He wrote the lead for his professor. His actor father took it

Asleep in My Palm was made in 2024 by first-time director Henry Nelson, and it began as a college script written for one of his professors. His father, Tim Blake Nelson, the actor from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, ended up producing the film and playing the lead: a father raising a daughter.

The film follows Tom, a father living off the grid in rural Ohio with his teenage daughter, Beth Anne, played by Chloë Kerwin. They live near a small liberal arts college, a world they sit outside of. Tom is trying to put a violent past behind him, and Beth Anne is growing up and wants her independence.

How did a student's script become his father's film?

Henry Nelson started the script in his last year at Oberlin College, in Ohio, where he studied music. He meant to make it with one of his professors in the lead role. Tim Blake Nelson has said the part of Tom was written for Henry's composition professor at the music conservatory. "He didn't write it for me," he told MovieWeb. Henry gave him the script anyway, and he loved it.

Tim suggested it could be their first project together. He became a producer and took the role, and they reworked the part together. He has said that Henry "wrote it as a son to a father who's been a very powerful force in his life."

How much of the film is about them?

Tim Blake Nelson has said parts of the father and daughter relationship overlap with his real relationship with his son, because Henry "wrote a very honest script." Henry has said he started from a character, and that the story drew on his own college years: the difficulty of socializing, and the way less financial security leaves students a narrower margin for error.

The practical side was tight. The film was shot in 17 days near Oberlin College in early 2022, in a hard Ohio winter. Kerwin made her acting debut in it.

How was it received?

The film premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival in September 2023, where it won the Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography, named for the cinematographer Haskell Wexler. It opened in limited release in the US on 1 March 2024. Rotten Tomatoes lists it at 93% positive from 14 reviews, with critics praising Tim Blake Nelson and Kerwin in the lead roles.

It suits viewers who like quiet, character-driven independent drama, and anyone curious how a family project looks when the story is about a family. Among newer films on Relay, it is a debut that grew out of a classroom.

Drama