Rent Waking Life (2001)

Dream Logic, Dialogue Chaos - Waking Life review by griggs

Hard to say whether Waking Life is philosophising or just monologuing with a highlighter. Richard Linklater hands the mic to an endless stream of thinkers, stoners, scholars, and cranks—some animated as if mid-seizure thanks to the rotoscoping, which here feels more distracting than deep. One of those voices belongs to Alex Jones, which adds a layer of discomfort I could’ve done without.

The film is a cascade of “conversations” on free will, death, dreams, time, the soul, politics, love, and God—each competing to out-meta the last. It shares DNA with Slacker, but without the wit or rough-edged charm. There’s something admirable about the ambition, but the format turns even the most interesting ideas into academic mush. “The story is singular,” one character claims, right before another ten ramble in to contradict him.

It’s a film you watch less with your eyes and more with your eyebrows raised. Some moments catch a spark—but too often, it’s like eavesdropping on a university common room where nobody asks questions, only performs answers.

This film is Like being around your friends when they are drunk and you are sober, don't watch sober - Waking Life review by RC

I would not recommend this film at all. To say it is weird is being very kind. My opinion is that the film is nonsensical rambling that everyone can do without. I think it's one of those films that people want to be seen to enjoy because it's so highly rated - but not for the sober.

To be honest I didn't finish the film but I was very relived to turn it off and be released from it. No stars.

Turn On. - Waking Life review by Steve

Brain exhausting fantasy which features the diffuse philosophical diversions of a young man... who may have died in a road accident. The entire film represents his last eight minutes of brain activity after the body dies while he dreams of encounters with diverse thinkers and oddballs, real or imaginary, searching for answers to all the big questions.

So it's like Richard Linklater's indie debut, Slacker (1990). Only the live action is digitally rotoscoped to give the footage the look of animation, which overlays the far out dialogue with a surface of dreamy/psychedelic/wavy weirdness. Which is freakishly mesmeric. So Bradley Wiggins as the fading link character is painted over via computer software.

This was incredibly time consuming. But even without the enhanced visual component, it's so much better than Slacker, with more interesting and cohesive theories/conspiracies. Some of the same actors return, but we also get Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke briefly reprising their roles from Before Sunrise (1995), which gives it a touch of welcome class.

Linklater obviously expects his audience to switch on and concentrate; this is hundred minutes of dense, difficult dialogue. It makes demands... and flopped at the box office. But this cartoon version of the anxieties and daydreams of generation x in Austin, Texas explores a deeper, sadder consciousness, while the rotoscoping turns it into something new.