Insomnia (1997)

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WARNING: Review contains spoilers for this 1997 Norwegian film and the 2002 American remake.

Rating 3½

Directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg

Written by Nikolaj Fobenius and Erik Skjoldbjærg

Starring Stellan Skarsgård (Jonas Engström), Sverre Anker Ousdal (Erik Vik), Gisken Armand (Hilde Hagen), Bjørn Floberg (Jon Holt), Kristian Figenschow (Arne Zakariassen), Thor Michael Aamodt (Tom Engen), Bjørn Moan (Eilert), Maria Bonnevie (Ane), Marianne O Ulrichsen (Frøya) and Maria Mathiesen (Tanja Lorentzen)


When a teenage girl, Tanja Lorentzen, is found murdered in a small town located above the Arctic Circle in North Norway, Swedish police detective Jonas Engström and his colleague Erik Vik are sent to investigate. The world-weary Engström is unable to sleep during the midnight sun and during a bungled stakeout he shoots his partner, killing him, but attempts to cover up what happened, blaming the murder suspect, Jon Holt, a local writer of cheap crime thrillers. Holt witnesses what really happened and a game of cat and mouse develops, with the two of them setting up Tanja’s boyfriend Eilert, planting evidence to suggest that he was the killer of both victims.

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‘Insomnia’ is a 1997 Norwegian film, the debut full-length feature of its director and co-writer Erik Skjoldbjærg, who went on to make the English-language indie film ‘Prozac Nation’, which went through months of test screenings and re-edits and was finally released in 2001 to generally negative reviews.

An American remake of ‘Insomnia’, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank, was released in 2002. That film, its location transferred to Alaska, adheres reasonably closely to the plot laid down in the original, but it does deviate in some key areas. A number of extenuating circumstances are presented to explain why Pacino’s cop, who is basically an honest man, is driven to do what he does and ultimately he is allowed redemption of sorts. Jonas Engström is a very different kind of character, colder and not intended to invoke feelings of sympathy in us.

Some of the nuances of the Norwegian film are lost in translation. It is easy to see the incongruity of Clint Eastwood’s Arizona deputy sheriff Walt Coogan when he finds himself in New York City in ‘Coogan’s Bluff’; Michael Caine’s London gangster Jack Carter stands out from the crowd when he travels up to Newcastle in ‘Get Carter’; Crocodile Dundee is instantly out of place in New York. From my stance of general ignorance about the Scandinavian countries and the complexities of Scandinavian society it is harder to pinpoint the juxtaposition between Stellan Skarsgård’s Swedish cop and the small isolated Norwegian community he is sent to, although this is clearly one of the underlying themes of the narrative.

I like the remake, which I think is a very good film, although most positive reviews of this original I have read will tell you otherwise. However, it is interesting to compare the two films. The original is much colder and brittle, a rather bleak and perplexing film which I have seen described as a kind of twisted mirror image of film noir, replacing the dark shadows of that genre with relentless pale sunshine and white fog.

Review posted 4 May 2009



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Insomnia (2002)

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WARNING: Minor spoilers in the film description

Rating 3½


Directed by Christopher Nolan

Written by Hillary Seitz, based on the film written by Nicolaj Frobenius and Erik Skjoldbjærg

Starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan, Maura Tierney, Pail Dooley, Fred Dugger, Jonathan Jackson, Crystal Lowe and Katharine Isabelle


Two homicide detectives from Los Angeles, Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), are sent to a small fishing town in Alaska to assist with the investigation following the murder of a teenage girl, Kay Connell (Crystal Lowe). The underlying motivation for sending them is take them out of the line of fire during an internal affairs investigation of their department. They are met by local police officer Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), who has a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the cases of Dormer, a veteran detective who is revered within the police force. Dormer is unable to sleep in the perpetual daylight of the Alaskan summer and his mood darkens when Eckhart tells him he plans to give evidence to Internal Affairs in exchange for immunity. When Dormer shoots his partner in the chest during a bungled attempt to capture the killer, he claims that the shooting was carried out by the murder suspect, local crime thriller writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams). However, Finch witnessed the shooting and a complex game of psychological cat and mouse now ensues between the two.

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This was Christopher Nolan’s follow-up film to the critically acclaimed ‘Momento’. The executive producers were George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh (the director of ‘sex, lies & videotape’, ‘Erin Brockovich’ and others). Released into cinemas in 2002, ‘Insomnia’ was a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film. Although the film has a 92% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 166 reviews, I clearly recall generally rather negative reviews at the time from British film critics. It was suggested that the film was heavy-handed and too routinely conventional, a disappointing follow-up to its left-of-centre predecessor. Undoubtedly this initial reaction was influenced by Nolan working within the mainstream Hollywood studio system with a big production budget – and probably because the film was a remake. By the time the film arrived on DVD, critical reaction to it had altered considerably, which simply attests to the subjective nature of such reviews.

I cannot compare the film to the original, which I have not as yet seen, but it is very effectively staged and put together. The setting is perfect, although when I first watched it at the time of its cinema release I could not stop myself from making the link to the quirky American television series ‘Northern Exposure’. The performances are excellent. Al Pacino, who was starting to become prone to Jack Nicholson-style barnstorming and scenery chewing during this period, gives one of his quieter performances – a blessed relief, having shouted his way through ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ just a few years earlier. Hilary Swank, three years on from her first Academy Award and two years away from her second one, is very good in a role that necessarily plays second-fiddle to the two male leads. The real star here, though, is Robin Williams, brilliantly playing against type, just as he would do again that same year in the excellent ‘One Hour Photo’.

Maura Tierney, who played Abby Lockhart for ten years in the long-running hospital drama ‘ER’, is amongst the supporting cast. The Canadian actress Katharine Isabelle plays Tanya Francke, the less-than-reliable best friend of the murder victim. Two years earlier, Isabelle was one of the co-leads in the terrific Canadian werewolf film ‘Ginger Snaps’. Her co-star from that film, Emily Perkins, has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it walk-on role here.

‘Insomnia’ is an effective thriller with an interesting slant on what would otherwise have been a mundane story. It makes good use of the icy setting in which the sun never sets and the internal conflicts that eat away at Dormer, a scrupulously honest cop gone bad with good intent, is nicely done. It is, though, best not to think too hard about the plot, because holes do soon start to appear it.

The film had a production budget of $46 million and grossed just under $114 million at the box office. The two films Christopher Nolan made prior to this, ‘Momento’ and ‘Following’, had production budgets of $9 million and $6,000 respectively.

Review posted 6 April 2009



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