Rebecca Daly’s directorial feature debut echoes the theme of Derren Brown’s thought experiment ‘The Guilt Trip’, which saw Brown manipulating a young man into believing that he had committed a murder while asleep. But in this flawed but disquieting drama, it’s not only the characters who are left unsure of the possible guilt of the protagonists, but the audience.
Opening mid-dream, Daly immediately creates a sense of uncertainty; a hazy detachment that blurs the line between dreams and reality and evokes the mindset of the sleep-walking protagonist Arlene (Antonia Campbell-Hughes.) Quiet and inexpressive, there’s something disconcerting about the young Offaly labourer, whose blank stare and lack of real engagement with the locals make her seem capable of anything. And when a young woman is found murdered in the town and Arleen develops an obsessive fascination with the victim’s family, her motivations are unclear. Does Arlene believe that she could have committed the murder during one of her frequent sleepwalks? Or is it that Arlene’s mother was also murdered at a young age, and she’s just clinging to that elusive connection born of shared experience and emotion?
From the offset, Daly’s often stunning composition and languid pacing creates an eerie atmosphere, and despite the film’s modest budget, some skipping and blurring visual effects brilliantly evoke Arlene’s ghost-like presence. As she moves like a glacier through the claustrophobically small town, it’s clear that not only has the murder shaken the community to its core, but Arlene’s sense of self. As her behaviour becomes more erratic, Campbell-Hughes proves stunning, bringing a still and subtle performance that oozes mystery.
However, as the minimally scripted film continues, the pacing and ambiguity eventually proves a problem, as the lack of plot development or character arc gives the film a sluggish quality. Daly’s determination to keep the tone balefully opaque feels laboured, and repeated, symmetry-loving landscape shots – though beautiful – feel too studied and stereotypical to achieve the affecting air of melancholia Daly was aiming for.
However despite its flaws, The Other Side Of Sleep proves a promising debut that possesses a memorably dream-like quality, and marks Daly as a director to watch.