Sleeping Beauty (2011 film)
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''Sleeping Beauty'' is a 2011 Australian
erotic Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scul ...
drama film written and directed by Julia Leigh in her directorial debut. The film stars
Emily Browning Emily Jane Browning
. Celebritywonder, retrieved 30 June 2011
(born 7 December 1988
as a young university student. She takes up a part-time high-paying job with a mysterious group that caters to rich men who like the company of nude sleeping young women. Lucy is required to sleep alongside paying customers and be absolutely submissive to their erotic desires, fulfilling their fantasies by voluntarily entering into physical unconsciousness. The film is based on influences that include Leigh's own dream experiences, and the novels ''
The House of the Sleeping Beauties ''House of the Sleeping Beauties'' is a 1961 novella by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. It is a story about a lonely man, Old Eguchi, who continuously visits the House of the Sleeping Beauties in hope of something more. Plot The titular ...
'' and ''
Memories of My Melancholy Whores ''Memories of My Melancholy Whores'' ( es, link=no, Memoria de mis putas tristes) is a novella by Gabriel García Márquez. The book was originally published in Spanish in 2004, with an English translation by Edith Grossman published in October ...
'' by
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...
Yasunari Kawabata and Gabriel García Márquez, respectively. The film premiered in May at the
2011 Cannes Film Festival The 64th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 22 May 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition and French filmmaker Michel Gondry headed the jury for the short film competition. South Ko ...
as the first Competition entry to be screened. It was the first Australian film In Competition at Cannes since '' Moulin Rouge!'' (2001). ''Sleeping Beauty'' was released in Australia on 23 June 2011. It received a
limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
in the United States on 2 December 2011. Overall critical reception of the film has been mixed, rising to some approval through June 2016, after circulation of the film on the festival circuit.


Plot

Lucy is a university student who works in an office in the daytime and at a restaurant in the evenings. She is occasionally a research subject at a science laboratory. Lucy is paying tuition and rent by doing several jobs. Her sister's boyfriend is continually on her about her part of the rent. She is caring for Birdmann, who is an alcoholic and is very attracted to her. While she does not return his sexual interest, Lucy enjoys Birdmann's company, and in his presence is the only time she is shown smiling or laughing. An old joke between the two is that Birdmann frequently asks Lucy to marry him; Lucy always says no. Due to lack of money and Birdmann's addiction, Lucy makes a decision to look for another part-time job. In response to a classified ad for yet another short-term job, Lucy meets Clara, who runs a service that combines lingerie modelling and catering performed by young women at a black tie dinner party for mostly male clients. Clara assures her that the men are not allowed to touch the women sexually, and Lucy agrees to try it. Clara inspects Lucy's body and names her "Sara" for the purpose of anonymity. At the dinner party, Lucy is the only girl dressed in white; the other women wear black lingerie that is much more revealing than Lucy's outfit. After one other session as a serving girl, Lucy gets promoted. She receives a call from Clara's assistant for a different request. Lucy is driven to a country mansion, where Clara offers Lucy a new role wherein she will be voluntarily sedated and sleep naked while male clients lie beside her. They are permitted to caress and cuddle her, but vaginal penetration is not allowed. After Lucy falls asleep, she lies unconscious on the bed and Clara leads in her client. After Clara reminds the man of the no-penetration rule, he strips and curls up beside Lucy. After a few of these sessions, Lucy has enough money to move into a larger, more expensive apartment, where she lives alone. She receives a call from Birdmann, who has overdosed on painkillers. She goes to his house and finds him dying in his bed. Sobbing, she takes off her shirt and gets in bed with him, but he dies in her arms. At Birdmann's funeral, Lucy abruptly asks an old boyfriend if he will marry her, in an echo of Birdmann's old playful banter. The ex-boyfriend, however, not understanding the reference, takes her seriously and, shocked, refuses her, citing a number of Lucy's personal problems as his reasons. At her next assignment with Clara, Lucy asks if she can see what happens during the sessions while she is asleep. Clara refuses, saying it will put her clients at risk of blackmail. Lucy decides to surreptitiously film her next encounter. The client is once again the first man, but this time, he also drinks the tea with a much larger dose of the sleeping drug. The following morning, Clara comes in and checks the man's pulse, showing no surprise when he cannot be awakened. Clara tries to wake Lucy, who has overdosed as well, and is eventually able to revive her using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Lucy begins screaming when she sees the dead man in bed next to her. The film ends with the scene captured by the hidden camera: the dead old man and the sleeping girl both lying peacefully together in bed.


