DVD Review: Sublime, the Thinking Person’s Thriller

If while you’re dreaming you fall and hit the ground, do you die? That is just one of many questions posed by Sublime, from Warner Home Video and Raw Feed, directed by Tony Krantz (whose credits include executive producer for TV’s 24, Felicity, and Sports Night and producer of the film Mulholland Drive) and written by Erik Jendresen.

On the surface, the plot centers around George Grieves (played by Thomas Cavanagh, who garnered fame in TV’s Ed and later Love Monkey), who has a beautiful wife, Jenny, (portrayed by Kathleen York of TV’s Desperate Housewives and The West Wing), two teenage children, and a gorgeous home that could easily grace the cover of Town & Country magazine.

It seems that George has been quite successful in the information technology industry, so successful, in fact, that Jenny quit her job to raise their kids and now seems a bit beside herself as empty nest syndrome nears. On George’s 40th birthday, a group of his friends gather together to celebrate with the Grieves, a group that includes George’s globe-trotting brother, Billy (David Clayton Rogers), who may or may not have been invited to the celebration.

After re-creating the Last Supper for a photograph (with George as Jesus and his wife as Judas), the gifts, some more unusual than others, are opened while talk turns to hospitals, malpractice, surgeries and iatrogenic illness (complications caused by medical treatment).

And did I forget to mention that all of this is on the eve before George’s post-birthday colonoscopy?

Before the procedure, there seems to be some name mix-up, as the doctor and nurse mispronounce George’s last name before being corrected more than once. Then, before George is whisked away to the procedure, his leg is scraped on the wheel chair. From there, the film takes a strange turn, as George wakes to find everything just a little off center.

The film flashes back to George’s birthday and all the events leading up to his admission to the hospital. But it is in the present that George is disoriented as days, then weeks, seem to slip by with the blink of an eye.

Article Author: writnkitten

Juliet Farmer is a full-time freelance writer and a regular contributor to several websites and trade publications, as well as a self-proclaimed TV junkie with a penchant for books and movies.

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