Doctor Sleep — Everything Must Come Full Circle

Doctor Sleep Movie Review

The year was 2000, I was in 8th grade, and I was spending the night with a friend. His family recently got a fancy newfangled DVD player. So, that weekend, his mother rented The Shining for us. Many elements of Kubrick’s work stuck with me in the years following. The movie still fascinates me. It was probably the first Kubrick film I watched (unless my mom showed me 2001, but I can’t recall).

During my time as a grad student as a film studies/cultural studies major, I was once tasked with taking on a 20-25 page research paper that was designed to be a brief “making of” look at a film or book (depending on your track in the English department). So, I chose Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. But, I can’t remember why—it might have been on a short, pre-approved list, or it was required to meet certain criteria.

I don’t always revisit movies just due to time and shear wealth of options. But The Shining is one I always go back to—it’s hard to escape The Overlook.

Dan Torrance knows the feeling. In 1980, his father Jack went crazy and attempted to kill him and his mother Wendy in that ethereal escape from civilization. Danny’s father was an alcoholic driven over the edge after taking the off-season caretaker position at The Overlook. It was a lot for a five-year old. After the events of that winter, Wendy took Danny to Florida as “they never wanted to see snow again”.

Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s 2013 follow up to The Shining, picks up after the events of Kubrick’s take on The Shining. The ghosts of the hotel still haunt young Danny Torrance. He doesn’t speak. Until he speaks with an old friend from the hotel. His friend tells him how to combat those ghosts, allowing him to move forward. And move forward he does, right into the footsteps of his father.

This is barely scratching the surface of Flanagan’s ambitious adaptation of Doctor Sleep. He’s quickly cultivated a name for himself as one of the most exciting horror directors working. With titles such as Oculus, Gerald’s Game, and the lauded Haunting of Hill House series, Flanagan has established himself as a horror film maker who knows how to tap into personal trauma and reflect that in the horrors his characters face.

Doctor Sleep is no different. At many points throughout the film, I couldn’t help but describe it as epic. Not due to the 153 minute run time, but the sheer scope and scale of what he’s attempting to do. The book clocks in at 531 pages and follows several key characters, including adult Danny Torrance, Abra Stone, and the evil Rose the Hat and the True Knot cult. Serving as writer, director, and editor, Flanagan wrangles all of these main characters and their plot beats into an impressively coherent narrative that allows each group of characters to have time to breath.

Flanagan taps into many of the elements of his House on Haunted Hill series. The focus on family trauma anchors Dan Torrance. Ewan McGregor is dynamic as adult Dan. He’s a man running from the ghosts of his past, literally. Dan goes to the bottle, and at times harder substances, to hinder his shine. McGregor brings a lot of sorrow and pain to Dan. Stuttering through his anxious social encounters in search of healing. He finds support with an AA group with the help of Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis). Billy sees himself in Dan, so he takes him under his wing and walks alongside him in his battle against addiction. McGregor’s transformation from struggling Dan to clean Dan is natural and makes sense as he trembles and stutters under intense pressure, the danger of a relapse only one bad moment away.

Dan’s story lends itself naturally to Flanagan’s other familiar motif, the ghosts of the past. Dan is haunted by the ghosts of the overlook and the sins of his alcoholic father. As a child, played here by Roger Dale Floyd, Danny is tormented by the woman from Room 237. As an adult, he is an echo of his father—a man fueled by rage and bottle. He struggles to keep these demons in control. This familial cycle extends to Dan’s shine. After getting clean, he connects with a young girl who has a powerful shine herself. Dan is positioned as a reluctant mentor in his own right. It’s a familiar struggle for anyone who has dealt with traumatic experiences. Becoming a mentor means he has to come face to face with the real demons that haunt him, not just the supernatural.

Flanagan deals a lot with the past, including Kubrick’s take on the characters. He recreates several memorable moments in prologues and flashbacks. The ominous score of The Shining opens the film over the Warner Bros. title. A slow zoom in from god’s eye on a clearing in a group of trees immediately opens the movie. Visual and aural callbacks fill the film’s run time—including similar shot compositions, musical cues, and costumes.

A lot of love for both King and Kubrick is on display.

While Flanagan covers a lot of ground, it still feels there’s a lot left on the cutting room floor. One has to wonder if a nuanced work of this magnitude wouldn’t work better as a short-form series. Flanagan attempts to mine the material, but he can only get so far. Leaving many interesting questions on the table, including the history of the True Knot, Dan and Wendy’s relationship, and the Stone family. But what he puts on screen is key to moving the narrative forward, and I don’t know what fat could be lost.

Fans of both books and Kubrick’s classic will find a lot to appreciate in this modern tome that Flanagan has presented. While it never matches up to the innovation or impact of Kubrick’s work, it’s a welcome addition that lovingly converses with Kubrick’s film and gives Dan a beautiful character arc that brings him full circle. I was quickly wrapped up in this tale, and Flanagan didn’t disappoint. I was probably grinning like a doofus at times as we went back to the world of the Torrance family, and then reflecting on myself and my own paternal relationship.

There’s a moment where Dan speaks of how, while receiving an anniversary chip, that he was finally, truly connected to his father. And I thought of my own dad, and how the only connections I can manage now are ethereal.

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