Doctor Sleep Review: Ewan McGregor Carries a Story That Never Finds Its Feet

Doctor Sleep picks up years after the events of Stephen King’s novel The Shining, and the film spends most of its runtime trying to earn back the audience that never liked Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation. It mostly fails.

Trailer, via Warner Bros..

Danny Torrance’s New Life

Ewan McGregor plays Danny Torrance, now middle-aged, living in a decaying town with a damaged past he can barely face. His ability to see things that aren’t there has left him broken, and alcohol becomes his only escape. Then he meets a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran), who has her own gifts, and the two form a bond that pulls them into a fight against a group hunting souls for dark purposes.

The setup is strong. The execution is not.

What Works

1. The performances. McGregor carries a lot of emotional weight, and Curran holds her own opposite him.
2. The setting. The small town feels lived-in, worn down by neglect and decay.
3. The pacing. The film takes its time getting to the final stretch, building dread through quiet moments rather than constant action.

What Doesn’t Work

1. The plot. The story drags in the middle, with stretches that feel like filler between set pieces.
2. The villains. They’re thin, cartoonish figures rather than real threats.
3. The climax. It rushes through what could have been a tense finale, leaving the ending feeling hollow.

Director Mike Flanagan leans heavily on horror tropes rather than character development. The film’s best scenes are the quiet ones, where McGregor sits alone with his grief and guilt. The loud ones fall flat.

Curran deserves credit for carrying much of the second half, giving the film a youthful anchor when the script loses focus. But even her presence can’t save a story that never quite finds its footing.

A Long Wait

Doctor Sleep runs over two hours, and the runtime shows. The middle section drags, with too much exposition and not enough urgency to push the story forward. By the time the final act arrives, the tension has leaked out, leaving a finale that feels rushed rather than earned.

The film also leans on its predecessor too heavily, spending time explaining what happened before rather than moving forward with its own story. That’s a mistake, since the original material already established everything the audience needs to know.

A Final Word

Doctor Sleep isn’t a failure, but it’s far from a triumph. It has moments of real strength — McGregor’s performance, the town’s atmosphere, the early bond between Danny and Abra — but those moments are surrounded by filler and a script that doesn’t know what to do with its own ideas.

It’s a film that wants to be scary and moving, and it gets halfway there. It just can’t hold onto either feeling for long enough to matter.

Doctor Sleep · horror · Mike Flanagan · movie review · Stephen King