By Omeleto
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Tim has joined a sleep study being held overnight in a laboratory. The great irony, though, is that he just can’t fall asleep once he settles in. The setting is too strange, the machines they’ve hooked him up to are too uncomfortable and it’s odd being in a new, unfamiliar place in the middle of the night.
Tim then enlists the help of the overnight technician — his only human companion during the session — to help him acclimate to the place and fall asleep. And amidst the strange setting and the nocturnal timeframe, the two make an odd but genuine connection.
Writer-director Matt Porter’s endearingly offbeat dramedy is essentially a slice-of-life narrative, dropping two disparate souls into a rarefied setting and situation and watching them bumble their way into a moment of friendship. Through a masterful yet deceptively simple command of craft and a compassionate eye and ear for the nuances of human neediness and vulnerability, it achieves a unique and captivating tone: it feels very much like an off-kilter, isolated yet oddly vivid incident in the middle of the night, where time and logic work just slightly different than during the day, and there is a patina of the unreal over everything that seems almost fable-like.
Deft, pitch-perfect and affectionately ironic writing forms the bedrock of the narrative, building with wit and economy two ordinary yet utterly individual characters. These characters exist in a skillfully evoked netherworld of urban quiet and isolation, and the images of empty hallways and somehow sleepy-seeming buildings have a spooky, gentle magic to them that captures the melancholy and mystery of deep night.
Tim, played by improv star Chris Gethard, is a knot of mannerisms, worries and anxieties, but he is also more than just “quirky.” Though we don’t know much about him outside of the film’s scope, his fears and stresses are genuine, and his distress at being unable to sleep is both childish yet relatable. His technician foil, played with droll stoicism by Zack Cherry, plays off him with equal parts resignation and slight annoyance. But when the technician finally hears Tim out and meets him halfway, the result is something both beautifully simple and magically rare: a moment of “being there” for someone when they need comfort and just a little help.
“Nighty Night” could be called modest and unassuming, and there is a kind of observational quality in its stillness and quiet. And with its lack of twists, shocks, high concepts, gimmicks, one-line zingers or relentless witty banter, its sense of humor is firmly on the character-based side, making it one of the subtler entrants in its genre.
But that doesn’t dull the power of its warmth or sweetness. By keeping its focus on the oddly ordinary, “Nighty Night” somehow extends the spirit of its generosity and good humor to anyone else who is oddly ordinary — which, of course, is all of us. And all of us may need a moment when we simply need someone to be there as a kind witness to our struggles — as major or minor as they may be. When those moments happen, they may be fleeting or temporary, but they are no less incandescent.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:22
[Music]
00:31
Wi-Fi years it helps detect clenching
00:35
teeth granny I’m just worried about the
00:37
story and honestly
00:39
snoring wakes my wife up I mean that my
00:42
wife wakes me up comes a whole cycle
00:45
this is a comprehensive sleep study so
00:48
we’ll monitor for obstructive sleep
00:49
apnea and then if anything else shows up
00:52
on the test will see it and you can
00:54
discuss it with your doctor you’re not a
00:57
doctor I’m the overnight technician so
01:01
more like a nurse
01:09
[Music]
01:14
ready to sleep actually could you uh did
01:19
you move mighty closer to me
01:27
[Music]
01:38
feel free to go to sleep without him
01:41
okay goodnight Jeffrey
02:11
Jeffrey hello yes nothing okay I’m
02:25
having a little trouble well you don’t
02:29
have to go to sleep right away you could
02:31
read or watch TV what I said I didn’t
02:39
bring a book
02:40
do you want more tea yes sorry
02:54
speaker thing was just kind of freaking
02:57
me up do you need something more pillows
03:01
no I’m good on on pillows actually
03:03
brought this pillow from home this is my
03:05
pillow lady on the phone said that that
03:07
was okay so I brought my pillow okay I
03:12
just got like restless brain you know
03:16
it’s actually worse fun my wife’s not
03:19
around it’s kind of like a restless leg
03:22
thing you know what’s your opinion
03:24
restless leg syndrome real sort of real
03:26
thing look under these conditions it can
03:29
be a little hard for some people to fall
03:31
asleep but I assure you everyone does
03:35
everyone sooner or later everyone falls
03:39
asleep okay let me know if you need
03:44
anything thank you goodnight Jeffrey
03:49
goodnight
04:22
Jeffrey what is it can you just come on
04:39
you’re not even trying
04:40
