Rating: 
Summary: Touching movie
Review: Such an experience of the strange ways love has. Sarah and Fielding are so involved in their own dream noble ambitions that keep their love, apparently, in second place (remember that Sarah always told Fielding he was her lover). But this is because they're so in love that want the other to succeed in their aspiring goals despite there's no place for both in any of these ways. (Sarah wants to help from outside the system -idealistic activist-, meanwhile Fielding wants to do it from inside -politics-). When Sarah dies, Fielding continues his dream, but not exactly as he wanted in first place...he'll be a senator, but not "the senator" he wanted to be...and he knows. Sarah's memory appears to make him change back and take up again the correct road. Even when you'll never know if Sarah is really alive or not, she is there for him and only for making him do things exactly as he wanted in the past, when he was a dreamer....the reason for why she falled in love with him. If you've never been in love, you wont notest how much love is implied in the last scene (don't have enough words to describe it), but you surely will say that is a kind of love that will last forever.
Rating: 
Summary: Waking, indeed.
Review: Jennifer Connelly and Billy Crudup are great actors. Both understand the power of subtlety and transforming a moment into something more, not just with words but with eyes, and intensity.
This movie does disservice to all of their skills but then again because of just how good they are both rise about the material.
The editing is choppy and sometimes Keith Gordon, the director, seems to lose focus of what kind of film he is making tonally, that is. When he allows the leads to sit there and talk on the train after a disastrous outing the magic these actors possess becomes tangible, just absolutely great.
This is a grown up romance that is portrayed and certainly more political and feiry than most, but it leaves a lot of questions to answered by the audience and that's rare.
The extras on this thing are awesome. The movie is worth watching but the extras really do great things for this movie. The deleted scenes are actually deleted story lines so if you watch this movie then quickly go to these scenes you get a whole new movie. There is a directors commentary that is actually informative not only as to the making of the movie but also the actors themselves. Most of the scenes, the really good ones, it turns out, are improvised. Good stuff. Good stuff.
Check this movie out and add it to your collection. If you love Jennifer Connelly this is your movie. If you love Billy Crudup this is your movie. If you love romance this is your movie. If you think the title means that this is a scary movie than, well you haven't been following along and this is indeed not your movie.
Rating:
Summary: So, so good...
Review: Some movies are so damn beautiful that you feel stupid trying to describe them. Waking The Dead fits into that category, along with Wings Of Desire, Paris Texas, and Double Life of Veronique. It's a love story with political subtext. It's a ghost story that may not be. Plot-wise, this movie is nothing special, but the way it's filmed and the music and the ACTING are all so frickin' perfect that it ends up being far more than the sum of its parts. A word to the wise: Be sure to get the DVD (as opposed to the VHS) because there's about 45 minutes of deleted scenes and some of them are every bit as good as the film. I can understand why the director felt obliged to remove them... the movie really would have been quite lengthy if he hadn't, but the scene where Fielding and Sarah go to see Sarah's parents and visit the house where she grew up really shouldn't have been cut because it's quite beautiful. Romantic, thought-provoking, and emotionally provocative.. Waking The Dead is the best movie I've seen in a long, long time.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent and Moving Film
Review: Fielding, the main character in the film, was raised in an ambitious working class household to have progressive values. He is genuinely concerned with others and aspires to political office "to make a difference." Fielding is very much in love with Sarah, who is killed in an act of terrorism. He is haunted by her death and, years later, when he is about to realize his ambition of being elected to Congress, he begins to catch glimpses of Sarah. Is it really her, or is it his subconscious demanding at the most inconvenient time that he finally confront his deep sense of loss? The film is unusually intelligent and moving. Kudos to the filmmakers.
Rating:
Summary: Okay...but not Amazing..
Review: A relatively unkown film by Keith Gordon, Waking The Dead stars bright young stars Jennifer Connelly and Billy Crudup. Hailed as "One of the most powerful romance in recent years" boasts Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, might be a little strong. Granted, Billy Crudup has a fine perfomance as our leading man and steals many of Jennifer's scenes, but the film is lacking a strong base which films like "Still breathing" or "Jerry Maguire" had with its strong writing and its well-paced cuts.
There are a few times when things really get going and the scene is cut (basically, the 'we understand so move on' theory of such films like well, every Nora Ephron picture) . Overall, there is a great story here. Unfortunately I don't fall for half of it. It's one of those films that while I'm watching it, I'm imagining the better film that it could be.
Jennifer is lovely as always, but can she act? Have we ever really cared?
