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Customer Reviews of Waking the Dead

One of cinema's best love stories!
This movie gets an A+ in everything--casting, cinematography, plot, originality...I could go on! This is the kind of movie you'll think about for days! You'll curse yourself for not renting it sooner! Sarah and Fielding have become one of my favorite fictional couples in just one viewing of the film. Sarah's an idealistic political activist working with the church to help those less fortunate. Fielding is a politician who wants to help people LEGALLY. Both wanting to help make the world better or "as close to perfection as possible," the couple sometimes disagrees on how to go about this task. Yet, Fielding and Sarah overcome separation and political differences to form one of the most beautiful relationships in film history. Jennifer Connelly and Billy Crudup deserve Oscars for their stunning performances. Every word spoken is compelling and believable. Even if you're not into politics or sad tales, you can still enjoy the wonderful romance and intrigue of this movie. This is a contempory masterpiece!

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Crudup at his absolute best
The film itself, the style and political aspect/theme, did not impress me. There's nothing particularly compelling about the flashbacks-style wise-that drive the story. But what sets this film apart from others, what motivated me to keep watching, was Billy Crudup. Granted, I'm incredibly taken with this outstanding actor, but his performance in *Waking the Dead* surprised even me.

Crudup would have been the finest of actors in the days of silent movies because his facial expressions are exquisite. He need never speak a word and yet you would swear that you felt every emotion that his character felt right along with him. In my mind there is no one comparable to him in this regard. Perhaps it is just that he has this truly remarkable presence. You want to watch him no matter what subject he is dealing with on screen because he somehow makes you care.

Aside from his acting, or perhaps more aptly *because* of it, this movie is painfully, beautifully, intimate. At times it felt like I was witnessing things I had no right to. And because of that atmosphere I knew I had to own it within twenty-four hours of viewing it.

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Superb, but as usual, less than the book it was based upon
I read "Waking the Dead" a few months before watching the movie. I was thus certainly biased in a certain direction in favor of the book.

Keith Gordon, who also directed the outstanding and under-appreciated films "A Midnight Clear" and "Mother Night", stays pretty much faithful to the original material by Scott Spencer. It's obvious that films are different than books and directors need a certain amount lattitude to change the story as needed. Gordon certainly left a lot of the story on the cutting room floor and that is, for the most part, not a problem.

What is the problem is that Gordon didn't flesh out Sarah's story and, as a result, offers a skewed ending that the book doesn't share.

Sarah and Fielding are not "opposites" as many suggest. They happen to agree politically. They're both "liberals." Where they disagree is on tactics. The problem with the film is that we don't really see enough of Sarah to understand just how different her tactics are compared to Fielding and why, ultimately, she chose to go away. The movie's ending is ambiguious about the fate of Sarah. Did she die or didn't she? The book shares some of this approach, but it strongly leans in the direction of Sarah having faked her death. In the book Fielding meets with a priest who states that Sarah is alive. And when Sarah and Fielding finally meet at the end Sarah explains how she is living underground and continuing her work. We're given, at least in the text, a reason why Sarah chose the path that she did. Gordon, however, mostly gives us Fielding's side of things. In the process he detracts from the central conflict and ends up with a rather wishy-washy ending.

I strongly recommend this film. The DVD has many interesting extras, including many deleted scenes and a commentary by Gordon. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything on the DVD from the original author, Scott Spencer. That's too bad because I think he could have added some really interesting insights about the story overall. And of course, read the book which is, as usual, even better than the movie.