Doctor Sleep

There's always the conundrum, do you read the book or watch the movie? For me, Doctor Sleep was a unique case because I have never read The Shining (still working on it), but I blasted through Doctor Sleep. I loved the Stanley Kubrick movie and I am realizing I love Mike Flanagan's movies. So I think subconsciously I needed some space between reading the book and watching the movie. But I knew that social distancing provided the perfect time to finally check and see how it stood up to the book.

As usual, I'll try and remain objective, not solely drawing comparisons to the book, but with this one it might be a little hard because it does stray very closely to the book. If you haven't read Doctor Sleep, do yourself a favor and check it out, even if you've seen the movie because there are some pretty good contrasts to be made.

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to The Shining and follows the story of Dan "Danny" Torrence (played by Ewan Mcgregor). It's been close to thirty years since the events of The Shining and Dan is a recovering alcoholic who runs across a young girl named Abra (played by Kyliegh Curran) who reveals to him that she has the shining as well. So it's kind of a student becomes the teacher as Dan figures more about this girl and eventually learns that there is a group of weird vampire-like beings who feed on individuals with the shining looking for her.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Rose The Hat, the leader of this cult of vampires and I'm stealing this from a joke I saw on Twitter, but the biggest crime of this movie is that women are going to start to wear hats like the one she has on throughout the movie and thinks its cool and it's not. Only Rebecca Ferguson will be able to pull that hat off for the rest of time.

One thing worth noting is that Rose and her group of vampires, while they are the villains, are given a backstory and cause that the audience will be at the very least empathetic towards. They're still very evil and are no doubt the bad guys, but it was great seeing that on screen because I think in the book I kind of saw them as always outmatched by Dan and Abra. In this, not only do they manage to put the main characters on their toes a little more, but you sympathize with the reason why they're doing what their doing. By no means should you condone what they do, but it is a unique take the horror antagonist.

The movie is cast pretty well with Mcgregor and Ferguson bringing notably excellent performances. Kyliegh Curran is good, although I would argue she's written the weakest. The movie focuses a lot on Dan and Rose and their separate journeys and while Abra is a big part of the movie, I feel like they kind of rushed through some of her backstory and growth and left that to a sequel I'm not sure I want to happen. (I'll talk about that near the end)

One thing that really amazed me from the beginning was how closely Mike Flanagan adapted the book into film, while also paying a lot of homage to the Stanley Kubrick film. Adaptation is always difficult because its never clear what absolutely needs to get cut and what doesn't. But from the start the movie hits a lot of notes I didn't think they would touch. There are obvious cuts if you've read the book, but they're not any that ruin the story or feel like you're missing anything.

That being said, while I enjoyed how closely it kept to the book, I'm not certain everyone will. And that might be an issue with the book honestly, it takes place over a long period of time and they needed to condense the time period of things quite a bit to make things work, while also adding some elements that not only improve some of the criticisms I had with the book, but also connect it to the Kubrick film.

I think its pretty masterful in how the movie takes elements from both the Kubrick film (including some visuals) and both of the books, while also making some new additions to the film that in my opinion mostly improve upon the source material. You'll even see some familiar faces. This might be giving a little away, but the movie doesn't rely on de-aging or digitally photo shopping people's faces, they just get good actors who happen to look like characters you'll recognize from the Kubrick film to make that blend between the two sources pretty unique. 

It's pretty well known that Stephen King didn't like the Kubrick film and I think Flanagan wanted to embody some of the themes and elements from the book that Kubrick didn't include, while also remaining in a world that seems familiar to people who saw the Jack Nicholson film. If you're like me and like both the movie and book, you're going to like the Easter Eggs, homages, and additions they add to find a happy medium with this movie.

It should be noted that as far as horror movies go, this one is pretty tame. Again, part of that is due to the source material as this is one of King's books that focuses more on atmospherics rather than out right scares.

For me, it's perfect. I love atmospherics. For people looking for a scary movie with jump scares and everything, this is not gonna do much for you. Now I don't recommend it for children, it is rated R and it is a Stephen King book, but its definitely a little more of a thriller drama than it is a horror film.

I think one thing I was kind of conflicted on with this film is its approach on themes and character growth and development. Adaptations are difficult in general and this movie already had the challenge of adapting a sequel to a book while also creating a sequel to a movie and something needed to fall to the way side, otherwise the movie was going to be 3+ hours long and one improvement this movie does not need is more time.

I'm not saying the movie doesn't have emotional moments, I just don't think it was the focus of the film. The movie focuses more on the fantastical horror elements of the Stephen King universe (masterfully by the way), while also trying to pay homage to Kubrick.

But because of that, the movie breezes over some of Dan's internal struggles and even some pretty big questions of the afterlife that I would have liked to see more of. And even if they didn't hit the moments that I loved from the book, I do feel like they touched on some emotional moments of Dan's feelings towards his father and his past at the overlook hotel, but even that felt breezed over.

It is worth noting that there are a lot of things, especially near the end that might have a bigger impact if you've seen The Shining.

I love Mike Flanagan's work, but I am noticing that he doesn't always hit emotional themes out of the park as much as he could unless he's doing long form TV like he did with The Haunting of Hill House. But I also wonder if he was holding some of it back for a potential sequel.

I won't dig too much into this because it has the potential to be spoiler-y, but the movie definitely indicates Flanagan's willingness to stay in the Stephen King Universe, and I am all for that. I just don't know if there needs to be a "Shining 3", especially if a book hasn't been written by Stephen King. I didn't think there needed to be a sequel to The Shining, but I guess I was wrong about that, so who knows.

My point is, I like Flanagan in the Stephen King Universe. He did a great job with Gerald's Game and in totality, this movie too. I just want him on the right projects, not drawing from a well that doesn't need to be overdrawn from.

Overall, I really enjoyed Doctor Sleep. I was thoroughly entranced with the film the entire time and it rekindled a desire to check out more Mike Flanagan films and read more Stephen King. I think the movie does get only surface deep where it could have dug a little deeper and there is a slight inclining that some parts lighter than others because it was being set up for a sequel. However, I really enjoyed it overall and definitely recommend it, especially if you're a Stephen King fan.

But those are my thoughts on Doctor Sleep. What did you think? Did you read the book? Did you read the Shining? Did you only see the Kubrick film? How does all of it stand up in 2020? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog!

Thanks for Reading!