Get Your Reps In: Tim Robbins Loses His Grip on Reality in “Jacob’s Ladder”

Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Faceless monsters, unexplained fevers, disappeared friends, intentional continuity gaps…Jacob’s Ladder has all the makings of an “is this really happening?” thriller, all the while punishing the boyishness out of its protagonist (Tim Robbins). He’s Jacob, a New York City mailman haunted by Vietnam and family tragedy. Now, his reality appears to be gradually devouring itself.

Director Adrian Lyne (best known for erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction) elevates Jacob’s Ladder beyond stock conspiracy thriller or mental-illness fable. For one, even when he’s effectively toying with demonic imagery, it’s not Lyne’s nature to go for full surrealism. On the contrary, scene after unsettling scene in doctors’ offices, bedrooms, and taxi cabs are lullingly grounded.

Thus the dogged search for truth fades. The audience is left to experience Jacob’s glitching, echoing narratives of family, war and redemption as something more elemental: the human consciousness’s absolute allegiance to story, down to the last nerve ending. Academy, Sept. 15-21.

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