Awake (film)

Each year, over 21,000,000 people receive general anesthesia. The vast majority go to sleep peacefully. They remember nothing. 30,000 of these patients are not so fortunate. They find themselves unable to sleep. Trapped in a phenomenon known as Anesthesia Awareness. These victims are completely paralyzed. They cannot scream for help. They are... Awake.

Awake is a medical thriller by director Joby Harold, starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, and Terrence Howard. The film was released in 2007 by The Weinstein Company.

Clayton Beresford Jr. has a lot going for him. He's the heir to a powerful business empire, is obscenely rich, and is engaged to a beautiful, loving woman named Sam. However, he has two major problems. The first is that, despite being engaged for six months, he hasn't worked up the nerve to tell his mother that he has been dating her personal assistant behind her back. The second problem is that he has a bad heart... and without a transplant, he could die from a heart attack at any moment.

In one fateful evening, his fortune seems to turn. After finally breaking the news to his none-to-pleased mother, he and Sam elope that night. And then, while the newlywed couple prepare to spend their first night together as husband and wife, his pager goes off... and Clayton finds out that a matching heart has just arrived at the hospital. After they noticeably take their time getting to the hospital, Clayton says goodbye to his new bride and his terrified mother as he's wheeled off to the surgical table.

As the anesthesia sets in, Clayton thinks of Sam as he prepares to drift off to sleep, confident that he's in the capable hands of his surgeon and best friend Dr. Jack Harper. As the minutes go by, he jokingly comments the cocktail his stand-in anesthesiologist gave him doesn't seem to be working, but none of the surgical team pays any attention to him. He starts to realize that something has gone horribly wrong when he can feel them prepping the incision area, and his fears are confirmed when Dr. Harper slices his chest open and begins cracking his ribcage. Clayton is still awake. He can see and feel everything. But no one can hear him.

Then, just when he begins to push through the excruciating pain, Clayton hears something that chills him to his very core: his doctors are discussing their plans to kill him by making it look like he received a faulty donor heart. Trapped in his own mind, Clayton futilely screams for help, but to no avail. He's going to die, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

Tropes used in Awake (film) include:

Adventures in Coma Land: While Clayton's doctors plot his death unaware that he can hear them, Clayton can do nothing but relive his memories that led up to this point, scrutinizing every detail to try to understand what's going on. After the transplant "fails" while he remains hooked to the bypass machine, everything in his dream world grows dimmer and dimmer, until finally fading to pitch black.
And I Must Scream: While the anesthetic keeps Clayton totally paralyzed, he can hear every word spoken by his doctors and can feel every cut of Dr. Harper's scalpel.
Billy Needs an Organ: The story is centered around Clayton's need for a new heart, and the plot of his doctors to make it look as though the transplant was a failure. In the end, his mother (who was previously established as a match for his rare blood type), kills herself so that she can give her heart to her son.
Chekhov's Gun: In a brief scene near the beginning of the film, Sam grabs her mail and sticks it in her purse as she and Clayton are on their way out of her apartment. This becomes important later on when Clayton's mother goes through her purse after finding out that the transplant failed, and finds out that not only was Sam living under an assumed identity... but that she used to be a nurse, who worked with Jack Harper in the past.
Meaningful Name: One member of Clayton's surgical team is a young British woman named Penny Carver.
My Beloved Smother: Clayton's mother Lillith's over-protective nature is the main reason that he is afraid of telling her about his engagement, as he knows she would never accept Sam. She also tries to get him to drop Jack, his best friend, as his heart surgeon in favor of an acquaintance of hers who is at the top of the field. As it turns out, she was right on both counts.
Organ Theft: Clay and his mother joke about this as a solution to having to wait for his turn on the heart transplant list.

Lillith: "I'm serious this time. Let's go to China, try out luck on the black market."
Clayton: "Why don't we just go outside, grab some random person, drag him in here and, y'know..."
Lillith: "Sounds good to me. Drag 'em in and cut 'em open! Hey, whatever it takes, right?"

Starts with Their Funeral: The film opens with Dr. Harper lamenting the fact that while he has lost patients before, Clayton is the only friend he's ever lost on the surgical table. He then ponders whether Clayton was thinking of "her" that day, before the scene switches to Clayton and his fiance Sam together in his apartment several days before the surgery.