Sleeping Beauty (2011)

This movie's trailer got people talking because of its very Kubrick vibe. And, in fact, the movie explores territory very similar to 'Eyes Wide Shut'. How sex has become more liberal and extreme, yet also sterile and disconnected.

The lead character, Lucy, (Emily Browning - a long way from Lemony Snicket) exhibits this. She'll sleep with people at the drop of a hat, yet with little evidence of desire. In fact, there's hardly any evidence that she processes strong emotions at all. She just goes about her business. Things happen to her, and she's too reticent to shrug them off.

To solve financial worries, Lucy gets a job at a posh, exclusive establishment where she is willingly placed naked and unconscious in a bedroom for a client, to do with her as he wishes (except penetration).

Through Lucy and the various clients, we see how we need vulnerability in others to relax the masks that we wear. Otherwise, we are so preoccupied with maintaining an image that we don't even try and connect with others. Emily Browning does well at rounding out the expressionless Lucy, and the voyeuristic nature of the material makes the movie entertaining. Unfortunately, the ending, though a pretty logical conclusion, also feel anti-climatic, a tad obvious and leaves us feeling short-changed.

The film is an interesting, respectful, non-gratuitous effort, yet many will ultimately find it like the leading lady - pretty impenetrable.

Fmovies: When you create a film and title it "Sleeping Beauty," you had better not make it boring. Otherwise, you'll get reviews utilizing every possible play on the word "sleep," but more importantly, word of mouth will spread using the same types of puns. When you use a title made famous by the Disney animation, you're going to have to guard against those comparisons as well. As you can see, this film is already on the defensive.

To put even more pressure on "Sleeping Beauty," before it has even begun, is the fact that it is the directorial debut of a novelist. Julia Leigh also wrote the screenplay, but it is her first time stepping behind the camera to helm a film production. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means an even bigger risk was taken by the studios, and just as many debuts fall flat as they do flourish. Luckily, Leigh's is a success, even if her film isn't going to be something that many people are going to enjoy.

To start the film, we begin by watching the daily routine of a young woman named Lucy (Emily Browning). The first scene made me cringe, as we find out that one of her many jobs involves testing out medical equipment. We watch a tube being inserted down her throat. This is done in one unflinching shot that has the opposite effect on the viewer. Later on, we learn she also does office work and works at a restaurant, but the medical testing was by far her worst job.

Why does she need to work three jobs? That's really a good question. We learn that she's behind on her rent, and also goes to school. Maybe school is really expensive, but she only seems to have one class, which can't be too heavy a burden. She's renting a room from people she knows, and I wouldn't think that would be that expensive either. Why she doesn't pay her rent on time, I'll never know. This isn't a film that's going to lay things out for you.

Because working three jobs isn't enough for Lucy, she inquires about an ad in the paper that requires her to serve dinner to old rich men while wearing lingerie. It pays $250 an hour, although it's freelance work, we're told. She works once, and after she gets home, she burns a $20 bill. Why? Again, I don't know, and it's actions like this that make me think she isn't wanting for cash. Regardless, working multiple jobs, including the dinner-while-wearing-lingerie one, continues for most of the film, even as her performance gets so bad that she sometimes sleeps on the floor while working.

Sleeping is something she'll end up doing quite a bit as the film continues on. She was told when she took the server job that there were opportunities for promotion. She gets that chance later on, when she's told that she can take a drug, lay naked in bed while passed out, and sleep for a few hours. Oh, and an elderly man will come in and sleep with her while she's knocked out. "Sleep with" in the literal sense of the meaning, as actual intercourse is forbidden.

