The Wake

At a time when pharmacies are akin to candy stores, appealing to those sent by their shrinks to help cure any and all ailments from anxiety disorders to Zoloft addictions, and the majority of teens getting high are doing so with the help of their parents’ prescriptions, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” searches for answers to life’s problems in other ways than pill-popping.

Director William Anrtz’s first film focuses on issues surrounding existentialism and why we are the way we are. The part-documentary, part-fictional drama, part-animation genre mix promises that this film is one of the more original ones you will see this year. The fictional story follows Amanda, (Marlee Matlin), who suddenly finds her world unraveling after she encounters the all-mysterious “rabbit-hole” of the stuff of quantum physics. Interspersed among the drama are interviews with a variety of scientists and experts who reveal their New Age, but definitely thought-provoking ideas and theories that loosely correspond to the story line.

At the beginning of the film, Amanda’s story is what captures the interest of the viewer and the interviews feel annoyingly out of place. But the story gets more and more outrageous as Amanda moves further away from her perceived reality, culminating in an absurd wedding scene in which frenzied people frolic and dance. Animated shots representing life at a cellular level offset a confused Amanda right before her point of enlightenment, the dramatic apex of the story. The toss-up of animation, documentary-style interviews and fiction, while maybe looking good on paper, translates somewhat poorly to the screen, ultimately creating a loose, awkward movie. However, the film’s strength lies in its message, the power of one to simply be.