no I did I tried I promise yeah it’s
04:43
just why is the light on when I went to
04:45
drink some of my tea and then this thing
04:48
fell off I tried to put back on but I
04:51
used certainly
04:59
I watched a little TV like he suggested
05:02
didn’t help the world man it is messed
05:08
up huh sure is you think we’re gonna be
05:14
okay that mean you personally like
05:17
collectively I think we’re all right I
05:23
think people are pretty resilient we’ve
05:27
been through worse yeah and this time we
05:31
at least have our little phones to
05:34
distract us right yeah that helps
05:40
okay ready
05:42
come on glasses off get comfortable
05:48
cool good night Tim
06:05
[Music]
06:23
[Music]
06:49
don’t be mad god damn it
06:52
though you’ve been awake this whole time
06:53
I might have fallen asleep for a minute
06:56
or two but listen man you gotta just
07:01
clear your head okay
07:02
like think about nothing or count sheep
07:06
count anything just you gotta power down
07:09
I can’t I’m wrapped in all these wires
07:12
man I’m gonna teach I’m like an animal
07:14
in a cage let it go let’s sleep happened
07:19
cuz if you don’t fall asleep then you
07:21
have to come back in and then we have to
07:23
go through all of this again are you
07:25
here every night I’m here every night
07:27
we’re open except Mondays I can’t do
07:30
Mondays how can I help you right now
07:33
like what can I do do you need more tea
07:36
can’t you just like tell me something
07:40
what does that mean you know just like
07:43
talk to me but anything you read from
07:48
your book reading me your book out loud
07:50
no you don’t want to hear from this it’s
07:52
not what is it it’s set in the larger
07:55
dune universe not familiar you are with
07:57
doing universe dune yes it’s a book and
08:00
if you don’t understand dune you can’t
08:02
get it you have to like there’s a lot do
08:06
you have to know to even get this deep
08:07
it’s like so then just make something up
08:12
I’m not your babysitter man I went to
08:14
school for this you told me you’re not a
08:16
doctor I have a certificate in
08:19
polysomnography technology do you need
08:22
me to bring up the Wikipedia look do you
08:29
promise to actually try and go to sleep
08:38
once upon a time there was an owl named
08:43
Tim not me that pick it different it
08:46
can’t be me no requests man okay so
08:50
there was this owl named Brian and Brian
08:56
always wanted to be a real boy and Brian
09:00
also had a really hard time sleeping
09:02
because owls are nocturnal and so he
09:07
would like be up all night doing his owl
09:10
stuff and then when it was time to go to
09:12
bed the world would be waking up and the
09:15
Sun is coming up and all the other
09:17
animals are fighting and making noises
09:19
and scratching on logs outside and he
09:23
just couldn’t go to sleep so one night
09:26
Brian is like I’m gonna go see what’s
09:29
going on so he leaves his house during
09:31
the day which is a big deal for him and
09:34
he’s kind of exploring and at first he’s
09:37
like he’s having fun and then he he
09:40
meets this shrew shrew ya shrew I don’t
09:44
know what shrew is she was like a mouse
09:46
it’s not a bird no an owl is a bird you
09:49
know I know and I was a shrew is more
09:52
like a kind of critter
09:53
so the taming of the shrew was about a
09:55
mouse no Taming of the Shrew is about a
09:58
human woman but in this story with Brian
10:02
the owl the shrew is a shrew so let’s
10:05
continue Brian asked the shrew what’s up
10:09
and the shrew is like I don’t know man
10:12
I’m just eating bugs I’m scratching this
10:14
log I mean
10:15
screeching that would like Christian I
10:18
don’t know he’s a versatile true so
10:20
after his conversation with the shrew
10:22
brands like let me go talk to this Fox
10:24
let me go talk to this pigeon and he he
10:28
means Adi wolf which is a genetically
10:31
modified wolf from the dune universe
10:33
they all tell me basically the same
10:34
thing they’re like we’re just doing I
10:36
think like no big deal if we we eat we
10:38
wake up we do our thing and so then
10:41
Bryan goes back to his house and he
10:44
starts to fall asleep and he hears the
10:46
same noises he hears some scratching and
10:49
some scratching here’s some mic
10:51
caterwauling and things and he goes I
10:54
know those noises that’s my friend the
10:56
Shrew I know that true so he’s he’s
11:00
finally able to go to sleep and he has
11:02
like the best sleep of his life and when
11:04
he wakes up
11:05
he’s so happy he’s he’s he doesn’t even
11:09
want to be a real boy anymore he’s just
11:11
happy to be in an hour and so that night
11:13
when he’s doing his out stuff he’s like
11:16
eating mice and um
11:18
coughing him up like in a hair can I
11:22
will hairball
11:23
what is that
11:26
owl pellets
11:37
good night good night
11:45
love you okay
12:08
[Music]
12:14
[Music]
12:27
[Music]
12:33
[Music]
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
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