WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Blu-ray (Hollywood/Caravan Pictures, 1995) Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Charles Perrault did the world of literature an immense favor when he penned Cinderella…and Hollywood film makers have been paying homage to his quill ever since. The romantic comedy is essentially the Cinderella story rehashed ad nauseam, resurrecting the myth that a girl of any man’s dreams, need not be highborn to still be considered a woman of quality. Nice work if you can get it. And made indelibly charming with a twist in director, John Turteltoub’s While You Were Sleeping (1995). We trade in pastoral Paris for Chicago’s steel and concrete jungle. Our winsome waif is now reconstituted as a transit subway token-collecting daydreamer who aspires to marry the prince of her choosing, only to discover another more amiable prospect waiting in the wings. While You Were Sleeping is an exemplar of how, with just a bit of reimagining, the time-honored (and oft regurgitated) cliché of ‘true love’ can continue to warm our hearts. Part, if not all, of the movie’s appeal is in Sandra Bullock, unafraid to be made dowdy, her laryngitis-voiced Lucy Eleanor Moderatz perfectly conveying the sweet sorrow of being pitifully alone at Christmas. Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric LeBow’s screenplay makes the most of Bullock’s strengths. Her particular yen remains in unearthing the subtler comedy, even from the most perfunctory situations - as when Lucy and her unanticipated knight in shining armor, Jack Callaghan (Bill Pullman) fight to remain vertical on a perilous patch of sidewalk ice, only to wind up horizontal and scrambling over one another until, inevitably, playfulness turns more awkwardly romantic. It isn’t that we haven’t seen all of this before. We have. But director, Turteltoub makes it all disarming and fresh. Besides, Bullock and Pullman are very engaging as the perfectly-mated misfits. In hindsight, it remains a genuine pity they never appeared together again.

While You Were Sleeping is incredibly well cast. Jack Warden is the crusty, if benign, godfather, Saul. Glynis Johns takes the perpetually befuddled grandma, Elsie into a few joyful respites. Elsie doesn’t drink anymore…although, she doesn’t drink ‘any less’ either. Peter Boyle and Micole Mercurio are delightful as the semi-intrusive parents, Ox and Midge. Monica Keena, as their curious younger daughter, Mary, and, Michael Rispoli, as the laughably obtuse wannabe lady’s man, Joe Fusco Jr. are treats to behold. Even Peter Gallagher (a.k.a Peter Callaghan), who spends the bulk of our tale in a coma, makes an indelible impression as the one-time romantic ideal onto whom Lucy projects the noblest of qualities. The screenplay ingeniously gets to the real mettle of the man in smaller increments. Peter: who only has one testicle, thanks to an unfortunate accident with a pencil while playing basketball (yeow!), whose numerous meaningless affairs with women have led him into the arms of Ashley Bartlett Bacon (Ally Walker) - a petulant harpy whose breast augmentation he paid, but is already, and still married to someone else. Peter, who, in his youth pretended to rescue a pair of baby squirrels from their fallen nest, but actually was responsible, first, for knocking them out of their home with a rock. These are not the character traits by which any prince is made or measured. Peter is, in fact, exactly what Saul lovingly calls him: “a putz”, privileged, and blessed with affluence, good looks and the deceptive charm of slick suaveness that his down-to-earth brother, Jack lacks.

It does not take long for Lucy to figure out her ideal man has fallen either beyond or below her expectations. Jack is more her speed and to her liking.  Any future happiness she might have with the Callaghan clan rests with a clean slate of honesty, beginning with Lucy’s true confessions. While You Were Sleeping is fairly uncomplicated about the outcome of its story. There is never any doubt Lucy will find happiness. And yet, we cannot help but admire the strides and roadblocks taken in this journey, deliberately orchestrated, first to detour, then link all points between ‘A’ and ‘B’ with the whole alphabet of arbitrary machinations intervening in-between. Phedon Papamichael’s luminous cinematography captures the frigidness of wintertime in the ‘windy city’. But it also manages to find the warmth and afterglow in Chicago’s holiday lights. This proves a perfect complement to Randy Edelman’s gently meaningful underscore, interpolated with pop tunes to set the mood. Edelman’s score is the musical bridge for our heroine’s daydreams, both her triumphs and disappointments. Music in the movies often gets overlooked as incidental. But Edelman’s cues shine a light of insight into Lucy’s inner doubts, sadness and aspirations in her convoluted odyssey to find true love.

