The Midnight Session n°2 : Doctor Sleep

Dr Sleep by Stephen King, the novel following his shining, has been brought to our screens by Mike Flanagan who takes the gamble, not only to adapt the book, but also to make it a sequel to the cult film by Stanley Kubrick!
So is it successful? I tell you everything
this in this new Midnight Session.

This Dr. Sleep brings us back thirty years after the terrible events that took place at the Overlook hotel. Young Danny has grown up and is trying to drown his torments in drugs and alcohol, but he will meet a girl who also owns The Shining, who is chased by a group of hippies. Kind of vampire who feed on those who have this power.
By going to her rescue, he will have to relive certain events that he would have liked to leave behind.

From the start, the film sets us in the mood for Kubrick’s work. The unforgettable music, the plan of Dany on her tricycle in the corridors, door 237 … It is a big visual slap that we take with full force. Then we see these characters who are like two peas in a pod with the original ones:

• Young Danny is immediately identifiable;
• Then comes the turn of her mother Wendy who is the spitting image of the original actress ...

We understand after a few minutes that we are not dealing with a simple adaptation but a real work done with a sincere love of the Kubrick film.
The one behind it is Mike Flanagan, director of the nice Oculus and the most forgettable Ouija the origins. He had already tried his hand at the King universe by adapting the novel Jesse in 2017, but it was especially with the haunting of Hill House that the director imposed himself in my eyes. Superb psychological horror stories in which the director really seems to have found his way.

With this Dr. Sleep, he still succeeds in a rather daring bet, adapting the story of Stephen King who follows his own novel but also making it the continuation of the film which was not the most faithful, Kubrick having taken a great artistic freedom and had moved away from what King had written, attracting the wrath of the latter who had treated it with very bad adaptations but still recognizing that it was a very good film.
So there was a lot of work to come to merge the two works making concessions on one, the dead end on details of the other to get to create this masterful film that is Dr Sleep.
Mike Flanagan gives us an incredible film in which he also succeeds in imposing his own artistic touch without coming to denote with the film which he wants to follow.

The adult Danny Torrance is embodied by an Ewan Mcgregor, who during 2h30 of film will never make you doubt his role perfectly embodying the little boy become man, tired of these nightmarish visions and who tries to find a place in this world despite its difference.
For the rest of the actors it will be of the same ilk:
The young Abra is beautifully interpreted, the members of the band are all very charismatic, especially Rose the Hat embodied by a Rebecca Ferguson who literally bursts the screen by the aura she gives off.

Visually the film is superb, the photography is magnificent and certain visual effects such as Rose’s astral journey which will fly over the Earth is breathtakingly beautiful. At that time I even thought that It Chapter 2 could have provided us with something equivalent to present to us the passage where Bill leaves his body to bring his mind back to Pennywise in the Macroverse.
in short, this passage from Doctor Sleep is absolutely sublime.
The final, on the other hand, will only give you chills all over your body with this return to the Overlook hotel, with these plans which perfectly copy this from the introduction of Kubrick’s film.

I would not go into details but know that Mike Flanagan will even succeed in giving us the final that King had written for the end of Shining and which had not been kept by Kubrick coming therefore finished the history of the hotel and of dany at the same time.

In fact, the more I talk about it, the more I have only one desire, it’s off to see this film again, and you know what I think that’s what I’m going to do, so I’m not telling you more but really go see this movie, you will not regret it because it is really an experience to live! Right now good movies are still quite rare so let’s not sulk our pleasure.

See you soon for a next Midnight Session!