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful and Haunting Love Story
Review: This has become one of my favorite all-time films. Billy Crudup gives one of the best performances by an actor I have EVER seen. (Crudup's phonecall scene that takes place in his kitchen late at night is heartbreaking, and i cant think of another actor who would've been as effective in this role.) The best thing about this Love Story is that it shows ALL Aspects of the main couple's relationship (including the fights, which a lot of bigger films AVOID). The fact that this film shows us the nooks and crannies of the their relationship makes its impact that much deeper. (Where most films fake a relationship through a series of skits set to a pop song, a la "Big Fat Greek Wedding" or ANY Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts Movie, this film actually allows its leads to have conversations - GREAT WRITING.) Connelly is wonderful too, remaining just mysterious and emotional enough to add heft to the "mystery" of the film. This movie was so sadly ignored by audiences and by most critics (maybe it was too real?), when all involved deserve high recognition for creating such a deeply moving and intense film experience.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterfully Powerful Film
Review: I just returned from seeing this film. I viewed it at my college's Film Club. I had never heard of this movie but I think Jennifer Connelly is a great actress, so I was eager to see another movie with her in it. This movie is a powerful mixture of radical and conformal political ideologies. I would go so far as to compare these two fields to Capulets and Montagues in the love story that is intertwined into the plot. What I liked most about this film was the artful taste to leave the end up to the viewer. In the end believe what you wish, only know this is a film experience to be had. Five stars all the way.
Rating:
Summary: Haunted by Love
Review: Jodie Foster was the executive producer on this very good film about a real love between two people which may even be strong enough to transend death. Jennifer Connelly could easily have garnered an Oscar here if anyone had noticed. For that matter so could Billy Crudup. This is a real film about real people, filled with quiet passion and heartbreak. The questions it poses are not easily answered. Can we ever forget real love and move on? Are those we loved still with us somehow after death? Jennifer Connelley is Sarah Williams, a young and bright girl with a heart to full of love and compassion to let injustice rule the world. She is trying to make a difference through her church's efforts in Chile to smuggle out refugees when a bomb explodes, changing the life of her lover Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) forever. What follows are shifts in time as we see the young John Kennedy like Fielding find true love with this wonderful girl who doesn't seem to fit in with his political aspirations. It is a real and tender love explored more fully by director Keith Gordon than we often see today in films. Sarah becomes the cricket on his shoulder, his conscience for all that is good. But years later he still can not move on from that moment when his life ended. It is as though his soul was killed in the blast as well. Fielding is about to become a congressman while at the same time unsure if he is losing his sanity. A snowy night turns dark and he feels Sarah in the snow surrounding him. He begins to see her watching him. Is it possible she is still alive? Or is love reaching across the threshold of death. We may not have any conclusive answers when this film is over but it is still satisfying. Crudup is terrific as a phone call brings him to the brink of a mental breakdown and Connelly gives a haunting performance as the love that saves him once more. How she does so is left up to us. This is a somber and beautiful meditation on love and how lucky we are to ever find it. The shifts in time are mesmerizing in this richly romantic and hauntingly beautiful film you must see. It is genuinely unique and never to be forgotten once you have....
Rating:
Summary: A Moving Story of Love and Commitment
Review: This is one of the most intelligent and moving love stories released in a long time. Both Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly are excellent in their portrayals of lovers with the same desires, but different fates.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely mesmerizing...Real life, at last!
Review: Very few movies remain in your mind long, long after the curtain falls. Waking the Dead shall be considered a masterpiece of historic, as well as behavioral standpoint. From mid 60's to late 70's, the World has changed in a way we - the baby boomers, cannot forget, yet we find an intense difficulty to forward those values to today's generations. As I was a grown man at the time, the film touches me particularly through the process of bringing back the political process in the Americas by then. Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Cuba and the US were in turmoil: in politics, in the Arts, everywhere. However, we still remained deeply marked by a certain blend of idealism, naiveness and a remarkable determination to correctness in every aspect of Life. Those values seem to have vanished in present times!
This said, it becomes easier to understand the script behind the scenes and the disturbances in Fielding's mind. Crudup's interpretation should have earned him the Oscar, but not alone.
Jennifer Connelly's Sarah was so real that has trascended her natural and amazing beauty to produce a couple in love which rarely exists today.
Their love scenes approached moments of ECTASY very few actor/actresses have the power to produce so realisticaly. Jennifer's path to her deserved Oscar with A Beatiful Mind was clearly set thereat.
One must have lived those experiences to understand that everything in the movie looks like watching tapes - of real life - long buried in his/her mind.
Thank you Gordon, for this movie!
Thank you Crudup, for your remarkable talent and for reminding us of cruel times and the victory of love over them;
Thank you, Jennifer, for making us forget your amazing beauty and concentrate on your mesmerizing Sarah.
An absolute marterpiece!
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