While You Were Sleeping is rarely shown on TV, occasionally resurfacing around the holidays. But its story could just as easily have been set during the 4th of July, Columbus Day or any other benign spot on the calendar. Christmas is incidental to the story. Ironically, this makes While You Were Sleeping the perfect Christmas movie. Immediately following an ebullient TripTik through Chicago’s downtown core, we regress to an idyllic retrospective of Lucy’s childhood. Lucy (played by Megan Schaiper as a child) recalls how her father’s kindly rearing after her mother’s death ‘gave her the world’… at least, its possibilities, generating that spark from within to pursue her dreams. Flash forward to the present. Lucy is a transit authority tollbooth operator. This disconnect between childhood optimism and the slap-in-the-face realities of adulthood is applicable to anyone with a pulse. Rarely does life gives us what we think we need to be happy. It does, however, almost always provide for the essentials necessary to survive its disappointments. Certain she will never fall in love, Lucy’s heart is drawn to one particular patron who frequents her terminal - the immaculately attired businessman, Peter Callaghan.

Socially, Lucy and Peter are complete opposites and worlds apart. He hails from the Harry Rosen set. She buys her jeans at Wal-Mart. Then, the unthinkable happens. Peter is the target of a botched robbery on the elevated platform while waiting for the next train. He is pushed onto the tracks and knocked unconscious. Lucy rescues him from the oncoming express by rolling him to safety. Lucy is a hero…well…sort of. For here the comedy of errors begins with one colossal bit of misdirection. One of the nurses (Margaret Travolta) mistakes Lucy for Peter’s fiancée, an easily correctable miscalculation. Instead, Lucy feels compelled to perpetuate this lie, or rather, is unable to become disentangled from its fallout after Peter quietly slips into a coma. Lucy is introduced to Peter’s dotty family: mom - Midge, dad - Ox, grandma - Elsie, younger sister - Mary and eldest brother, Jack. From Dalton Clarke (James Krag), one of the colleagues in Peter’s law firm, Lucy learns Peter is missing a testicle. This bit of highly personal history will come in handy later on when Jack, doubting Lucy’s credibility, demands she provide the family with evidence only someone intimate with Peter would know. Since the Callaghans spent Christmas Day at the hospital, Ox invites Lucy for a post-Christmas dinner at the family’s home. She is reluctant at first, but accepts the invitation and is surprised when the Callaghans welcome her unquestioningly with open arms. They even find the time to buy her a gift. In the meantime, Lucy’s kindly apartment landlord, Joe Fusco (Mike Bacarella) tries to finagle a romance between her and his newly paroled son, Joe Jr. – a loveable bum. Harmless and inept, Joe Jr. also has a fetish for women’s shoes. Like all the gags written into the Sullivan/Lebow screenplay, this one will pay off handsomely later on.

Unable to sleep, Lucy travels at midnight to attend Peter in his hospital room. Unaware Saul is nearby, Lucy quietly confesses her incredible loneliness to Peter, agreeing to play along with the Callaghans’ misconception she is his fiancée. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” Lucy quietly whispers to Peter as Saul looks on, “Nah, I bet you don't. You're probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that YOU were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with. Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven't even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?” Saul allows Lucy to go only so far, informing her, he is aware of the truth, but also promising to remain silent because she has rejuvenated the family’s faith in Peter’s recovery. Nevertheless, Saul also makes it clear he will do everything in his power to prevent the family from being hurt by anyone whose motives are not altruistic.

