When Dreams Turn Dangerous
Before I Wake (2016) is a supernatural drama that softly tugs at the audience’s heart. Directed by Mike Flanagan–the maestro of emotional horror, as seen in The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep–does tell a ghost story, but also tells a story of love and loss and the cost of hope, depicting the way our wishes can become a haunting reality and how the past can always linger.
Nonetheless, Before I Wake is a stunning film because of more than just qualities. It also depicts the real-life experiences of the actors who, as in the film, were dealing with loss, and the need for renewal and reinvention. The film became a real emotional experience for the people who brought it to life.
A Child Who Dreams Too Deep
This narrative centers on Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Thomas Jane), a couple whose grief for their late young son, Sean, is still palpable. In a bid to ease their pain, they adopt eight-year-old Cody (Jacob Tremblay) — a boy with a gentle smile and eyes that seem to conceal entire worlds.
Initially, Cody is a quiet, affectionate, and sensitive child. However, Jessie and Mark soon realize that there is something extraordinary about him. While he sleeps, Cody’s fantasies and dreams take form. Filled with wonder, Cody’s dreams of butterflies and lights and the animated visions of his fantasies stream down to Jessie and Mark. However, they also encompass nightmares, and Cody’s dreams of the horrifying figure, “The Canker Man,” foreshadows the horror to come.
The beauty of Before I Wake is the tenderness with which it approaches the subject. It does not seek to shock, as is the characteristic of most horror tales, but it seeks to ache. It is a meditation on grief, a narrative about how healing memories can also destroy.
Kate Bosworth: Coming to Terms with Loss
For Bosworth, playing Jessie was more than another role, more than another part to play. After all, this was a career-defining juncture for Bosworth, who, in the early to mid-2000s, starred in memorable pieces, including the iconic ‘Blue Crush’ and ‘Superman Returns.’ After all, Bosworth had lost the glitzy allures of Hollywood, and Flanagan’s project was a chance for Bosworth to try something more personal. More intimate. More real. Bosworth was looking to shed her glamorous facade and Jessie’s character provided that opportunity.
Jessie is a mother who has lost a child and is trying to keep the pieces of herself in some semblance of order. Bosworth was not a mother then, and yet, she was able to discern the feeling of losing a part of oneself. In ‘Before I Wake’, she has spoken of, and tried to deal with, the fear of failure that, when passed a prime, can lurk quietly and invisibly about an onlooker of limelight.
Her performance is communicative, filled with a rare instinct but tinged with a sense of impending doom that paradoxically flows with a sense of restraint. You sense a terrible conflict in the eyes of a woman who desperately attempts to reach out and love, but is, at the same time, paralyzed with the fear of loosing it all. In many ways, Jessie’s attempt to ‘save’ Cody mirrors Bosworth’s own desire to escape Hollywood confinement and not be forgotten.
Thomas Jane and the Weight of Redemption
Unlike his character, Mark, was at a transitional point in his career. Having garnered attention in The Punisher and The Mist, Jane, with the reputation of a gritty, emotionally charged performer, was “stoic” in the case of typecasting. Like his character, he was also renewed.
In Before I Wake, Mark is a man who processes grief differently from Jessie. Where she dives into it, he dismisses it, and Jane channels that emotional distance with severe authenticity that perhaps is a reflection of his own personality.
He described working on a softer emotional film like this as a type of “reset button.” Prior to this film, he had rarely tapped into his softer vulnerable side. Before I Wake was, in a way, Jane’s way of defining the idea that toughness isn’t just about fighting. Sometimes, it’s about breaking open.
Jacob Tremblay: A Dreamer Beyond His Years
And then there’s Jacob Tremblay — the film’s emotional nucleus. Only nine years old during filming, Tremblay had already earned acclaim for his haunting performance in Room (2015). Playing Cody, the boy whose dreams and nightmares shape reality, required a delicate balance between innocence and terror — something only a naturally gifted actor could achieve.
Off-screen, Tremblay was just a shy, thoughtful child fascinated by storytelling. His mother often accompanied him to the set, ensuring that the darker themes didn’t overwhelm him. Interestingly, Flanagan kept much of the horror elements hidden from Jacob during shooting, letting his reactions remain genuine. The awe on his face in scenes filled with butterflies or glowing light wasn’t acting — those were real, carefully staged surprises.
Cody’s character, constantly caught between wonder and fear, mirrors Tremblay’s own journey as a young actor navigating adult emotions. It’s no coincidence that his performance feels so heartbreakingly sincere — it’s a child trying to make sense of a world too complicated for his age, both on-screen and off.
The Long Shadow Behind the Camera
A film can have a nightmare before the audience actually watches it. Before I Wake does a good job illustrating this. Filmed in 2013, it was initially highly anticipated it because of its emotional storytelling, and was shelved for years due to Relativity Media’s bankruptcy, and became trapped for years in a complex web of legal and distribution delays.
When Netflix finally released it globally in 2018, it was, for all intents and purposes, a completed product, with all the value of a lost dream. The cast worried it may never come out, and Kate Bosworth said it was “strangely poetic” for a film about dreams and loss to go missing for years and then be released so out of the blue.
For Mike Flanagan, this was the most personal project he had worked on. After losing a close friend during college, he wrote a script that captured the essence of that experience. For this reason, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Before I Wake seems so spiritual in nature; it is a tale where horror is a metaphor for mourning.
When the film became available for streaming, it attracted a bewildered but curious audience. How many were looking for horror, only to be surprised by the deep emotional heartbreak the film delivered? Its representation of a child embodying love, loss, and hope profoundly touched Indian viewers, particularly since Indian family bonds are sacred.
Fan interpretations of the film, especially the social media puzzle, “Was ‘The Canker Man’ a literal monster, or just grief made flesh?” showed the fascination with the film. Cody’s ambiguous character, representing either a a hope of a second chance or the danger of clinging to the past, also sparked a heated debate on whatever platform it was offered. The debate, endorsed by Flanagan, was of the monster representing “the painful memory we refuse to confront.”
In a world of loud jump-scare movies, the film’s gentle pacing and the horror of emotional engagement it demanded was singular. The audience was expected to think deeply, to confront their own losses in life, to experience the emotional horror.
Looking back on Before I Wake, its emotional DNA seems to echo through the film. The haunting beauty of the film comes from the convergence of the individual artistic grief of Bosworth and the splendid cast, as well as the personal loss of Flanagan .
The film’s journey was also delayed, forgotten, and eventually rediscovered. This serves as a reminder that, like Cody’s dreams, beautiful stories can come from the most desolate places.
In an age that glorifies quick achievements, the film, ‘Before I Wake’, is an example of patience, emotional honesty, and a willingness to endure. This is more than a boy whose dreams come to life. This is the story of the artists who envisioned and created the story long before it was known to the world.
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