Paul Schrader
Light Sleeper

Less violent than Taxi Driver (1976), less sophisticated than American Gigolo (1980), Light Sleeper (1992) by Paul Schrader ideally completes a trilogy on metropolitan male neurosis. The protagonist, John LeTour, is a D.D., a drug dealer, as the pedestrian Italian title does not fail to reveal. LeTour does not deal on the street but serves only New York's high society, which requires home services.

Like the taxi driver Travis Bickle and the gigolo Julian Kay, John lives on the fringes of society, immersed in the night and in a deep existential crisis. At forty, a former addict now "clean" for two years, he has to face the end of his “career”: his boss Ann (a convincing Susan Sarandon) is authoritarian but also understanding. Middle-aged herself — let's face it, forty is middle age, unless you think you'll live to a hundred — she wants to abandon drug trafficking to devote herself to the less risky cosmetics industry and wants to convince John to enter the new business.

John, insomniac, confused, worried about the future, rather vaguely thinks of dedicating himself to pop music and fills notebooks with tangled thoughts that he destroys as soon as completed. He is not a cultured man and for emotional support he consults a clairvoyant who reads his “aura”.

The chance encounter with his ex, Marianne, under a torrential rain, reignites old wounds and hopes. Marianne is also a former addict, and she immediately appears hostile and ambiguous. Both burdened by the past, they confront their turbulent relationship destroyed by drugs, while in the background there moves a dark plot of murder.

The action takes place almost entirely at night, in a Manhattan suffocated by a garbage strike that amplifies the sense of decay and isolation. Willem Dafoe, extraordinary, gives John a tender and unsettling fragility. Among limousines that isolate him, luxury apartments and trendy clubs of his high-profile clients, John seeks a redemption that seems impossible.

Like Travis and Julian, John also meets his violent fate on a stormy night, supported by a single friendly presence. The perfect soundtrack seals this story of loneliness and melancholy with an inescapable touch of grace.