On Monday, Nov. 9, a quiet announcement landed in the middle of a very loud movie week. Jonathan Bailey, the star of Wicked and Fellow Travelers, and Bill Nighy, the Oscar nominee for Living, are set to play a real couple in Insomniac City: the writer and photographer Bill Hayes and the neurologist Oliver Sacks. If you don’t know either man, you’re in good company, and that’s exactly why this story is worth slowing down for.
Here’s what this article is and isn’t. I haven’t read the script or seen a frame of footage, because none has been shown. So it isn’t a review. It’s the confirmed facts, the real history behind them, and my own opinion about what this film has to do to deserve the book’s title. The casting math, the ranking and the verdict are mine.
The two real men, side by side
Bill HayesTo be played by Jonathan Bailey
Oliver SacksTo be played by Bill Nighy
What the memoir is, and why it is hard to film
The book is the part that surprises people. NPR called Insomniac City a mixed-media memoir, and that’s a fair label: journal entries, Hayes’s own street photographs, short scenes and meditations on grief. Hayes walks New York at night with a camera and talks to strangers, from skateboarders to a dry cleaner’s daughter, while a relationship with a man 28 years older grows quietly in the background. He eventually moved into Sacks’s building, though the two kept separate apartments.
Sacks was not an obvious romantic lead. Shelf Awareness describes a deeply intellectual, unworldly man who had never been in a relationship, and Wikipedia’s summary puts the gap since his last romance at about 35 years. Hayes, meanwhile, was starting over after a loss. Reviewers described the book as a love letter to Sacks and to the city, and Publishers Weekly said readers would wish the two men had more time. Grief sits at both ends of the story: Steve at the start, Sacks at the end.
That is why this adaptation is interesting, and why it’s risky. The memoir’s engine is attention, not plot. Someone had to invent a spine for a film without losing the thing that made the book feel alive. Cooke’s own description of the project, according to the announcement, is a story that is both intimate and epic, about second chances and about New York itself.
What is confirmed, and what I couldn’t find
Confirmed
- The film: Insomniac City, a love story about Hayes and Sacks, adapted from Hayes’s 2017 memoir.
- The cast: Bailey as Hayes, Nighy as Sacks.
- The director: Dominic Cooke (The Courier, On Chesil Beach), who co-wrote the script with Hayes.
- The producers: Troy Lum and Andrew Mason of Brouhaha Entertainment, Bailey himself, Mike Goodridge and Gabrielle Tana. Will Clarke, Andy Mason and Mike Runagall are executive producers through Altitude.
- The sale: Altitude is handling worldwide sales and introducing the project to buyers at the American Film Market, which opened its 47th edition in Los Angeles on Nov. 10 and runs through Nov. 15.
- One release plan: Kismet will release it in cinemas in Australia and New Zealand.
I couldn’t find
- A release date, or a start date for shooting.
- Where it will be filmed. New York is the story’s setting, but none of the announcements says it is the location.
- A U.S. distributor, or whether it will go to theaters or streaming there.
- Any other cast members.
Checked against the sources below on November 11, 2026. Deal details and dates can change.
The casting math: 38 years against a real 28
Hayes has described Sacks as 28 years his senior. Hayes was 48 when he moved to New York, and Sacks was in his mid-to-late 70s when they became a couple. Sources differ on the exact number.
Star Observer lists Bailey at 38 and Nighy at 76. Same love story, but a gap ten years wider than the real one.
Two things stand out to me. First, Nighy is almost exactly the age Sacks was when the romance began, so the film doesn’t need any tricks to make that half of the couple believable. And Nighy’s gift for dry, gentle timing seems well matched to the shy, curious man the memoir describes. That’s an opinion, but it’s the one casting decision here I’d bet on without hesitation.
Second, Bailey is a decade younger than Hayes was. That can work in the film’s favor, because a younger man rebuilding his life reads as hopeful. But it also means the age gap is louder on screen than it was in life, and the film can’t pretend not to notice. One more detail: Bailey is also one of the producers. To me that signals a project he’s invested in, not a stray casting offer. That’s my inference, not something the announcement says.
Five things the film has to get right, ranked by risk
This is my own list, ordered by how likely I think each one is to go wrong.
- Risk: high
Don’t sand down the grief
The announcement describes a man arriving in New York after a devastating loss. If the first act hurries past it to get to the romance, the whole film turns into a greeting card. The book earns its warmth because it has sorrow on both sides.
- Risk: high
Make New York more than a backdrop
It’s in the title. Hayes’s memoir is full of subway cars, strangers and night walks. Two people talking in nice apartments isn’t that book, and a montage of skyline sunsets isn’t either.
- Risk: medium
Keep Sacks a person, not a saint
He’s a beloved writer, and the memoir is tender about him. Films about people we admire tend to polish them until they have no edges. The best version of this role has humor, vanity and shyness in it.
- Risk: medium
Handle the age gap plainly
Neither apologize for it nor lean on it. The memoir treats it as one fact about two people who chose each other, and a film with a wider gap has to work harder to do the same.
- Risk: medium
Earn the ending
The book ends with Sacks’s death. The producers call the film uplifting, which is encouraging, but “uplifting” can slide into sentimental fast. I’d rather cry honestly than be nudged.
Insomniac City questions, answered fast
Who plays Bill Hayes and Oliver Sacks in Insomniac City?
Jonathan Bailey plays Bill Hayes and Bill Nighy plays Oliver Sacks, according to the producers’ announcement and trade reports on Nov. 9.
Is Insomniac City a true story?
Yes. It is based on Hayes’s 2017 memoir about his real relationship with Sacks, who died in 2015. The film’s script is co-written by Hayes.
When does the Insomniac City movie come out?
No release date has been announced, and I found no word on when shooting starts. Altitude is selling it to buyers at the American Film Market, and Kismet has Australia and New Zealand.
Who is directing Insomniac City?
Dominic Cooke, whose film credits include The Courier and On Chesil Beach. He co-wrote the screenplay with Bill Hayes.
Do I need to read the book first?
No. The film is being built as a love story, and much of the book’s pleasure is in its street scenes and photographs, which a movie can’t copy. I’d read it afterward to see what the film chose to keep.
Is Jonathan Bailey also producing?
Yes. The announcement lists him among the film’s producers alongside Troy Lum, Andrew Mason, Mike Goodridge and Gabrielle Tana.
I’m rooting for this one. Bailey and Nighy are the right kind of casting for a story that depends on tenderness, and a director who co-wrote the script with Hayes himself is the best safeguard I can think of against a generic romance. My worry is the opposite of what you’d expect: not that the film will be too sad, but that it will be too nice. The memoir earns its warmth because grief sits on both ends of it. If the film keeps the grief, I’ll be first in line. If it trades it for pretty New York montages, it will lose the book.
