Stefan LaFleur’s third feature-length film, You’re Sleeping, Nicole, captivates the visuals and atmosphere.
When a modern director refuses to use all colors except black and white, the viewer usually tries to understand why. Alas, very often monochrome is absolutely nothing but the desire to dust in the eye and add a cheap “mystery”. "You're asleep, Nicole" is a pleasant exception, the "black and white" of which emphasizes the mood of the heroine, and a certain unreality, somnambulism of what is happening.
Throughout the tape, the camera was in motion a few times. The combination of static and monochromatic made the film very beautiful, and its beauty is understandable to everyone. I often wanted to pause to enjoy a particularly “delicious” shots.
The plot is built around Nicole, left somewhere by her parents to look after the house. Twenty-year-old Nicole is going through a period when you are no longer a teenager, but not yet an adult. Here it is impossible not to mention the play of Julianne Kote, for whom this is the first major role in the movie. Apathy, lostness, even a certain alienation of Nicole is more than convincing. “It used to be more fun,” says Nicole after a golf game with a friend, in one sentence expressing an unconscious longing for the “lost paradise” of early youth.
An interesting character of the boy Martin, which is, apparently, a symbol of the inner state of the heroine. Martin cannot be called an adult, despite the voice of a thirty-year-old man and not at all childish reasoning and desires. The same contrast, but with the opposite sign, is found in Nicole, who remains a child at the age of twenty. This is especially evident in the scene with the dismissal from the store: “well, it’s still a donation” in response to the conviction of theft, and the naive childish “I won’t do it again!” as an attempt to solve the problem.
The immaturity of the heroine is also visible in the resentment against her friend, when she refused to go with Nicole to Iceland, citing a lack of money and other “adult” problems. “You live with your parents,” says a friend, alluding to the carefree life of the heroine, which causes a serious quarrel.
A game of cowboys and Indians between Nicole and Martin is a meeting between a big kid and a little adult that sets the stage for the finale. In the finale, we are waiting for "awakening" Nicole, expressed, however, not in the most successful way.
"You're Sleeping, Nicole" is a film about growing up, saying rather banal things, but in an exquisite, sensual language.
8 out of 10