The Clairvoyant Zoopraxiscope

I tried, and failed, to watch Mike Figgis' Time Code last night. And in fact, I intend to return the movie to Netflix this morning. I was pleasantly distracted, at first, by the quadruple split-screen approach Figgis was using. I was also moved by the real-time quality of a lot of the action. And then I became upset, and then I fell asleep. Perhaps I was drowsy to begin with--I'd been out for most of the day, but I couldn't follow the film, not at all. And it wasn't for lack of talent. I could have watched any of the actors, alone on screen, for 90 minutes, easily. But it was as if the actors in the 4 stories were all aware of each other, aware of each other's narratives, and therefore didn't try as hard as they could have.