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(More customer reviews)For her work after "Speed" my brother began referring to Sandra Bullock as "Queen of the Chick Flicks", and I won't disagree, although some of her films work much better for members of both sexes than others. "While You Were Sleeping" is an entertaining film for Guys and Dolls, and it works in repeated viewings.
Sandra portrays Lucy Moderatz, who takes tolls on the L train in Chicago and from afar has an obsessive crush on the handsome, well-dressed Peter Callaghan, played by Peter Gallagher. The audience must willingly accept that someone as likable and attractive as Sandra Bullock is stuck in a dead-end job where she is lonely and works all the holidays because, after all, she doesn't have anyone to share them with. The movie doesn't give you much time to dwell on this because before you know it, Peter is getting mugged and knocked off Lucy's train station platform where he falls unconscious onto the path of a rapidly approaching train. Not surprisingly, Lucy jumps down and pulls the man of her dreams to safety. Lucy then follows the comatose Peter to the hospital where a nurse overhears Lucy in one of her daydreams say "this is the man I'm going to marry" - which naturally leads the nurse to think that Lucy and Peter are engaged when, in fact, the only words that have passed between them are when Peter paused to say "Merry Christmas" as he dropped his token into Lucy's toll booth.
Peter's wonderful family arrives and the misunderstanding of Lucy as Peter's fiancee is perpetuated. Lucy could have cleared up the whole misunderstanding from the first moments but:
1. Peter's family is wonderful and Lucy is lonely.
2. Peter's grandmother has a "heart condition" and Lucy fears that telling the truth may send Grandma over the edge. (The screenwriters were clearly searching for a reason for Lucy to not just fess up....)
3. Since Lucy has been fantasizing about Peter for awhile it's not that difficult for her to pretend to be his fiancee.
I've heard Roger Ebert say it's not as important *what* a movie is about as *how* the movie is about that thing.
This movie would be doomed to failure if it were only about some pathetic toll-taker who pretends to be engaged to her dream-boat to his family while he's in a coma. But Lucy isn't pathetic - she's as likable and attractive as, well, Sandra Bullock, and Peter's family is full of charming, likable folks. Peter, as things would have it, isn't as charming as Lucy dreamt. Although he used to be in the family business of antique furniture, he went to law school and now barely keeps in touch with his family. He has a bitchy girlfriend who is in Europe leaving calls on his answering machine while he is in a coma - one of the calls tells him "yes, I'll marry you".
Again - it's not difficult to guess where much of this is going. Bill Pullman plays Peter's charming, easy-going brother, Jack, who has stayed close to the family, running Dad's business. (There is an extremely well-done low-key scene close to the end where Jack tells Dad, played by Peter Boyle, that he wants to MAKE furniture instead of just dealing it - which will mean getting out of the family business. The scene has both a ring of authenticity, not yielding to any histrionic cliches, and at the same time maintaining the warm feelings that you've built up for both of these characters by this portion of the movie. These kinds of scenes *make* this movie.)
Jack Warden gets special kudos from me as Peter's godfather, Saul, who loves his godson, but also comes to love Lucy as well. Michael Rispoli steals a few scenes as "Joe, Jr." the son of Lucy's landlord. In the early scenes Joe comes across as a shorter, heavier Andrew Dice Clay wannabe. But by the end even Joe has become someone deserving our admiration. This is the kind of movie where you want nice things to happen to the characters - and the movie goes about it's business in a very satisfying way.
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While You Were Sleeping (1995)You'll fall in love with WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, the hit romantic comedy that woke everyone up to adorable Sandra Bullock (SPEED, A TIME TO KILL). As Lucy, a lonely subway worker, she becomes smitten with a handsome stranger (Peter Gallagher -- MALICE). But when she saves his life after he's been mugged and fallen into a coma, his hilariously offbeat family mistakes her for his fiancee! Soon, the mix-ups escalate as Lucy fabricates a life between herself and a man she's never met! And when Lucy falls for his charming brother (Bill Pullman -- INDEPENDENCE DAY) the situation really gets uproarious as she's forced to make a choice between the two!
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