Awake is a 2021 Netflix sci-fi thriller directed by Mark Raso, starring Gina Rodriguez as Jill, an ex-soldier and recovering addict thrust into the centre of a global catastrophe. After a mysterious event simultaneously disables all electronics on Earth and strips humanity of its ability to sleep, Jill discovers that her daughter Matilda — played by Ariana Greenblatt — appears immune. The race is on to deliver her to a military research facility before society fully unravels.

The premise has potential. The slow apocalypse of sleep deprivation — the gradual loss of cognition, the inevitable descent into hallucination and violence — should be fertile ground for genuine tension and dread. The general arc of these stories tends to follow the same shape: mass panic, social collapse, the formation of dangerous fringe groups, and the rapid unravelling of order. Awake leans into that familiar shape without ever finding a strong angle of its own. The result is a film that goes through the motions of an interesting idea without ever capitalising on it.

The cast is competent on paper — Rodriguez is a capable lead and the supporting roster includes Jennifer Jason Leigh and Barry Pepper — but the characters as written are difficult to invest in. Every relationship in this film feels strained in ways that don't generate dramatic interest, and the script gives the cast little to work with. The central mother-daughter dynamic, which should anchor everything emotionally, never builds the weight it needs.

The deeper failure is one of tone. A film built on sleep deprivation should be increasingly unsettling, increasingly hallucinatory, increasingly unhinged as the runtime progresses. Awake never finds that gear. There is no creeping dread. There is no escalating panic. There is just plot, executed dutifully, until the film concludes.

I will admit to something embarrassing in service of an honest review. I struggled to stay awake during a film called Awake. The irony was lost on no one in the room.

A premise with real potential, squandered.