J'ai pas sommeil gets off to a shaky start, with laughing cops and bland-faced Katerina Golubeva driving her rattle-trap Soviet car around Paris, but soon settles down to an absorbing study of greed and murder. Most of the characters are expatriates, some from eastern Europe, some from Martinique, and all are caught up in the search for happiness in a difficult environment (Paris can be hell for outsiders, as Balzac and many other artists have told us).
At first you aren't aware that it's a murder story: you don't see a woman being strangled and robbed until 64 minutes have elapsed, but Denis holds our attention with atmospheric scenes of the gay sub-culture that Camille moves in. She brings out the voluptuous, narcissistic aspects of this world very well. The performances are all good. Richard Courcet as Camille has little to say, but his body speaks eloquently. Alex Descas and Beatrice Dalle are veterans of Denis's films and are effective as the couple with a child. Theo delivers furniture by day and plays violin in a band at night; he wants to go back to his native Martinique but Mona isn't at all sure about this. Line Renaud does a great job as Ninon, the hotel manager who lovingly deals with all these star-crossed souls. I had to go to YouTube after the credits to hear Line sing Ma cabane au Canada and Frou-Frou... she is wonderful.
