03/09/2024 - VENICE 2024: It’s hurricane season in the Sunshine State in Alexandra Simpson’s meandering but mesmerising feature debut, which is never short on vibes

Violet Strickland in No Sleep Till

The neon glow of a jumping rabbit reflects lazily in the motel pool; an Elvis cut-out stands haphazardly outside the Waffle House; beach-themed trinkets dangle temptingly within reach in a small shop. In No Sleep Till [+see also:
interview: Alexandra Simpson
film profile], which has just premiered in Venice’s International Film Critics’ Week, French-US writer-director Alexandra Simpson captures Florida in such an uncannily striking, emotionally transportive way that you’ll swear you’ve known the lazy suburbs of coastal Jacksonville for all of your life. No characters speak until well over six minutes into the film, but Simpson visually pinpoints Lana del Rey-core, “Summertime Sadness” USA with such identifiable precision.

The film follows characters within four near-standalone subplots while occasionally veering off with glimpses into parallel lives. June (Brynne Hofbauer) works at a local souvenir shop and passes time by revelling in young-adult summer crushes, but something draws her back to the enchanting glow of suburbia. Taylor (played by real-life Tampa-based tornado and storm chaser Taylor Benton, who also provides some of the film’s storm footage) is drawn towards the oncoming hurricane that threatens the state’s Atlantic coast. Wisecracking best friends Mike (Xavier Brown-Sanders) and Will (Jordan Coley) resolve to leave the state as the storm rolls through, although they find it harder to depart than they had originally predicted. Peripherally, a woman (Violet Strickland) arrives at the same hotel as the brothers after being recently laid off, her workplace having used the storm as an excuse to terminate their contracts.

Simpson places her characters in a sort of Melancholia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars von Trier
film profile]-like apocalyptic inevitability: the hurricane will come, whether they like it or not, but what they choose to do with this information is another story altogether. The proverbial “calm before the storm” manifests in the form of an unquenchable desire to be rooted to a place, to be sworn to a certain suburban fantasy, and we’re swept up in it, too. As the characters linger, we are forced to linger as well, clinging to every plastic motel chair and glowing sign in various fonts that bring texture to this world.

No Sleep Till is slow, oneiric, serene and often bordering on observational, all while portraying a carefully crafted cinematic environment. However, it is Simpson’s dedication to a cinematic duck-paddle (in a laudatory sense) – calm on the surface while hiding something frantic underneath – that ultimately fills the film with so much life, even when its subjects are at a standstill. DoP Sylvain Marco Froidevaux (complemented by colouring by Froidevaux and Victor Guthmann) hangs tightly to an extremely wide colour palette – extending from the warmest reds of neon lights to the deepest blues of the dark of night – which casts every scene in a set of hues that ever so slightly stretch reality, making them more vibrant than they usually appear. Multilayered sound design by Simpson and Yann Sauvin sews the caw of gulls, the tinkle of wind chimes and ambient music from a television into the grand tapestry of this deceptively simple world that hides plenty underneath – just as English, Spanish and French cross together in the same spaces.

No Sleep Till is a production by Omnes Films (USA) and ROC Films (Switzerland), and was co-produced by WILLA (USA) and Salem Street Entertainment (USA). Its world sales are up for grabs.

Photogallery 02/09/2024: Venice 2024 - No Sleep Till

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Alexandra Simpson
© 2024 Isabeau de Gennaro for Cineuropa @iisadege