Light Sleeper

I probably should've seen LIGHT SLEEPER during its original release in 1992.  Even at the tender, wildly naive age of twenty-three, I would've identified with it.  Not a particularly stellar year for me.  I was still nursing the breakup of an engagement from the year before.  I was a college grad filled with self loathing and without a plan.  Job sucked, my attempts at relationships were all failures.  I had gained a significant amount of weight.  I was lonely most of the time.   John LeTour is also a confused lonely guy.  He works as a courier delivering drugs to upscale Manhattanites.  He still pines for his ex.  A career change is being considered, maybe to become a sound engineer in the music biz.  But he's not so sure.  Forty year olds do often switch gears to do something they really like, but typically after they've amassed some financial security.

Willem Defoe perfectly embodies this character in writer/director Paul Schrader's 1992 LIGHT SLEEPER, the title nominally referring to his insomnia.  As with previous Schrader antiheroes, he's a man depressed by the sights and sounds around him, looking for a makeover.  His dissatisfaction runs deep, into every area of his life.  He stopped using, and now perhaps feels guilt for contributing to the disintegration of others, including a pathetic guy whose apartment appears in more disarray with each delivery.  His only apparent family is his boss, Ann (Susan Sarandon), and co-worker Robert (David Clennon), who often hang out and order Chinese at her apartment.  They keep saying they also want to quit the illicit trade and go into cosmetics.  Life is bleak.

When Marianne (Dana Delany) appears one night, John sees a light, hope, a portal for deliverance.  They were together years before, both addicts.  She's moved on and cleaned up, and not sure she believes him when he expresses likewise.  He still loves her, that kind of love that makes your insomnia that much worse. He'll even make a recording of her outgoing message and listen to it on an endless loop.  That's what lonely lovesick guys do.  But she's made a resolve, even inviting him for one final night of intimacy as her way of finally closing the book on him.

LIGHT SLEEPER follows Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO and TAXI DRIVER in a sort of trilogy.  All three protagonists suffer moral crises that lead them to a life altering climax.  En route, a lot of soul searching.  Schrader evokes the ennui and existential dread in a mostly contemplative, low key fashion. At least before the inevitable catharsis.  The final scene will echo the other films.

The actors are very good.  Defoe seems to do relatively little, and conversely provides a deep portrayal, another in his long gallery of excellent performances.  Sarandon also nicely fleshes out a fascinating, ingratiating character.  One with a tough, Type A veneer, but quite vulnerable.  And very sexy.   Delany gets a nice showcase, particularly during a dinner scene with John in a hospital.  Too bad Schrader includes a reverse shot during that scene that nearly screams out the subtext at hand.  And ultimately, I was more interested in the somewhat vague relationship between John and Ann.  The film also includes amusing early cameos by David Spade and Sam Rockwell.

A few things work against LIGHT SLEEPER's success:

1) Some of the dialogue, which is indicative of ill advised attempts at oddball humor.

a)"That's quite an erection! I'm dripping!" exclaims Marianne to John.

b) From Ann, also to John - "What took you so long, were you douching?!"

2) The (embrace of) cheesy '90s atmosphere.  Perhaps unavoidable when the film was shot.

3) The simply awful songs by Richard Been that sound like third rate Springsteen.  Schrader uses them throughout the picture and it dilutes the mood every time.  Damn.  This could've/should've been a little classic.