020

‘Doctor Sleep’ is an adaptation of Stephen King’s 2013 follow-up novel ‘The Shining’, a cult that Stanley Kubrick adapted in 1980. Not many people would remember the boy Danny Torrance in the story as he was the least engaging character but ‘Doctor Sleep’, a belated sequel to ‘The Shining’, wants people to review their memories and think about Danny’s fate. Combining the works of King and Kubrick, the film makes successful changes and presents an intense drama journey full of horror and magic. Director Mike Flanagan, most popular for his Netflix production ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, very brilliantly pulls off this difficult blend of legacies. He makes major changes to the source material and comes out illustrating again what a confident and interesting filmmaker he can be.

The story unfolds forty years after the terrifying events of Stephen King’s book where Danny Torrance, having telepathic abilities known as ‘the shining’ that enable him to read minds and predict the future, escapes the haunted halls of the Overlook Hotel with his mother and a handful of ghosts in tow. Flanagan narrates the story in his style through the eyes of an adult Danny (Ewan McGregor), now Dan, who as a child was terrorized by demons.

Dan is now using alcoholism to hide his trauma and reaches a point where he takes money from a single mother whom he finds dead next to him after a one-night stand. He then decides to rebuild his life and winds up in New Hampshire where he finds a job as an orderly at a hospice clinic and uses his shining power to ease people at the edge of death. One of his patients even nicknames him as ‘Doctor Sleep’ and, with their ease, he finds peace. Soon he makes a friend Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis) and joins Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings led by Dr John Dalton (Bruce Greenwood) to quit drinking. During the sessions with Dr Dalton, he meets a girl Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran) who possesses psychic powers that shine even brighter than his.

Things begin to shatter when Abra accidentally gets the attention of the True Knot, a group of powerful creatures who feed off the shine of innocents in their quest for immortality. The group, led by their blue-eyed leader Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), keeps the ghosts of the people they target in silver canisters. In a scene where they despoil a frightened young boy for his essence, is nightmare-inducing. With Abra in danger, Dan confronts his trauma and uses his powers while reawakening the ghosts of the past. His idea is to attract the True Knot to the Overlook Hotel where the ghosts of the hotel give them a taste of their own medicine. Thus, Abra and Danny draw Rose and her team into a final showdown.

The film blends emotional and supernatural events and enhances the role of the characters. Ewan McGregor brings out the emotional and fearful Dan as a character who battles to overcome his past while helping others to heal through his powers. He sells the heavy baggage that he carries with him everywhere and demonstrates a powerful inner-strength. Kyliegh Curran as Abra, a young but confident girl, shows her bravery and infuses her role with impressive charisma and energy. She nicely complements Dan as they both share the same power.

Cliff Curtis as the friend Billy, also Dan’s AA sponsor, adds additional warmth to the film but the best thing about it is Rebecca Ferguson as Rose the Hat. She turns a thin character into a great villain, someone who uses her good looks and charisma to disguise her evil intentions of killing children with nary a second thought. People will remember her as one of the all-time great cinematic Stephen King villains right alongside the likes of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance, Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes, Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise The Clown and Clancy Brown’s Captain Hadley. Rebecca gives her career-best in ‘Doctor Sleep’.

Flanagan doesn’t emphasise his connections to the rest of King’s work but his film encompasses so many of the author’s obsessions like cats, psychics and missing children that it prompts viewers to ask if the events of ‘Carrie’, ‘The Dead Zone’, ‘Cat’s Eye’ and ‘Pet Sematary’ all consist of the same fictional universe? Flanagan, while portraying more closely the novelist’s ideas about evil, innocence and addiction, also pays tribute to some of Kubrick’s visual signatures, especially in flashbacks that take grown-up Dan back to the Overlook. Michael Fimognari’s cinematography and The Newton Brothers’ score give the film a chilly look and atmosphere.

‘Doctor Sleep’ makes for a sombre reflection on the lingering effects of childhood trauma and addiction by way of the horror genre. Credible in its characterisation, rich in mythological detail and touchingly sincere in its treatment of alcoholism and trauma, the film is impressive in all sorts of ways. The climax is eerie and satisfying but its greatest achievement is that it makes ‘The Shining’ seem like a prequel and you feel glad that you got to see that sinister funhouse again.

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