Sleepwalker centre’s on a woman named Sarah (Hayden Panettiere) whose life has quietly collapsed after a traumatic family tragedy. The Tragedy leaves her emotionally numb and physically exhausted but she tries to rebuild some sense of routine. This in turn develops into her experiencing severe episodes of sleepwalking that feel less like a disorder and more like her mind acting with intention. These nocturnal wanderings draw her back to places, memories, and relationships she has spent years trying to bury, suggesting that her subconscious is no longer willing to stay silent.
Rather than relying on conventional scares, the film takes a more unease approach with psychological tension, gradually dissolving the boundary between waking life and dreams. The more the protagonist resists confronting her past, the more invasive and dangerous her nighttime behavior becomes. Sleepwalker ultimately plays like a meditation on unresolved trauma. It’s a story where the real threat isn’t something supernatural, but the consequences of refusing to face what’s already inside you.
Hayden Panettiere approaches the role with a restraint that makes her performance unsettling rather than overtly dramatic. She plays the character as someone running on emotional autopilot — hollowed out, guarded, and visibly tired — which gives the film a grounded center even as the narrative drifts into abstraction. What stands out most is how much she communicates through stillness: long pauses, unfocused stares, and subtle shifts in posture suggest a woman whose mind is always somewhere else, even when she’s awake. Instead of signaling fear or breakdown in obvious ways, Panettiere lets the deterioration creep in gradually, making her unraveling feel personal and uncomfortably intimate. Even for viewers who struggle with the film itself, her performance feels intentional, controlled, and far more thoughtful than the material often allows.
Although the premise sounds intriguing, Sleepwalker struggles with pacing under the weight of its ambiguity. The film’s deliberate murkiness — while intended to mirror the protagonist’s fractured state of mind comes off as frustratingly vague, making it difficult for me for probably for many viewers to find footing or empathize with the main character’s journey. Sleepwalker ca be a polarizing experience: it may be intriguing to some for its aesthetic and introspection, but off-putting to others who wanted clearer stakes or resolution.
Rating: ★★½
Review by: Stefano Bove