After a prologue that reveals a young Danny Torrance figuring out how to control his “shining” powers and capturing the ghosts that haunt him, we’re re-introduced to an adult Dan, played by Ewan McGregor. Detailed a bit more in the book, he’s basically using alcoholism to hide his trauma, and he reaches rock bottom when he takes money from a single mother with whom he just had a coke-addled one-night stand. He jumps a bus to New Hampshire, where he tries to find stability, joins AA, and makes a friend named Billy (Cliff Curtis), before getting a job at a hospice, where his shining power allows him to help people on the edge of death cross over. There’s a respectful solemnity to these scenes that emerge from Flanagan’s empathetic and emotional side. The idea that someone who learned through trauma that ghosts are real could comfort those wondering what happens after death is one that Flanagan takes seriously.
While Dan is earning the nickname that gives the film its title, we’re introduced to two new characters. Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) leads a roving group of powerful creatures who aren’t exactly invulnerable but have found a way to be immortal. They call themselves the True Knot, and they travel the country looking for children who “shine,” stealing their essence and feeding off of it. The idea that there are forces in this world that thrive off pain and misery, selfishly living off the greatness found within others, is a very King creation, and Flanagan doesn’t shy away from the grisliness here. In one of the film’s most disturbing scenes, the True Knot kidnaps a boy (Jacob Tremblay) and brutally murders him—after all, torture makes the steam he releases that much sweeter.
Connecting the Rose and Dan arcs is the character of Abra Stone (newcomer Kyliegh Curran), who is so powerful that she literally draws the attention of the True Knot and finds a way to psychically communicate with Dan. The True Knot could feed on her for generations or make her one of their own. Abra finds her way to Dan, and the two draw Rose and her team into a final showdown, which everyone who’s ever seen a movie knows can only happen in one place.
Flanagan and his team wisely don’t choose to visually emulate “The Shining” for most of “Doctor Sleep,” producing a film that looks a lot more like an episode of “Hill House” than the Kubrick original. The film has arguably too many close-ups and a bit too much of a cool gray/blue color palette, but these elements add to its eerie, twilight feel. Flanagan’s best work has a way of blending the emotional and the supernatural—things go bump in the hearts and minds of his characters as much as in the darkened hallways—and that makes him a good fit for a book that needed an emotional touch to work as a film. “Doctor Sleep” is often at its best when Flanagan is allowed to flourish and play away from both the source material and the Kubrick film. When he returns to the Kubrick vision, including actors playing iconic roles from the movie, it sometimes feels like “Doctor Sleep” is in a very big shadow.
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