Asleep in My Palm movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Asleep in My Palm

This dramatic and thought-provoking film premieres in select theaters on March 1, 2024. It will go to streaming on April 19, 2024.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour 28 minutes

MOVIE REVIEW MOM GRADE: B+

IN A NUTSHELL:

The story is about a father and his daughter living off the grid on the outskirts of an elite liberal arts college in northeastern Ohio.

This film was directed by Tim Blake Nelson’s own son, Henry Nelson in his directorial debut! Already, the film has been nominated for the New Directors Competition. Congrats to him!

THINGS I LIKED:

I was excited to see this movie because I love Tim Blake Nelson. He always creates such interesting characters and this movie is no exception. He gives a great performance in this, as I expected he would.
His daughter is played beautifully by Chloe Kerwin. I had never seen her in anything before. She was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Performer for the Screen in For About the Cat.
All of the conversations the dad has with his daughter are intriguing and often amusing.
The title of the film is really great. We see irony in the dad’s attitude about how the world is asleep, yet how he leaves his own daughter clueless about how the real world works. The words on the movie poster are “Question everything.”
Kudos to Tatjana Krstevski for winning “Best Cinematography” at the Woodstock Film Festival. It’s noticeably good.
The movie also won Best Editing by Max Ethan Miller at the Woodstock Film Festival.
The movie has a surprising twist that I absolutely didn’t see coming! I love being surprised.
The musical score set the perfect mood for this heady, sad film.
Partly due to the locations but also partly because of the story, you feel the griminess and bleakness of the world.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

It paints a very bleak picture of life and philosophy.
Some viewers might be frustrated by the ambiguous ending that doesn’t give the audience full closure; however, I liked it. It opens up all kinds of scenarios for the imagination to explore!

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Kids will be extremely bored.
Lots of profanity and TONS of F-bombs.
A man steals bicycles and breaks into places with his daughter.
We watch a man die a bloody death.
We see two girls kissing several times.
A grenade goes off and hurts people.
We hear talk of people burning roadkill as a type of Satanic ritual.
We see full-front nudity of a man. That’s rare in movies. Usually, it’s women.

THEMES:

Consumerism
Capitalism
Religion
Truth
Loneliness
Money
Street smarts vs. book smarts
Complicated father/daughter relationships
Rejection and hatred of the world

INTERESTING LINES:

“Everyone’s got their breaking point.” – Dad (Tim Blake Nelson)
“It’s not that they weren’t capable of looking; it’s more that they weren’t looking.” – Dad (Tim Blake Nelson)
“If I could give you anything, it would be to need no thing and no one, to be unbreakable, to disappear if you have to.” – Dad (Tim Blake Nelson)
“All religions are just one religion in conversation with itself. Constant Flux, of what I couldn’t tell you, mostly our own destruction, probably.” – Dad (Tim Blake Nelson)
“Love the world because, whether or not you like it, you’re a part of it.” – cartoon character on a TV show that the dad watches