Insomnia

Christopher Nolan’s film remakes Insomnia, the 1997 Norwegian film directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg and starring Stellan Skarsgård; the screenplay is by Hillary Seitz. In the production notes, producer Paul Junger Witt says they never wanted a literal remake, that Seitz spent a year researching the fictional Alaskan town of Nightmute, and that Nolan became their choice once they saw Memento. Nolan says that where Memento unfolds in reverse, Insomnia follows its lead on an intensely linear journey. So it is no whodunit: Finch (Robin Williams) is not saved for the finale, and the tension comes from Dormer (Al Pacino) tampering with evidence to cover the shooting in the fog. Because his partner Hap was about to testify against him to Internal Affairs, whether that shot was an accident stays open. Though set in Alaska, it was shot mainly in British Columbia: Squamish stood in for Nightmute, the fogbound shore was a landslide site on Indian Arm near Vancouver, and the log chase used a Port Alberni pulp mill. Part of the opening aerial footage was filmed over Alaska’s Columbia Glacier near Valdez. A good fit if you would rather watch a detective alter his own evidence as sleep loss erodes his judgement than hunt for a killer. Not for anyone expecting Memento’s scrambled timeline or a last-act killer reveal.