![]() ![]() Watching Sandra Bullock smile while beautifully lit by Papamichel is like being hugged in a loving embrace that's warm and smells like cinnamon and holidays and feels like movie magic. To spend a Christmas in Chicago is surely one of those movie-inspired fantasies I’d add to my Bucket List if I had one. I've never seen the Windy City looking so gorgeous and welcoming, like the perfect setting for romantic misadventures and cheery winter celebrations. In matters of cinematography, Phedon Papamichael shoots Chicago like an especially beautiful moving postcard. Regarding the other actors, Glynis Johns is the first among equals as a dotty doting grandmother whose air-headedness is as hilarious as it is endearing. She's helped along the way by a stellar supporting cast and a surprisingly sophisticated lensing. In other words, she makes it work as only a movie star can. Her smile is luminous and her open expressions radiate the sort of earnestness usually reserved for dewy-eyed cartoons. Though, when we're watching Bullock falling in love, such concerns seem anodyne if not altogether inexistent. This story is problematic, to say the least, and Lucy's actions transcend the ridiculous to come very close to genuine insidiousness. ![]() It's easy to imagine this going astray with a different performer at the helm. Bullock might have great chemistry with Bill Pullman, but her success in the role hinges on her ability to be both an outsider to the family as well as someone who compliments their existing dynamic. ![]() While You Were Sleeping works best as a Christmas themed story of loneliness overcome, the quest of a woman to find a family that needs her as much as she needs them, who loves her. Part of the delightful nature of this whole affair is how the true love story at the center of the narrative isn't one forged between passionate lovers. She also finds love, not with the previous object of her desires, but his brother. Through a series of improbable hijinks, our heroine ends up as the fake fiancée to a comatose man whose family welcomes her with open arms, smiling faces and industrial doses of comforting kookiness. On Christmas Day, the beautiful stranger finds himself in a dangerous predicament and Lucy saves his life. Sandra Bullock plays Lucy, a Chicago Transit Authority worker who's got a helpless crush on a handsome man that has never paid even the slightest attention to her. For starters, the story is a collection of insane contrivances, the sort which only make sense when filtered through the prism of Hollywood escapism. That said, it might be time for me to stop wandering around in pharmaceutical metaphors and actually describe some of this movie's particularities. If for nothing else, I strongly recommend While You Were Sleeping for its prophylactic qualities. As I watched While You Were Sleeping, for some joyful 103 minutes, my frown vanished and the cloud above my head dissipated.Įntertainment-based antidepressants are undervalued and I think I just found a new remedy to add to my list of audiovisual medicine. I'd been aware of its popularity for years and now I understand. One night, as I was feeling down and a bit grumpy, I decided that it was finally time to see her first big solo headliner hit, a movie that signals the point when a spunky supporting actress became an A-lister. Recently, I've been exploring the career of Sandra Bullock, especially her 90s work. Sometimes, one just needs a hug.Īnd I've only just discovered that While You Were Sleeping (1995) fulfills that need with the warmest of embraces… Sometimes, one just wants to forget life's troubles and escape, to enjoy the goofiness of a nice comedy or the sweetness of an impossible romance. But a cinephile can yearn for simple pleasures, too. To cry with Carol is magic, to wander through Stalker's desolation is like dreaming with open eyes and to see New York, New York is to applaud its spectacle of ambition. Abrasive, cerebral, immersive, cinema can be a wonder, but we shouldn't suppose there's a single path to cinematic glory.ĭon't get me wrong, I love my slow cinema, my European art-house hits, and Philosophical reveries. Some engage the mind, others spellbind the senses, immersing those who watch them in formalistic dreams of celluloid and digital beauty. Some films prove their greatness by challenging the audience.
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