Asleep in My Palm

Asleep in My Palm

The people living on the outskirts often go unnoticed. Fortunately, there are films like Henry Nelson’s “Asleep in My Palm,” which is sensitive and observant. The movie runs for only 89 minutes, but it has a slow pace. In this drama, we see a father and daughter who live off the grid. The filmmaker’s humanistic vision shows how difficult it can be to get by alone in today’s world and also explores the relationships between parents and teenagers within their own unique universes.

Tom is played by Tim Blake Nelson (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), the director’s real-life dad. He brings depth to this character with his quiet intensity as well as an understanding that comes from someone who has been through tough times and chosen not to conform with society’s norms. Chloë Kerwin gives an excellent performance as Beth Anne, her first major role before appearing on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” She captures both the curiosity of a young person discovering new things about life and the maturity that comes from having experienced some hardships already but not yet fully accepting them.

Father and daughter are hiding out inside what seems to be an abandoned self-storage facility near an arts college in Ohio (perhaps Oberlin). They have furnished their makeshift home with stolen items found around town modest pieces of furniture here; trinkets there while using local McDonald’s restaurants or corner delis owned by friendly proprietors for bathroom facilities; breaking into nearby dorms for hot showers (which they don’t have at their place); etcetera et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseam blah blah blah etcetera ad infinitum et cetera et cetera.

Nelson has a knack for finding humor in odd places, and he employs it here with great success throughout much of his film: Tom spins yarns about everything from how babies are made all the way up to why Santa Claus doesn’t exist; he swears like a sailor while teaching Beth Anne life skills that most kids her age wouldn’t learn until much later (if at all); they wander around campus during winter break when nobody else is there, etcetera.

But perhaps the most brilliantly executed sequence comes midway through “Asleep in My Palm,” when we see Tom spend an entire night stealing bicycles from various locations around campus before hiding them somewhere safe until his buyer arrives the following morning Jose, played by Jared Abrahamson, who adds some welcome levity as a fast-talking small-time hustler type with whom Tom does business on occasion.

We know from films like Debra Granik’s “Leave No Trace” that eventually someone or something will disrupt any off the grid lifestyle especially one being led by a teenage girl whose world is expanding exponentially with each passing day. For Beth Anne, it’s an artsy student collective (think: rich kids pretending to be Satanists) that serves as the catalyst for bringing new people into her life briefly introduces her to their leader Dark Mortius (Grant Harvey) and another member named Millah, played by Gus Birney.

After sharing a stolen kiss with Millah one night behind closed doors, Beth Anne starts to feel more confident about herself and what she wants out of relationships both within their hidden existence together but also beyond those walls somewhere else entirely where such things will never ever ever happen for her no matter how hard she tries or how long she waits or even if she prays every night before bed please let me wake up tomorrow morning somewhere different oh god why won’t you answer my prayers

The cinematography of Tatajana Krstevski, by finding the coldness of the landscape and the textures of abandoned buildings that Tom and Beth Anne visit, “Asleep in My Palm” establishes a poetic mood that is not sentimental but does not hold itself aloof either. Frequently you are within the simple reality conjured by Nelson during the film’s less remarkable intervals.

What doesn’t convince is what happens towards the end of this story where we discover much more about Tom’s disturbing background in a twist both terrifying and regrettably half-baked.

Notwithstanding that the movie doesn’t owe its audience a neat ending (it doesn’t), it remains disappointing that whatever Millah means to Beth Anne goes unexamined while the other part of her tale seems designed only to shock viewers inclined against such mild manneredness on display throughout rest of this picture’s closing scenes which still manage somehow to be both lovely strange and big hearted; indeed, there is something about all that according to Nelson: an unsparing eye for these kinds of lives many folks would rather simply keep quiet regarding.

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