COMING SOON
26-mile road comedy jogs along nicely
DOCTOR SLEEP (15) STEPHEN King has never been a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
But the novelist and the late director are finally reconciled in this creepy sequel.
Horror specialist Mike Flanagan honours both the 1980 classic film and King’s 2013 follow-up novel in this story of a grown-up Danny Torrance’s new battle with the supernatural.
Flanagan restages key moments from Kubrick’s film, including the seminal tracking shot of the little boy on the tricycle, the helicopter take of a misty lake and the manky old woman in the bathroom.
But he also lays out King’s mythology that Kubrick left largely unexplained.
Most of the movie is set in present day New Hampshire, where recovering alcoholic Danny (Ewan McGregor, inset) is using his psychic “shining” gift to ease the dying into the afterlife. This explains the nickname in the title.
Danny is a loner but he has an unusual pen pal in Abra Stone (an excellent Kyliegh Curran), a psychic 13-year-old girl who leaves him messages on a blackboard.
One day, he hears the board shatter as he sees the word
REDRUM in his mirror. Abra has psychically seen the brutal MURDER of a young boy and wants Danny to recover his body. His killers are The True Knot, a cult who extend their lives by feasting on the “steam” from psychic kids as they are tortured to death. Their leader, Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), has sensed Abra and Danny knows the girl is now the gang’s new prey. Where the first film was haunted house movie, this is mostly vampire flick with McGregor playing a reluctant Van Helsing. The use of lookalikes for Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall gives the air of a horror version of Stars In Their Eyes.
But smart writing and great casting make the two and a half hours fly by. working hours and fat wage packets. But as this is a film from firebrand director Ken Loach, we don’t believe a word of it.
The performances in this powerful drama are excellent and there’s a smattering of comedy, but it’s a grim watch even for Loach. and
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The to cover up her loneliness with humour but when a doctor gives her a wake-up call, she decides to give running a try.
As her weight plunges, her self-esteem surges and she realises that taking control of her life is more important than dropping dress sizes.
Thankfully, it’s not as cheesy as it sounds.
We want Brittany to complete the New York marathon, but Bell doesn’t make her an easy character to root for.