While You Were Sleeping (1995)

It's a screw-ball romantic comedy worthy of all of the heritage of the genre.

Having said that, it's also a pleasant antidote to war porn masquerading as "high art" and to actual porn, because it's a wonderful reflection on the importance of kindness in the world.

Sandra Bullock is delightful, 'natch. Bill Pullman is enchanting, and Peter Gallagher is... engaging... as a man in a coma.

Watch this is you just want to find a speck of decency in a scary world.

Fmovies: Warm and gentle comedy that shows Bullock to her best advantage, in her favorite role of shy closet beauty. Bullock obsesses about a man she sees briefly every day; when he is knocked unconscious she claims to be his fiancée. Then sparks begin to fly with the brother. Wonderful turns by Boyle and Warden as older family members. There's a great line by Boyle in this movie, something like you always imagine you'll have these long golden moments in life and then when you get there it lasts about a minute. I think Bullock was never better than in this movie, in later productions her shy modesty seems a little artificial. She and Pullman have just enough chemistry together to pull this through.

After a lonely woman saves the life of a complete stranger, she's mistaken for his fiancé and slowly becomes integrated into his family, due to his coma. As her true identity couldn't be verified by anybody, everything seems to be well, until his brother shows up, whose character is about to play a very important role in the upcoming events.

It's a lovely and romantic comedy, set in the heart of the winter holidays, which tells an improbable love story about two complete strangers who fall in love without their will and as much as they try to resist, as close they eventually become. It creates a warm and enjoyable atmosphere which lasts until the end. The actors play their roles very convincingly, making you care about their characters while keeping you eager to find out what will happen next and how it's going to end. Besides all of the above, it also manages to make you laugh from time to time, even out loud, just to spice things up a bit. It's a very good movie for everyone to enjoy, especially around the holidays, but not only.

While You Were Sleeping fmovies. Sandra Bullock is a working girl who wants to travel. She has no family, and is usually stuck doing holiday shifts in the Chicago transit system (as a toll booth clerk on the elevated railway). She has noted one man who uses the station all the time (Peter Gallagher), and rescues him when he is thrown onto the train tracks just before a train comes into the station. Gallagher is in a coma and (due to a well-intentioned nurse) Bullock is introduced to the family of Gallagher as his fiancé. She tries to tell them the truth, but when she learns his grandmother (Glynis Johns) has a heart problem she hesitates. Soon she is treated as a member of this nice family as a member (well, she did save Gallagher, and she is thought to be his fiancé). Only his brother (Bill Pullman) has real doubts, and keeps mentioning them (and keeps apologizing for them. Bullock and Pullman find that they are also growing more attracted to each other. The film shows how these problems are resolved. And it is all done in a most charming manner.

This is one of those films that would take only a few minutes to quickly resolve in the real world, where Bullock would have told the truth early on. But the audience is allowed to suspend it's disbelief because the characters are uniformly likable. Although Jack (Pullman) is constantly questioning Bullock's story, each time she gives a plausible explanation of what is going on, and Pullman likes her enough to accept these explanations. The only one who knows the truth is the family friend Sam (Jack Warden) and he too feels that the news has to be broken carefully (he loves the family and doesn't want them hurt). Oddly enough his one effort at meddling almost screws up the situation in the film for Bullock, Pullman, and Gallagher. Pullman also faces the truth and explains to his father (Peter Boyle) that he doesn't want to continue in the family business. Boyle's reaction becomes important too.

The performances are flawless, and one finds oneself rooting for most of the cast (the sole exception is the actress playing "Ashley", Peter Galagher's actual girl friend). Her opposite number, "Joe Jr." is too comic a figure to dislike (in fact, at one point he thinks Pullman is annoying Bullock and offers to take care of him - not the act of a rat at all). For a sweet, lovable love tale WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING is hard to top. In the last decade only WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, WORKING GIRL, PRETTY WOMAN, NOTTING HILL, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, and YOU'VE GOT MAIL are on par with it, but the family becomes so important to Bullock in the plot this has a special warmth in it that is quite is different from most of the others.

