Believe it when I say that I wanted to love “The Awakening.” Truth be told when I popped in the DVD for Mike Conway’s action science fiction film, I was excited and wanted to see what he could do with a budget of just six thousand dollars. While he manages to pull off some neat tricks with his budget that can barely feed a household for two for a year, “The Awakening” suffers from glaring flaws that bog it down in to dismal heights.
This is due mainly to the lack of real focus for the character Lara, who goes from submissive Cancer sufferer to dominant she bitch when her husband–with good intentions, of course–enhances her physical prowess and cures her. The treatment has more than successful after effects as Lara becomes basically a man hating psychopath whose own super human abilities turn her in to a melodramatic monologuing villain prone to turning on her husband and looking for men to beat up. Conway can never truly be sure if he wants to depict character Lara as a super villain or an anti-hero, as most of the film revolves around the script trying to empathize with Lara no matter what move she makes. She killed that guy next door because he was rude to her, so understand her.
She killed those guys at the bowling alley because they were rude. And she killed those men at the parking lot because they were muggers. So be a little understanding. While sitting to watch Lara’s misadventures, I was still never sure if we were supposed to despise her or empathize with her stance on all men everywhere. It also tends to undermine her imposing powers and costume when in the next scene we see her walk in to the kitchen to serve herself a glass of water. It’s all about pacing, and some scenes don’t have to be shown for the audience. With respect to Tamra Ericson Frame, her performance leaves so much to be desired, and it hurt the film’s believability when she can barely sell her character’s transformation over the course of the story. Her depiction of a cancer suffer was tolerable, but once she transformed in to an all out super feminist, there really isn’t much for her to work with.
And when she is able to flex her bad ass attitude, she is barely convincing. I’m not even sure why she needed to look like Dynagirl for the latter half of the film, either. But that’s an admitted nitpick. She delivers every piece of her dialogue with a stilted monotone, almost as if you can sense she’s muttering the dialogue as fast as possible before she forgets it, and that detracts from the inherent menace director Conway is trying to convey for the audience. Director Mike Conway does well considering the budget he has to work with, but when it comes to the most important plot aspect, he fails rather conspicuously. For a six thousand dollar budget, “The Awakening” is not too shabby; it’s an ambitious and sophisticated production with a well intentioned premise for what could be an amazing science fiction film with a larger budget. But sadly the performances, particularly that of Tamra Ericson Frame, bring down the excitement and distract from the story glaringly.