While You Were Sleeping Review

While You Were Sleeping

by William Thomas |
Published on
Release Date:

25 Aug 1995

Running Time:

106 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Original Title:

While You Were Sleeping

Sandra Bullock is Lucy, a lonely ticket booth worker for the Chicago Transit Authority, whose day revolves around the morning arrival of a gorgeous yuppie commuter (Gallagher). Every night she goes home, unwraps a TV dinner, bonds with her cat, and fights off the unwanted advances of her landlord's son. Coerced into working over Christmas, Lucy's dream man - she later learns his name is Peter - finally becomes more reality than she can cope with, when he's mugged on her platform and ends up on the tracks, leaving Lucy to step in and save him from the wheels of an oncoming train.

Later, at the hospital, Lucy is overheard by a nurse muttering to herself, "I was going to marry him..." and before you can say "engagement party", Peter's eccentric family troop in and mistake her as his fiancee. It's a wonderful scene - fast, funny, totally implausible. Since Lucy is alone, weak-willed, and, more to the point, Peter is now in a coma, she plays along with the deception, warming to her surrogate family and they to her. All the while aware that one day she will be forced to come clean.

Then the arrival of Peter's less loaded, but far nicer brother, Jack (Pullman), throws up another dilemma. Peter is not, she swiftly discovers, the Mr. Perfect she fantasised about, but a self-centred, conceited scumbag, who keeps pictures of himself in his wallet and only has one testicle. No, it's Jack who she really loves. What comes next is obvious, but the film is no less enchanting for it. Bullock is a delight, disarmingly kooky, pleasing to look at, and - as she has previously proved - a gifted comedic actress. Together with Pullman, she keeps the predictable plot chugging along nicely, and the corn pretty much on the cob. Pullman, so long the loser in celluloid love (think Sleepless, Malice, Last Seduction), finally - and it won't spoil your enjoyment to know - gets the girl. It's a mite pat and sentimental in parts, but this is romantic comedy, what do you expect? This year's Sleepless In Seattle. Only better.

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