[SLEEP TIGHT screens Thursday January 24th at 9:00 pm and Friday January 25th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
If nothing else, Jaume Balagueró's
SLEEP TIGHT offers up a
delightfully creepy set up. We're introduced to Cesar (Luis Tosar),
the concierge at an apartment building who believes he was born
without the capacity for happiness. Nonetheless, he wakes up each day
trying to find a reason to keep on living instead of throwing himself
from the roof of the building where he works. One might think that
sharing a bed with the lovely Clara (Marta Etura) should be reason
enough, but as we soon learn things aren't always as they appear on
the surface. Why does Clara treat Cesar as just a lowly employee on
her way out of the building, and what sort of transaction is the
adolescent girl Ursula (Iris Almeida) conducting with him? Even
though we get the answers to these questions fairly early, Balagueró
still manages to maintain a heavy atmosphere of suspense throughout
SLEEP TIGHT.
Like
PSYCHO and HENRY:
PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
before it, SLEEP TIGHT
offers its audience a sociopath for a protagonist and then asks us to
identify with him to some extent. Cesar doesn't possess the same sort
of innate likability as Norman Bates or Henry, but neither is he a
completely unsympathetic character. As creepy as we know him to be,
there are moments in the film where Balagueró manipulates us into
fearing he might get caught.
Still,
this is a taught, well made thriller that delivers sufficient thrills
and chills. The actors, especially Tosar, all do fantastic work.
Although Balagueró made his name directing the “found footage”
horror films [REC]
and [REC] 2, his
earlier films like THE NAMELESS
were in the vein of classic, stylish horror, and he returns to that
approach here. This is easily as slick as any Hollywood
horror/suspense film, and considerably smarter and grimmer.
That
said, even when we reach the end of the film, it feels like there's
some important part of Cesar's story that's missing, some implied
past connection between him and Clara that never gets fully
clarified. As much as I hate movies that feel the need to spoonfeed
everything to their audience, a little more information here might
have made a big difference. 3 out of 4 stars.
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