Stay Awake review – a sensitive but distracted portrait of addiction

Seven years after his short film, Stay Awake, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, Jamie Sisley has returned with an emotionally turbulent 90-minute feature of the same name – a more thorough exploration of America’s debilitating opioid crisis as seen through the experience of one family. While the dealings of addiction in small-town America has become a frequent topic in indie cinema, Sisley’s first narrative feature is an evocative portrait with a unique focus: those who love the addict, rather than the addict themselves.

Stay Awake tells the story of a mother’s (Chrissy Metz) debilitating addiction through the eyes of her two sons, Ethan (Wyatt Oleff) and Derek (Fin Argus) and is more concerned with the micro reality of battling substance abuse in a domestic setting. The drama follows the brother’s miserable routine of driving around town trying to find their mother after a relapse. The camera is situated like another family member in the car, gaze flicking between a mother dropping in and out of consciousness and her two sons yell-singing to keep her awake. It quickly becomes clear this isn’t the brothers' first rodeo.

The heartbreaking reality of addiction truly announces itself in the film’s second act. Both Ethan’s scholarship and Derek’s dreams of auditioning are put on pause as the film draws closer to this family’s emotional ordeal; even when an addict has the desire to get clean, the means of support are often unattainable. To singer-songwriter melodies, the camera lingers on the worry that penetrates the thick skin of these young men. Their innate need to help their mother is at war with exhaustion and frustration, the realisation that the road to recovery isn't always linear.

It is a shame, then, that Stay Awake drifts from this central trio at all. Sisley seems well aware of the overdramatised beats a story like this can create but this same consciousness is missing from Ethan and Derek’s wider characterisation. They embark on individual narrative threads that only provide cliche coming-of-age sensibilities and high school-esque drama, somewhat trivialising the heart-wrenching stakes that initially grounded their brotherhood.

Underdeveloped side characters and some flimsy conflicts aside, these weaker scenes are at least held up by the brilliantly cast siblings. Argus and Oleff have a pinpoint accuracy in depicting the frustration that comes with familial care. Metz gets to shine, too. Pushing closer with a slow zoom – so slow you don’t realise you’ve infiltrated her space until she flinches – Sisley’s lens watches patiently as this woman reaches breaking point. Angsty dialogue borders on monologue before the moment is snatched away, indicative of the brief but treasured instances shared between a mother and her sons.

Stay Awake does at least manages to refocus its narrative in time for the final act, which results in a compelling conclusion. By the end, Sisley’s film, with its teen angst under streetlights and nuances of addiction that refuse to be aestheticised, offers up a gentle handling of substance abuse that should be applauded.

Stay Awake was screened as part of Berlinale Film Festival 2022. A UK release date is yet to be announced.