Not that Lucy really cares. She doesn't seem to care much about herself, and would probably have accepted the job without the binding rule. She's the type of nihilist that will do whatever anyone wants her to do at the flip of a coin. At a bar, she's approached and asked if she wants some cocaine. "Why not?" is her response. Later, two men she just met actually use a coin to decide which one would have sex with her that night. She doesn't care, although c

In over half a century of cinema-going, I've seen a (deliberately) wide range of movies, including some really strange and cryptic work, and I have to say that the Australian "Sleeping Beauty" falls firmly in the odd and opaque category. Coincidentally another film in the very unusual bracket is the similarly named "Sleeping Furiously" set in Wales. "Sleeping Beauty" is not quite as slow - although it is very measured indeed - but the obscure meaning of many scenes sets it apart. There is as much nudity as "Eyes Wide Shut" with which it bears (sorry for the pun) some comparison, but a much weaker storyline.

This is an adventurous selection for a first film from Julia Leigh who both directed and wrote this strange tale of a Sdyney student who is prepared to sell her body in a variety of circumstances in order to pay her bills. And it is a bold choice for Emily Browning who moves on from "Sucker Punch" to take the eponymous role, meaning that she is rarely off screen and has to appear totally nude. There is virtually no music and very little dialogue (especially from Browning) so there is an astonishing focus on her face - doll-like with high cheek bones and cupid lips - and her body - diminutive, pale and slight.

But this is far from being an erotic work; in fact, it is a depressing one. None of the characters elicits our sympathy or warmth and Browning's character Lucy seems to be sleep-walking and drugged when she is not actually sleeping and drugged.

Sleeping Beauty fmovies. OK, after reading review after review that deliberately refused to engage with the content that was clearly on the screen, I decided to respond to this one:

"However the viewer is distracted by wondering how she manages to fit in her tertiary maths course, a day time job collating documents that you'd expect the machine in the same room to do, second job at the café, visiting a dried out case who has muesli and gin for breakfast, getting picked up in bars and hiring on as a fetish object."

The muesli and gin (vodka?) episode comes when she visits a friend who is an addict/alcoholic, and she obviously is displaying that the only way to get some food into him is to mix it with alcohol. (Also apparent that she's taking the p-ss.) The other scenes are to set up the idea that none of the things she is engaged with in her life --work, school, family --really matter much to her, and that she's pretty much direction less. Also that she needs to work hard to get by, which should be obvious enough. It establishes enough drudgery to explain why she might be attracted to the danger and risk-taking she embarks on.

"Lets not start in on why she burns the hundred dollar note in sustained shot, like the opening with white coat shoving a tube down her throat."

The first is to show her reaction to having some money --as someone who had to struggle for it for so long, she enjoys the sheer pleasure of acting out the idea of having "money to burn". The lab tests, meanwhile, are to show you how desperate she is to pick up some cash through odd jobs -- it also sets up the irony of her being "penetrated" in her straight job, while not being penetrated in her sleeping call girl one.

"As for the performers, our sympathy for the actors' humiliation overrides any criticism of their performances."

Browning did an excellent job, and certainly better than anyone had a right to expect after "Sucker Punch". I hear over and over about what a "blank" she was; I did not find that to be the case at all: nearly every scene plays out on her face and reactions, and I was constantly following her closely for clues as to where her character was coming from. And yes, there were plenty. As for the nudity, this emphasizes her character's vulnerability, especially when contrasted with her clients. The key moment here is when she finds, after starting her "sleeping beauty" job, that she's no longer comfortable sleeping naked at home, and puts on some undies. What her eyes don't remember from her sleeping sessions, it seems her body memory does.

Like the above review suggests, there are a lot of opinions out there about how opaque the film is supposed to be; that's not true at all. The film does leave some gaps for your imagination, and it tends to make you focus on detail and draw your own conclusions --everything isn't spelled out in neat little packets of dialog, as some seem to wish for. ("I'm prostituting myself because my daddy didn't love me when I was young and my mother's an alcoholic." -- I suppose that would be the American version.) This is hardly "Inland Empire", though, and the plot dots are certainly there to be connected for anyone who's looking. The pace is hypnotic, which some will call "slow", and the ending is deliberately vague, but I was surprised how much it left me thinking about the characters, what happened to them both before and af