DVD Review: Waking Life (D)

Waking Life (2001)
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Wiley Wiggins
MPAA: R
Grade: D

Review by Scott Standish

Waking Life is a film that is amazing to look at but absolutely excruciating to listen to. Directed by the creator of Slackers and Dazed and Confused, Waking Life has garnered much praise around the world. I have to admit I was quite excited to see this title show up at my door. Unfortunately, by the time I was half way through, I felt like sending it packing.

As you probably have heard, Waking Life was shot on digital video first and this served as the blueprint for the animated version. This results in a truly remarkable look, a kind of tripped out "living paint by numbers" style that is perfect for the storyline.

The storyline here is that a young boy dreams that he is floating throughout town, listening to people espouse various theories about the universe. Unfortunately every character can't stop blathering about theories they have on life, dreams, death, etc. - basically everyone in this movie talks nonstop about how smart and insightful they are. First this gets annoying, then it gets old and finally, it's just boring. The boy seems happy to listen to these windbags drone on and on, but frankly, I think most people would walk out or at the very least tell some of these grand-standers to just shut the hell up.

How does the story move forward from this great start? Well, the lead character awakes, only to soon find himself back in the dream, or perhaps he is encountering a dream inside a dream, he can't really tell. So this goes on for awhile and then everyone he talks to gives various theories about dreams, existentialism and free will. What fun!

Waking Life's script is pretentious and the dialogue is annoying. My guess is that if this were released as a live action (without the animation) Waking Life would not have received the kudos that it has.

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