Review of Sleepwalk with Me (2012) by Yasmine S — 28 Dec 2012

Sleepwalk With Me is one of those movies that makes you laugh right away in the opening scene and never really lets you stop laughing for the rest of it's 1 hour 20 minute runtime.

That's thanks to the hilariously offbeat and awkward newcomer Mike Birbiglia.

Birbiglia is like a more smart, funny and grownup version of awkward types like Michael Cera or Jesse Eisenberg. And although I hate formulaic indie movies like this where the character keeps talking to the viewers throughout the movie it really worked with Sleepwalk With Me. Mostly because Birbiglia is just being himself and he's pretty funny.

Sleepwalk With Me picks up with Birbiglia as an unhappy bartender at a comedy club who aspires to be a great comic himself. But when you hear some of his jokes on stage you think there's no way this guy can be a comic. He's also not happy with his love life in which he has a fiance who he's been with for 8 years. Birbiglia starts travelling America doing standup as a way to escape his problems instead of just facing them. On top of this he also starts sleepwalking at night and acting out his dreams. Yes, there's a lot of formulaic stuff here but it's wrapped in a lot of creativity to keep it fresh enough to be a truly great indie-comedy.

It's very intriguing to witness this character learn how to become a funny comedian as the story progresses. At first he's got these mind-numbingly boring jokes and then he cracks a funny joke to a comedian who says "hey, why don't you do jokes like that on stage?" The joke was about his personal life and that's when this character learns he should just be himself and talk about how bad his life and relationship is and people think his honesty is hilarious, which it is.

On top of Birbiglia's star rising comedic performance, he also made an impressive directorial debut with this film. This guy did such a great job I don't know which aspect he is better at. He really brought it on all levels and he even showed great range as a standup comic too. This movie also boosted a decent cast of well-known supporting actors who all did their part to make this movie work on all levels.

Sleepwalk with Me is one of the best kept secret indie rom-coms of the year, right up there with "Safety Not Guaranteed". I wish more comedy directors would learn how to end a nice tight 1 hour 30 minutes runtime full of great jokes. I find too many movies nowadays are trying to blend too much congested drama into the comedies with a bloated 2+hour runtime. More importantly, this is a rare film that's not filled with any Hollywood bullshit, no storybook ending. In the end he's alone and he's ok with it.

Movie Breakdown -.

Writing: 23/25.

Directing: 21/25.

Cinematography and score: 12/25.

Acting: 20/25.

Total: 76/100.