Plot - Awake

Capital-investment firm chief Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen) is in love with a woman named Sam (Jessica Alba) but is unwilling to tell his mother, Lilith Beresford (Lena Olin), of their relationship. We later find out this is due to Sam being Lilith’s personal assistant. Clay suffers from a heart condition that requires a heart transplant to be carried out by Dr. Jack Harper (Terrance Howard) who had previously saved his life and is now his good friend. Lilith and her friend, Dr. Neyer (Arliss Howard), try to dissuade him from using Dr. Harper as his surgeon, due to Harper’s spotty medical history and existing malpractice claims. In the interim, he has to disclose his relationship with his fiancé, Sam. Lilith does not take kindly to Clay’s haste and asks him to wait until he is older.

Clay becomes upset and leaves with Sam, to be married in a private midnight ceremony with Dr. Harper as his best friend and witness. As Clay and Sam begin to consummate their marriage, Clay receives a message via his pager informing him of a heart being ready for his transplant. Clay goes to the hospital to meet with Dr Harper, where Lilith tries to dissuade him again and insists Dr. Neyer perform the surgery instead. Clay, frustrated with his mothers sheltering, brushes aside her concerns and proceeds with Dr. Harper as his surgeon.

In the operating room the original anesthesiologist is unexpectedly replaced by an inept doctor claiming to be from another hospital, this disturbs some of the team members and momentarily concerns Clay. During surgery, Clay encounters “anesthetic awareness” and finds himself fully conscious but paralyzed. To escape the pain, Clay has an out-of-body experience and uncovers a murder plot against him.

During his out-of-body experience Clay discovers his entire surgical team has plotted to kill him on the operating table. The failure or rejection of the transplant would prove fatal without a viable alternative. Dr. Harper is having second thoughts when Sam comes in to encourage him to go through with the plan. Meanwhile, Lilith anxiously awaits for the results of the operation. Sam tries to win the affection of her mother-in-law during her moment of vulnerability.

Lilith grows suspicious of Sam, and looks through her purse, only to find that Sam was a nurse at the hospital where the surgery is being performed before she became her assistant. During his out of body experience, Clay discovers that Sam worked at the hospital under Dr. Harper, and realizes that Sam is also part of the scheme. He becomes dejected, and, accepting his fate, walks to his home and awaits death.

Lilith intentionally overdoses and calls her doctor to return and save her son. Dr. Neyer returns to replace Dr. Harper and his surgical team with Lilith as a new heart donor. Dr. Harper locks himself in his office awaiting his inevitable arrest and Sam claims innocence in the matter, but Dr. Harper holds onto evidence of Sam’s presence in the operating room. Harper expresses remorse for his actions and does not try to stop being arrested. It is revealed that all of this was Sam’s idea in order to get Clay’s money to pay for all of the malpractice suits against Dr. Harper.

Although the transplant is a success, Clay refuses to leave limbo believing he has nothing left in the outside world after his mother’s death and fiancé’s betrayal. Lilith appears to him and reminds Clay that limbo with his mother and an afterlife with his drug-addicted abusive father may not be ideal. She revisits his childhood past with him and shows that during a quarrel she accidentally murdered his father to protect Clay. After Lilith convinces Clay that he is a better man than his father ever was, Clay decides that his life is worth living and leaves limbo.

Dr. Harper closes the film with a phrase referencing Clay’s blind trust of those close to him and how his experience will forever change that trust.

Directed by: Joby Harold
Produced by: Jason Kliot - John Penotti - Joana Vicente
Written by: Joby Harold
Starring: Hayden Christensen
Jessica Alba
Terrence Howard
Music by: Samuel Sim
Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
Release date(s): November 30, 2007