[Happy 20th Birthday!] While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Director: Jon Turtletaub

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Glynis Johns, Jack Warden

Screenplay: Daniel G. Sullivan, Fredric LeBow

103 mins. Rated PG for some language.

Well, While You Were Sleeping is 20 years old. Has it aged? Yeah, kind of.

Lucy (Sandra Bullock, Gravity, The Heat) is a ticket collector who is in love with a man she’s never met. His name is Peter (Peter Gallagher, TV’s Covert Affairs, American Beauty), and that’s about all she knows. When Peter falls onto the train tracks and goes comatose, Lucy accidentally gets into a situation where Peter’s entire family thinks she is his fiancé. As Lucy’s story gets deeper and deeper, she gets closer and closer to Peter’s brother Jack (Bill Pullman, Independence Day, The Equalizer), but how will she right the ship?

Jon Turtletaub (National Treasure, Last Vegas) has directed some diverse films. While You Were Sleeping is pretty odd itself. The film was rewritten from a time when Lucy was a man in love with a woman who goes comatose. How sexist is it when a man can’t do it but a woman can? Good question, but I digress.

Sandra Bullock does fine work as female Lucy here, and it aided by a quirky cast of family members like Peter Boyle (TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond, Taxi Driver) and Jack Warden (12 Angry Men, All the President’s Men) who help to keep the film lighthearted so you don’t realize that Lucy is a glorified stalker. The movie is cutesy enough and actually kind of works even if you do take time to think about it. It mostly comes undone by the end, but for a while, I think While You Were Sleeping is a film that could be enjoyed by both sexes on movie night.

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe