The Science of Sleep Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)September 28th, 2006
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (LA SCIENCE DES RÊVES) is an oh so painfully bad film by writer and director Michel Gondry, the so-called creative genius behind THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, a wildly overrated, mediocre movie. But compared to THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is a cinematic masterpiece of the first order.
Aptly titled, the movie is certain to send many viewers into instant slumber. This ridiculous art-house nonsense is supposed to be a comedy, but I never laughed nor did I ever even come close to smiling. It is cinema as a 10-year-old, armed with a camcorder and a few arts and crafts supplies from his grade school classroom, might envision it. Fart and smelly armpit jokes are among its more successful attempts at humor.
Told in a combination of real world events and dream sequences, it stars Gael García Bernal as Stéphane Miroux, a newly hired graphic designer at a calendar company. Although he pitches his boss a humorous calendar with tragic events like plane crashes, he finds out that all he gets to do is cut and paste printed type generated by a machine.
The languages spoken in the movie switch at almost random moments from French to English to Spanish. This makes little sense, but nothing in the movie makes any sense. The characters aren't genuine, interesting or funny. They are merely bizarre, but that is not the same thing as being actually funny.
Stéphane's dream sequences are all like parodies of old Soupy Sales routines on television. Complete with cardboard cameras and hokey special effects, they are as weird as they are tediously annoying.
The dialog is equally awful. "I don't know if I have a bit of nostalgia or if I want to go to the bathroom," Stéphane says to us at one point. As you try to endure this film, you will probably be wanting to go to the bathroom too, or any place where you don't have to endure this picture's pretentious inanities.
In addition to his supposed skills as a graphic designer, Stéphane is also an inventor. He shows Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a pair of cheap glasses that he says lets you see "real-life in 3-D." When it is pointed out to him that real-life is already in 3-D, he just doesn't get it.
I didn't get the whole movie, and I especially didn't get the random giggles that a few members of our audience produced. I could never figure out what those viewers found funny. I had a stronger affinity with those who walked out in protest over wasting of their time.
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP runs 1:45. The film is in French and Spanish with English subtitles and in English. It is rated R for "language, some sexual content and nudity" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, September 29, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
