There is a welcome stillness before any storm, a deceptive, eerily tranquil silence. Perched on these quiet waters—or, quite literally, during the customary calm before the storm—debuting filmmaker Alexandra Simpson’s visually gorgeous “No Sleep Till” portrays various faces of a Florida town as they negotiate with mandatory evacuation orders and contemplate whether they should stay behind to witness a fast-approaching tropical cyclone. Elegiac in tone, melancholic in style, and documentarian in spirit, Simpson thoughtfully captures the micro preoccupations of the film’s characters, against the understatedly political macro backdrop of our shifting and worsening climate.
Despite the fact that “No Sleep Till” traces people braving a storm, don’t expect a white-knuckle action movie from Simpson, who wrote, directed, and edited her atmospheric mood piece. Instead, true to the overarching form of the film collective Omnes Film (of also “Eephus” and “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point”) that Simpson’s poetic narrative is a part of, “No Sleep Till” is an unhurried hangout movie, observant and patient in cinematographer Sylvain Marco Froidevaux’s painterly lensing. In that, there is a constant supply of frames throughout the film that look like standalone works of art—like the stunningly cinematic photographs of Gregory Crewdson, touched by dewy, colorful brushstrokes of an impressionistic artist. In fact, the unnerving thematic undercurrent that runs right beneath the film is all the more effective because of this often soothing visual character, with the beauty of the mundane juxtaposed against something terrible that is on approach and in some sense, has already arrived.
At times, Simpson leans into the mundane almost to a fault. As such, it takes a little bit of effort to get on the movie’s wavelength that favors lived-in moments and random instances over a traditional narrative. But this is the kind of film that gains its cumulative power through small, repetitive steps. In the end, Simpson’s style that is studiously and unconventionally formulated to feel off-the-cuff, culminates in a haunting and hypnotic texture. You can’t ever look away from this film, its environs, or its people. At the start, they emerge in the randomness of their everyday lives, swimming laps (in spite of the frightening evacuation warnings audible in speakers), grooming themselves, tending to house work, caring for their pets, and so on. But eventually, Simpson starts to zero in on four people, interchangeably cutting in and out of their routines.
One of those people is the young June (Brynne Hofbauer), who needs to face the sad fact that the guy she’s had a crush on has departed, and left only a letter behind to inform her. What’s a devastating storm when you compare it to such heartbreak? Another character is a storm chaser (Taylor Benton, who chases storms in real life and posts about them across TikTok and Instagram), who stubbornly approaches the hurricane and thoughtfully engages with local residents along the way. And the last two personalities are close friends and comedians Will and Mike (Jordan Coley and Xavier Brown-Sanders), debating a northbound drive and dreaming about greener pastures for their careers. There is such a wonderful cadence and agility in their conversations and modest aspirations that this critic found herself missing the duo when they weren’t on screen. In that, this particular storyline thankfully breaks the film’s occasional slowness, enlivening its pace in much needed doses. The friends’ positivity also lends the film an unspoken sense of rebellion, reminding one of the countless resilient lives and spirits trying to rise above their climate-enforced circumstances.
There isn’t a decisive resolution to Simpson’s film in the end, but “No Sleep Till” thoroughly earns its ambiguous trajectory and parting note. This is a film about the pains of existing in the middle of something unimaginably tragic, yet sadly routine. Simpson both feels that pain and honors the strength of a diverse array of spirits that confront it in their own way.
