Doctor Sleep (2019) is the apology only Stephen King could love

When is it proper to apologize for someone else's work? Adaptations happen all the time in storytelling. Homer was making up shit about the Trojans, Shakespeare stole all kinds of story ideas from Plutarch, and Stanley Kubrick turned a Stephen King ghost story into a piece of classic horror cinema.

I have not heard from the Trojans or Plutarch, but King himself did not appreciate his adaptation. Here we are forty years later and Mike Flanagan has come along to apologize with another adaptation, Doctor Sleep.

Dan Torrance (McGregor) has had a rough life since he left the overlook hotel, but now he has to save a child with a "shine" similar to his from a gang of shining vampire-like people. The story takes a while to get going, laying down a lot of set up before we get to any real plot.

The direction is great and the cinematography is solid enough, I just wish someone had told Flanagan he did not have to film the whole book. Yet, in a way, he filmed two. Without getting into spoilers, he films both the best parts of Doctor Sleep the book and the parts Kubrick left out of The Shining, completing both in a somewhat satisfying way. Everyone on the screen is bringing their best, yet the plot seems to limp along to set pieces not based on what these characters would do but what the story needs them to do.

In the end, I did enjoy what I saw, I just wish it had less bloat and more motivation.