Sleep No More, Antonia Bogdanovich’s director’s cut of her debut film Phantom Halo, is chalked full of conflicting tones and loosely held together by Shakespearian prose.
Director: Antonia Bogdanovich
Genre: Crime, Drama, Neo-Noir
Run Time: 87′
US Release: July 26, 2024
UK Release: TBA
Where to watch: Limited Theatrical Play, on digital & VOD
As we approach the ten year anniversary of Phantom Halo, Antonia Bogdanovich’s directorial feature debut, the creative revisits her first film to release the version she always envisioned it would evolve into. That version is Sleep No More, a Los Angeles based neo noir that combines the world of ‘70s Scorsese crime thrillers with the prose and plot sequencing of a modernized Shakespearean play.
However, Bogdanovich’s vision of what her film would evolve into still feels unrealized, as Sleep No More is tonally confusing and ultimately nonsensical.
Sleep No More centers around the struggling Emerson family. Warren (Sebastian Roché, of Cabinet of Curiosities), the father of the family, is a gambling alcoholic, stealing any money his boys might bring in the house to feed his own vices. He once was a renowned Shakespearean actor, but now stands as the bane of his son’s existence. Warren’s eldest son Beckett (Luke Kleintank) steals to keep himself and his younger brother Samuel (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, of The Queen’s Gambit) off the streets.
Every day, instead of going to school, Samuel goes down to Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade and recites Shakespearean monologues as a street performer while Beckett circles the crowds that gather and pickpockets as many people as he can. While that money is supposed to go to supporting the household, Warren always finds it and takes it before the boys can feed themselves or pay the rent. One day, a loan shark seeks out Beckett to tell him his father is $38,000 in the hole and, if he can’t pay him back, Samuel will be hurt.
In a state of panic, Beckett asks an old childhood friend he always saw as a genius, Little Larry (Jordan Dunn), how he has been making his money. Larry reveals he is part of a counterfeit money scheme and offers to help Beckett in exchange for his friendship. As tensions rise, money tightens and relationships are tested, the Emerson family must make unspeakable decisions in order to come out of this predicament alive.
The goal of Sleep No More seems to be weaving stories that differ in subject and tone together in one cohesive tale, much like one of Shakespeare’s plays. There are many different storylines going throughout the film, whether it be Warren’s struggle with addiction, Beckett’s counterfeit money scheme, or Samuel’s passion for comic books and desire to be a regular kid. However, Bogdanovich creates stories that are far too loosely connected, and oftentimes the movie feels like it simply forgets characters altogether in favor of other, more compelling aspects of the plot. There is no glue holding the film together as a whole. It feels more akin to a jumbled anthology than various stories being told in a particular sequence.
Additionally, the movie is full of plot holes that genuinely take you aback as a viewer. For example, Samuel makes his living reciting Shakespearean monologues on the street with an encyclopedic knowledge of which prose to break out in any given moment, as that is the only way the men in his family can vocalize emotions. However, according to Beckett’s character, Samuel has been out of school for so long he doesn’t even know math as simple as addition and subtraction.
The entire counterfeit money scheme Beckett and Larry are running is supposed to work because the cash looks supremely realistic, yet the prop money looks absurdly fake. Like, smudged ink and faces that in no way resemble United States presidents type of fake. Going off of the counterfeit money scheme, the first thing Beckett and Larry buy with the counterfeit money is a Bentley. There is a scene early in the film where Samuel needs to steal three eggs and flour from his local convenience store to make a birthday cake.
At no point during this counterfeit money scheme does Beckett try and provide for his family that is on the brink of being kicked out of their home or starving. The logic of the film simply does not make sense, from the tonal shifts of every scene down to the most minute details.
On a grander scale, the score of Sleep No More is distractingly confusing. Whenever it shows Beckett and Larry in the midst of the counterfeit money scheme, the score has peppy music, alluding to almost a buddy comedy. The film will then cut to Warren being threatened at the casino bar by the loan shark with the same background music. It creates an eerie dissonance within the film that is glaringly unintentional.
The biggest issue with Sleep No More is the lack of conviction in the film’s tone. No aspect of the plot or mise-en-scène feels like it matches with whatever else is going on in the film. All the interactions with the three Emerson men are so incredibly tension filled, but the dialogue always allows for the boys to forgive their father in a begrudging manner. We know the relationship between Warren and his sons is extremely strained, but, outside of the mere fact he is their father, we have no clue as to why they always end up forgiving him and giving him the benefit of the doubt almost immediately. This disconnect makes the scenes between the three of them feel stilted and inauthentic.
The Shakespearean prose, predominantly performed by Samuel, is the best part of the film without a doubt. It brings in ideations of levity and weight this movie desperately needs, as they keep it vaguely rooted in reality. However, these moments of depth are fleeting and overshadowed by a plot that cannot keep up with itself.
The last few minutes of the film attempt to piece the storylines together as one. However, the movie has gone so far off the rails at this point, with almost all the central characters coming together and meeting for the first time at its most intense part, the resolution of the story reads as comically insane.
The main problem with Sleep No More is its lack of identity. At times, it wants to be a serious, modern Shakespearian tale, other times it plays as a slapstick buddy comedy, and it even ventures on occasion into a comic book epic. There is no central focus or tone that combines the various plotlines in Bogdanovich’s director’s cut. The film is not hard to follow, but it is difficult to understand. No one story is given enough time to be fully fleshed out, and by the time you leave, you will have a clear understanding of why this movie was so heavily edited 10 years ago.
Sleep No More will be released on Limited Theatrical Play, on VOD, and on digital Platforms on July 26, 2024.
