An exceedingly fanciful film that's both more provocative and less successful than the Carrey piece.
The Science of Sleep (2006)
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Reviews Counted:152
Fresh:105
Rotten:47
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Lovely and diffuse, Sleep isn't as immediately absorbing as Gondry's previous work, but its messy beauty is its own reward.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, some sexual content and nudity
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Sep 22, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $4,572,038
Synopsis: For his first non-documentary film after 2004's ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, French writer/director Michel Gondry applies his highly inventive cinematic vision to THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP.... For his first non-documentary film after 2004's ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, French writer/director Michel Gondry applies his highly inventive cinematic vision to THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP. Largely set in the very active subconscious mind of Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal), the movie bounces back and forth between his vivid dreams and mundane real life, which involves living in a Parisian apartment owned by his mother (Miou-Miou) and working at an office with a strange crew of characters, including the crass Guy (Alain Chabat). When Stephane meets Stephanie, a shy neighbor from next door (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, the daughter of Gallic crooner Serge Gainsbourg and British singer/actress Jane Birkin), the two form an unusual friendship, one that may or may not lead to romance. Even more than ETERNAL SUNSHINE, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP is marked by Gondry's whimsical-yet-melancholy aesthetic (honed working on videos by Bjork, the White Stripes, and others), which makes heavy use of stop-motion animation and other playful visual tricks. While the former film was rooted in its American setting (Long Island, NY), SLEEP is a thoroughly European affair steeped in its French setting, with the eccentric Stephane (a transplant from Mexico) alternating between speaking (and even dreaming) in English, French, and Spanish. Although its occasionally over-the-top quirkiness may baffle some viewers, SLEEP's unpredictable and engagingly odd sense of storytelling is sure to intrigue fans of other indie classics such as AMELIE and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. [More]
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, Alain Chabat
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, Alain Chabat, Pierre Vaneck, Sacha Bourdo
Director: Michel Gondry
Director: Michel Gondry
Screenwriter: Michel Gondry
Composer: Jean Michel Bernard
Studio: Warner Independent
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Reviews for The Science of Sleep
A peculiar ditty about the way that life and love are made up of sane moments and surreal moments of craziness, and the crazy ones are always better.
A painfully bad film ... This ridiculous art-house nonsense is supposed to be a comedy, but I never laughed nor did I ever even come close to smiling.
...a burst of creativity that only an art student on copious caffeine - or something even stronger - could handle.
Gondry's film certainly looks at life in a different way, and it refreshingly allows you to do the same, so long as you keep your eyes open.
Possibly a very shallow work, but it's also exhaustively imaginative and bustles with wit and invention.
A cloying confection of candied whimsy and exclusive self-referentiality.
Through Gondry’s eyes, the experience is not the story but the sensation of a dreamscape unlike any we have experienced before -- the place where fear walks hand-in-hand with hope, joy and imagination.
What do you do when you're confronted with maybe the most wonderfully strange, most magically enchanting, most heartachingly romantic movie you've ever seen?
For all its lighthearted flights-of-fancy, The Science of Sleep turns out to be a surprisingly heartbreaking affair.
The Science of Sleep is a creative effort that is well crafted and visually amusing to watch.
This is a sometimes brilliant, occasionally infuriating, visually astonishing extravaganza of embarrassing self-pity.
The Science of Sleep is an interesting visual experiment that tries really hard to be something unique, but it just spins its flashy wheels and eventually goes nowhere.
Ever surreal and intensely visual, director/screenwriter Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep proves nearly impossible to describe in mere words.
While this is obviously inspired stuff, and while Gondry's cardboard-and-scissors, pop-primitivist sensibilities result in some fetching hand-carved wonders, the movie itself is as oblivious and hermetic as its love struck, fantasy-prone hero.
Michel Gondry's follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't as cohesive as that much-loved hipster head trip, but it's a wildly imaginative picture in its own right.
All of this sometimes feels just a bit self-indulgent, and more than a bit random -- but then again, isn't that exactly what dreams can be?
Science may be a little too out there for people used to linear movies. The story doesn't make much sense, but it's not supposed to any more than a dream does.
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