INSOMNIA Movie Review

A Swedish homicide cop (Stellan Skårsgard of Breaking the Waves and Good Will Hunting) is sent to Norway to investigate what appears to be the sexually motivated murder of a teenage girl. But the 24-hour daylight makes sleep impossible for the detective, and soon a disturbing, ominous and previously repressed side of the already tense and anxiety-plagued investigator begins to surface. Insomnia is an unnerving and creepy detective thriller that is that rare thing in the genre: original. Director Erik Skjoldbjaerg looks to be a serious student of Hitchcock's, and it's the psychology of the Master's films that interests him most, not merely “technique.” This clever little picture will stay with you, and might even keep you awake.

NEXT STOP… The Vanishing (1988), Angel Heart, Out of the Past

1997 97m/C Stellan Skarsgard, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Maria Bonnevie, Bjorn Floberg, Gisken Armand, Kristian Figenschow, Thor Michael Aamodt, Bjorn Moan, Marianne O. Ulrichsen, Frode Rasmussen, Maria Mathiesen, Guri Johnson; D: Erik Skjoldbjaerg; W: Nikolaj Frobenius; C: Erling Thurmann-Andersen; M: Geir Jenssen. NYR