Rating: NR | Runtime: 110 minutes
Release Date: March 17th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Gravitas Ventures
Director(s): Ryan Lacen
Writer(s): Ryan Lacen

Sometimes I can feel the sky as it rotates.

Addiction films generally follow a formula. Unless you’re an outlier like Requiem for a Dream, the beats almost always adhere to the trend of feeling immortal, hitting rock bottom, and fighting to get back up (if possible). Ryan Lacen’s All the World Is Sleeping is one such example that sticks pretty closely to that pattern with the addition of an intriguing structural device splicing in flashbacks as both emotional jolts and narrative context.

So, rather than form, it ultimately sets itself apart by possessing a conscious desire for authenticity and complexity within that familiar depiction. With the involvement of seven survivors (Jade Sanchez, Doralee Urban, Myra Salazar, Patricia Marez, Carly Hicks, Kayleigh Smith, and Malissa Trujillo) serving as inspiration, the troubled life of their composite (Melissa Barrera’s Chama) finds clarity by centering impact above cliché.

We can feel it early too during a scene with Chama and her daughter Nevaeh (Adilynn Marie Menendez) sitting at the bus stop. A homeless woman is standing on the corner, yelling to no one. Nevaeh can’t help but wonder what’s happening, asking her mother who she’s talking to and whether she’s crazy. Chama answers the first question quickly: “She’s talking to Jesus.” The second one gives her pause.

Why? Because she knows the situation demands more nuance than a simple “Yes.” She’s an addict herself, barely holding onto her own life and sanity as a mother struggling to survive. One wrong step and it could be her on that corner screaming about her guilt, regrets, and unfulfilled dreams. So, she tells Nevaeh, “I don’t know.” She refuses to reduce this stranger to a label because she wants to hope the world will give her the same courtesy.

There’s a great line coming a bit later, though, that holds the reality of so-called “normal” people: that the only thing worse than feeling invisible is feeling disposable. That’s where Chama is. Every hardship is processed as a failure that leads her back to her dealer to get lost even further. Every attempt to do right by her daughter meets crippling anxiety only to put her in that same place with witnesses like her sister (Alexis B. Santiago’s Mari) to guarantee she’ll never forget.

And it would be easy for us to blame Chama. To pity rather than empathize. That’s kind of the point. Because it’s only when the nightmare takes hold and leaves her completely alone that she can start to take stock of how she got there. All the little moments and tragedies that pushed her down this unsustainable path.

The second half is thus where the film shines. Those glimpses into the past solidify into memories, the generational trauma and economic strife showing just how quickly someone can get caught in a systemically broken cycle of poverty and addiction. We get comparison points (Mari’s better upbringing saving her from drugs and Jackie Cruz’s BFF Toaster’s not) and unlikely allies (it’s great to see Jorge Garcia acting as it has been a while) for Chama to lean on and fight against as she looks to pick up the pieces of a shattered life.

Barrera is very good in the role, juggling the emotional weight of her suffering with the pain she has unfortunately thrust upon her daughter. It’s not therefore about whether she can get Nevaeh back after everything implodes. It’s about whether Chama can get herself back first—enough to see those black-feathered bad omens and finally not pick them up.

---

Melissa Barrera in ALL THE WORLD IS SLEEPING; courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.