Cast

*
Emily Browning Emily Jane Browning
. Celebritywonder, retrieved 30 June 2011
(born 7 December 1988
as Lucy * Rachael Blake as Clara *
Ewen Leslie Ewen Leslie (born 27 July 1980) is an Australian stage, film and television actor. Career Theatre His first work on Sydney stages was performing at the Old Fitzroy Hotel theatre in Woolloomooloo. In 2007 he was cast by Philip Seymour Hoffma ...
as Birdmann * Peter Carroll as Man 1 * Chris Haywood as Man 2 * Hugh Keays-Byrne as Man 3 *
Nathan Page Nathan Page (born 25 August 1971) is an Australian actor, best known for his commercial voice-over work and his role as Detective Inspector Jack Robinson in '' Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries''. Early life Page grew up in an Air Force family ...
as Businessman 2 * Sarah Snook as Flatmate *
Michael Dorman Michael Dorman (born 26 April 1981) is a New Zealand actor, best known for his starring roles as NASA astronaut Gordo Stevens in the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series ''For All Mankind'' and as John Tavner in the comedy-drama ...
as Cook * Daniel Webber as Spy Shop Assistant


Production

Writer and director Julia Leigh, primarily a novelist, said in an interview with '' Filmmaker Magazine'' that she initially wrote the film without the intention of directing it. In writing the script, Leigh drew from several literary inspirations, including Yasunari Kawabata's ''House of the Sleeping Beauties'' and ''
Memories of My Melancholy Whores ''Memories of My Melancholy Whores'' ( es, link=no, Memoria de mis putas tristes) is a novella by Gabriel García Márquez. The book was originally published in Spanish in 2004, with an English translation by Edith Grossman published in October ...
'' by Gabriel García Márquez, as well as the eponymous fairytales by
Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales ...
and
The Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...
, and the
biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
storyKing Solomon King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
who had young virgins brought to him from all over his realm to sleep alongside him. She also noted the phenomenon of images of sleeping girls on some of the fetish websites. Kawabata's novel had been adapted in 2006 by German director Vadim Glowna, as ''Das Haus der Schlafenden Schönen'' (''House of the Sleeping Beauties''), but had been released to generally negative reviews. The ''Sleeping Beauty'' script made the 2008
Black List Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
of unproduced screenplays grabbing attention in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
. In September 2009 the project was approved for funding from Screen Australia. In February 2010 it was announced that Emily Browning would play the lead role. Mia Wasikowska was originally cast as Lucy but she dropped out when offered the title role in an adaptation of '' Jane Eyre''.


Filming

Principal photography on the film began on 3 April 2010, at University of Sydney, Camperdown and downtown
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
, New South Wales, Australia.
Emily Browning Emily Jane Browning
. Celebritywonder, retrieved 30 June 2011
(born 7 December 1988
said she didn't have a problem with nudity, but she admitted the scene with the sadist character was unpleasant to film.


Reception

, the film holds a 48% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 97 reviews with an average rating of 5.22/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "''Sleeping Beauty''s provocative premise and luminous art design is hampered by a clinical, remote presentation, delivering boredom and shock in equal measure." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 20 "mixed or average reviews".


References


Further reading

*


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sleeping Beauty (2011 film) 2010s erotic drama films 2011 directorial debut films 2011 drama films 2011 films 2011 independent films Australian erotic drama films Australian independent films Australian nonlinear narrative films 2010s English-language films Films about altered memories Films about prostitution in Australia Films about rape Films based on Colombian novels Films based on Japanese novels Films based on multiple works Films based on Sleeping Beauty Films based on works by Gabriel García Márquez Films based on works by Yasunari Kawabata Films set in Sydney Films set in the 22nd century Films shot in Sydney Screen Australia films