Review of Sleeping Beauty (2011) by Brian R — 03 Jan 2013

This film is not for the faint of heart. Julia Leigh's "Sleeping Beauty" is about a young, quiet, promiscuous girl named Lucy (Emily Browning) working as an exotic waitress, later on a sleeping beauty. In the daytime Lucy is going to school and working menial jobs, while trying to keep up with the rent money. Lucy is quiet, lonely, sexual, and carefree.

There isn't really much to her character except that she lives for the thrill. A scene where she tries a round of coke with another female campanion in the washroom, she befriends a guy named Biirdman, sleeps with a co-worker, gets a job as a sleeping beauty(older men take advantage of her while she sleeps).

The picture is quiet and tries to be serious but to what purpose? It seems to me Leigh is more interested in the plot rather then focusing on the characters but that's what good erotic dramas is known for. The perversion may put some viewers off but if you really look at it there is no real explicit scenes of sex. Titalize yes but full penetration? No. Browning's character can also be a put off because she's got nothing really going for her except maybe to exploit herself in any possible way. Lucy isn't a bad person but a lonely one, in search of some real reasonable contact.

In a way, "Sleeping Beauty" reminds me of another picture by Luis Bunuel "Belle De Jour". It's about a housewife working at a brothel while satisfying her clients, gets turned on by the thrill of the chase. Lucy is the same way as Belle De Jour except, most of the time she's sound asleep unawhere of what her clients is doing to her but she does get a stunning rude awakening. For a mixed review, "Sleeping Beauty" isn't a rotten film, works better viewing it a second or third try.