Doctor Sleep (2019) | Film Review

There is a striking dichotomy at play within director Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. As you weave in-and-out of the numerous narrative deviations, of which there are many, it becomes painfully obvious that Flanagan is attempting an astronomical feat as the story circles back into heavy nostalgia. Instead of picking sides – the book readers who notoriously rejected the original film’s straying from the source material along with King himself, and the cinephiles who worship Stanley Kubrick’s magnum opus to campy madness – Flanagan elected to instead attempt to serve both masters. It’s a fascinating stand to take, and one we’ll come back to in a minute.

Vastly unconnected thematically to the events of The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows little Danny Torrance as he grows into a man, complete with his gift of “the shine”, a psychic of sorts who can communicate with like-minded shiners as well as the dead. Like his father before him, Danny (Ewan McGregor) also carries a heavy psychological burden, one that he often manages to squash at the bottom of a bottle. Unlike his papa though, Danny vagrants his way into small town life and the forgiving support of friendly local Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis). Once Danny lands a job at a hospice giving solace to the dying and sets up roots with Billy’s help, he puts the bottle away and relegates himself to a normal life.

At the same time, a cult known as The True Knot is terrorizing the countryside. Led by the captivating Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), this hodge-podge of long-living hippies spend their days chasing “steam”, essentially the life force of youth. Preying on children to extend their lives and using their fear to hypercharge the steam juice, The True Knot are not a tribe to be trifled with. And they have just discovered a bright young shiner is out in their world in the form of Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran). As Danny learns Abra is in danger and establishes psychic communication to assist her, he leads the charge to setting up an ultimate face-off located at the home base of all of his greatest fears: the Overlook Hotel.

In terms of the story at play, there is no denying this is Stephen King at the peak of King Madness. A richly bonkers narrative rife with wacky characters and clever plot constructs abound, and honestly that is a great asset. In a world stacked with reboots and sequels that essentially mimic the previous outing, Doctor Sleep chooses to tell a completely unique story surrounding an already beloved character. Rose sensually snorting a bottle of fear juice, psychics communicating via both chalk on walls and mystical gateways, long parables on the meaning of life and death; there is no denying King is everywhere in this script.

Not only is King everywhere, but his words are surrounded by prestigious actors in their prime. McGregor goes full Jedi mentor as Danny allows himself to return to the world he swore off in order to protect Abra’s brightness. While McGregor doesn’t truly immerse himself fully and mold Danny into his own – we’re constantly reminded of the little Danny we knew – he does enough here to establish himself as sound casting to get our minds in the right place and focus on the task at hand, though at times I found his monotone delivery in need of a dash of energetic emoting. In addition, Kyliegh Curran and Cliff Curtis each complement McGregor’s relaxed focus well enough to establish themselves as characters whose inevitable plights and livelihoods are worth our concentration.

Then there is The True Knot, a maniacal clan of modern-day Mansonesque hippie vampires (but not really) sucking the aforementioned life juice out of anyone they choose. Though we spend a more than necessary amount of time with Snakebite Andi (Emily Alyn Lind), the only real standout of the group is Zahn McClarnon’s Crow Daddy. An actor who elevates every scene he’s in with a seemingly calm demeanor which reads like a mask for contained rage, McClarnon is always a stealer of scenes.

But truly the dominating force of Doctor Sleep, and the entire reason the film works at all, is Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat. An enigma wrapped in a salacious riddle, Rose is the most intoxicating serial killer ever put to film. Too often we witness endless victims of a “charming” sociopath that everyone who has ever wandered into any horror film in their lives should have seen coming a sequel away. They’re frequently cheeky and glib, and somehow manage to coerce scores of victims into submission with relative ease. It’s a ridiculous cliché at this point in filmdom and, as a rule, actors rarely pull it off. Welcome to the exception.

The very first second Ferguson’s Rose hits the screen, she’s a beacon of light shining for all to see. Her mannerisms are calming, her voice soothing, her chosen words provocative yet never alarming; Ferguson is so charismatic that I would have little concern letting Rose babysit my own children. Long a talent to watch, Ferguson is a full-on revelation each time she returns to the screen to bewilder and hypnotize us with Rose’s many charms. Truly a remarkable performance, and one I hope the genre-snobs of The Academy give a complete shot to at next year’s Oscars.

That brings me back to Mike Flanagan. To be fair, Flanagan (Hush, The Haunting of Hill House) is my favorite working horror director. There is no other filmmaker in the game who understands and appreciates how to successfully navigate these waters than he, and you can trust to never find yourself surrounded by cheap scares or unearned shivers in his hands. That makes what I’m about to say extremely difficult.

While respecting Stephen King’s novel in large detail, yet faithfully recreating several scenes of Kubrick’s original The Shining (a filmmaker I would argue did not respect King’s work), Flanagan has made the unique choice to serve both masters. It’s completely understandable why he would try: the movie is universally beloved, and Stephen King is the world’s most accomplished horror writer. Keep everyone happy, it makes sense. So why does it feel so…all over the place? Like a clumsily assembled workbench.

The problem with popping in-and-out of cinematic history like you’re Marty McFly lost in a Netflix vacuum, is that if not handled absolutely perfectly, it creates a loss of identity. Is this movie a stand-alone, or a sequel to the original? If it’s the latter, why does it feel more like the former, and vice versa? The main story performs so well when we stick with it, only to then sidetrack to little more than fan service which completely derails wherever we are in said story.

Perhaps it’s because the original Shining was such a standout visually, but every time Flanagan and company recreate another scene or find another actor who looks remarkably like the previous actors – regardless of how effective those elements are – it RIPS you out of the movie. At the very least, it repeatedly creates the illusion that we’re watching two completely different stories when our screen really only has time for one, especially when we’re forced to double down when we arrive at that Overlook Hotel climax.

Flanagan made a noble choice, but one that ultimately hurts the film’s potential to reach the upper echelons of horror films. The schizophrenic delivery aside, there is still a lot to like in Doctor Sleep. An original story with fascinating developments and sealed with the kiss of one of the most alluring villains from this decade, there is enough goodwill here to keep your nerves cognizant.