Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alexandra Simpson
Starring: Jordan Coley, Xavier Brown Sanders, Brynne Hofbauer, Taylor Benton
The filmmmaking collective known as Omnes Films has been responsible for three of the best American indie features of recent years. Tyler Taormina's Ham on Rye and Christmas Eve in Miller's Point and Carson Lund's Eephus all share an elegiac quality. All three are centred around characters confronting the notion that a way of life they've taken for granted is coming to an end. The people in Omnes Films productions don't so much rage against the dying of the light as quietly accept it. In Ham on Rye, a teenage girl contends with being left in her small town when all her friends depart through a strange portal. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point sees an extended Italian-American clan gather for one last Christmas before their family home is sold. Eephus is centred on the last ever game to be played at a beer league baseball field.
On the surface, writer/director Alexandra Simpson's No Sleep Till seems like an obvious addition to the Omnes roster. It revolves around a small town in Florida as it prepares for an impending hurricane that may well leave the place uninhabitable. Simpson's distanced filmmaking style echoes that of Taormina, who apparently is her romantic partner. The film's characters reckon with an uncertain future.
But this is the first Omnes production that failed to captivate me. Despite their minimal dialogue, the people in Taormina's films feel real and alive and recognisable. No Sleep Till features a host of characters but only two, friends Will (Jordan Coley) and Mike (Xavier Brown Sanders), are paid sufficient attention to give us an idea of who they are. Will is a wannabe standup comedian who uses the storm as an excuse to finally persuade Mike to accompany him to Philadelphia. They only get as far as a motel in a nearby town, where they intersect with a middle-aged woman (Violet Strickland) who has just lost her job as her employer expects his business to be destroyed.
Strickland has to settle for a couple of shots in which she stares blankly into the middle distance, and that's the case for most of the other characters. Real life storm chaser Taylor Benton plays a storm-chaser who is incredibly rude to the locals who offer him hospitality. Teen June (Brynne Hofbauer) finishes up what might be her final shift at an already struggling souvenir shop before heading to a skate park to ogle her crush. An elderly man and his daughter clean a client's pool. We learn practically nothing about any of these people; they're simply props in some admittedly nicely framed pictures.
If No Sleep Till fails to engage as an ensemble character drama, it serves some limited function as an ambient mood piece. Cinematographer Sylvain Marco Froidevaux captures a blustery beauty in a near-deserted corner of America that could be about to be literally swept away. The soundtrack mixes official warnings with dreamy music that sounds like it's coming from the gathering clouds themselves. Simpson has created something closer to ASMR than narrative cinema. But as much as I tried to let No Sleep Till's atmosphere wash over me, I was ultimately left cold by its lack of human warmth.
No Sleep Till is in US cinemas from July 18th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
