Stay Awake

While not breaking any molds or revealing a side to addiction that many films haven’t before, Stay Awake tastefully captures how devastating it can be for family members.

Stay Awake is certainly a balancing act of addiction, compassion, difficult choices, that still manages hilarious moments and periods of joy. Stay Awake isn’t just an integral film about addiction, it’s also one of the best directorial debuts of the year.

Metz is great at toeing that line between manic and depressive moments, constantly deflecting her truth with humor. Argus is close behind—always smiling so as not to cry. Theirs is a journey too many must take. One full of possibilities and tragedies wherein hope often comes at the cost of pain.

Writer-director Jamie Sisley’s autobiographical first feature strikes a genuine, sobering chord.

Sisley has created an authentic and nuanced portrait of a family not just in crisis, but in transition: big transition, sparked by the accumulation of small moments where the heart is laid bare, where the frustration boils over, where the delusions must be faced. And where the truth is embraced.

It’s an earnest look at the collateral damage surrounding addiction, and the movie is at its strongest when it homes in on the experiences of Ethan and Derek. But as the main characters of the movie learn, compassion alone isn’t always enough.

Jamie Sisley’s film looks at its serious subject matter through a maudlin lens.