A sweet and gentle, romantic film about how love sometimes slips in through the window rather than coming straight in through the front door, it's the one that put star Sandra Bullock into contention with Meg Ryan for the crown of America's Sweetheart. And with good reason, because in `While You Were Sleeping,' directed by Jon Turteltaub, Bullock emerges as the epitome of the modern day `girl next door,' in the best and most sincere sense. This is a film that explores one of the basic tenets of the human condition, the need to love and be loved, and makes no bones about what it's trying to accomplish along the way. Clearly, the filmmakers want to make you feel good and entertain you at the same time. And they succeed on both fronts.

Lucy Moderatz (Bullock) lives alone in Chicago, where she has an apartment, a cat and a job with the CTA as a token taker for the train. Her life is fairly uncomplicated and uneventful (read: Dull), and the one thing she looks forward to in her daily grind is seeing a certain young gentleman who rides the train everyday and always passes through her toll booth. She's doesn't even know his name, and they've never exchanged so much as a `Good morning,' but in her mind he's become the Prince Charming she's always dreamed about.

Then on Christmas morning he passes through, but while waiting on the platform for the train he gets mugged and falls onto the tracks, unconscious. And a train is coming. Lucy runs to his aid and saves his life, but the severe head trauma he's sustained has put him in a coma. At the hospital, they refuse to let her in to see him, as that is a privilege reserved for family members only; so in desperation she tells them that she is his fiancee, which does the trick. But when his family-- his rather `large' family-- shows up, her ruse creates something of a sticky wicket. Everything is moving so fast and becoming so emotional that Lucy simply can't get in a word of explanation. The next thing she knows, to the family she is their beloved Peter's (Peter Gallagher) intended (even though he's never said a word to them about her), and because the situation is so frantic and there's such concern about Peter, besides which it's Christmas, Lucy can't bring herself to tell them the truth. So in an instant, her life is suddenly changed; she's surrounded by `family,' and she's `engaged' to her Prince Charming. Even if he is, well...in a coma.

Turteltaub has crafted and delivered a thoroughly engaging film in the tradition of Nora Ephron's `You've Got Mail' (the second best romantic comedy ever made) and `Sleepless In Seattle.' He sets a perfect pace, and presents his endearingly eclectic assemblage of characters in the best possible way-- he makes you feel at home with them. Most importantly, though, Turteltaub manages to make this a `sweet' film without being `saccharin' about it, which would have sunk it quicker than a deflated rubber raft in an undertow. Instead, he pulls out all the right stops to make his film entirely Ephronesque and entertaining, and it works beautifully. The humor is warm, and as the story moves along he builds upon that strong sense of `need' that is universal, then triumphs by satisfying that need in the end.

Sandra Bullock has never been more winning or winsome than she is here; there's a special quality about her Lucy that makes you want to reach out to her. She is, without question, the most v

This was the picture which proved things could be all about Sandra Bullock. "Speed" - one year earlier - showed this. This picture proved it. A lot of people nowadays make fun of a typical Bullock picture and speak of her as negligible in this day and age. They probably forget or were never aware that she was hailed as America's new sweetheart back in '95 and it was no idle chatter. There are very few actresses who can carry a picture on their own slight shoulders - I mean, really make it a success. Sure, Bill Pullman helped, but this really was Sandra all the way, in a sappy, soapy, cliché-ridden slight story of sudden romance usually very hard to buy into. But because Sandra is there on the screen throughout nearly every frame, it all works out, and you're rooting for her happiness in the final few minutes even knowing very well what is about to happen. It's like you've seen it all before, but Sandra makes you want to see it again. We are all very fortunate, those of us who have seen this story, that it was Sandra in the central role and not someone like (shudder) Demi Moore. And if a guy is really fortunate, he may meet someone like Sandra in real life.