Actually, Saul is a little in awe of Lucy and quite willing to allow her to partake of the Callaghan’s good graces and glad tidings. But things reach an unlikely head when Lucy begins to fall in love for Peter’s brother - Jack and vice versa. Jack’s amorousness is momentarily sideswiped by Joe Jr., who lies about Lucy being ‘his girl’ for quite some time. Derailed in his romantic pursuits, Jack becomes bitter. “Hey,” he tells Lucy, “What do you know about my family? Spending a week with them does not make you an expert!” to which Lucy astutely surmises, “…and spending a lifetime with them hasn't made you one, either!” This is an open wound for Jack, who has yet to reveal to Ox he wants out of the family-owned estate furniture business to pursue his passion as a furniture maker. Eventually, Jack sets aside his prejudices and pursues Lucy on his terms. She cannot deny her feelings for Jack, but is very much afraid to solidify them with a proposal of marriage, especially after Peter begins to stir from his coma. Unable to recognize Lucy at a glance, the family assumes Peter is suffering from temporary amnesia. Peter is driven to question his own sanity by reciting specifics about his childhood from memory. In the meantime, Ashley has telephoned Peter’s penthouse, leaving a message on his answering machine to say she has decided to accept his proposal of marriage. Saul promises Lucy he will handle the situation on her behalf. Alas, Saul’s way of managing things is to goad Peter into proposing to Lucy and for their wedding to take place in the hospital’s chapel post haste. Lucy reluctantly accepts Peter’s impromptu proposal. But the wedding gets crashed by Ashley and her husband (Shea Farrell).

Amidst the hullaballoo, Lucy confesses to the Callaghans she fell in love with Peter but in her desperation for happiness, she lied to them because, for the first time in a really long while, she sincerely felt as though she were part of a real family – a feeling she has not had in a very long time. Although she treasures the Callaghans as though they were her family, she now realizes she loves and respects them too much to remain untrue. This bittersweet realization convinces Jack to propose to Lucy the next day with the family’s blessing. Jack arrives at Lucy’s tollbooth with an engagement ring he casually places in the slot where the subway tokens usually go, causing the forlorn Lucy to suddenly look up and realize the entire Callaghan clan has come to share in this moment. Lucy and Jack are wed. We learn in the film’s epilogue - as the express pulls from its depot with Lucy, in her wedding dress, and Jack in her embrace that he gave her a trip to Florence, Italy for their honeymoon – the one place Lucy has always dreamed of going.

While You Were Sleeping is a delightful romantic comedy with a screwball edge that treats its adults, ultimately – and most refreshingly – as adults. This, in and of itself, makes the film a rarity. And Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman have chemistry plus, unseen since Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan teamed up for Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1989). While ‘While You Were Sleeping’ may not be as sophisticated as this aforementioned comedy gem, it nevertheless resolves to tell a bittersweet and ultimately satisfying story about two people dreadfully alone in the big city, yearning for the same things in life and ultimately having those prayers answered in the end. Bullock’s fairy tale princess is an ‘every woman’ with a true heart of gold, someone we can root for with more than a modicum of hopefulness, justly deserving and satisfied by the proverbial ‘happy ending’. Clichés aside, While You Were Sleeping keeps its story fresh, its characters fetching and its comedy bouncing along at a merry hum. John Turteltoub understands the intricacies of comedic timing, allowing each scene just enough breadth to warm our hearts with its exquisitely concocted fluff, topped off in healthy dollops of good ole-fashioned schmaltz. It is a hardened cynic who can turn a blind eye to such joyous silliness.

It’s been nearly eight years since Buena Vista Home Video announced the North American release of While You Were Sleeping on Blu-ray – a prophesy likely to remain unfulfilled, given Disney Inc.’s present lack of interest in any of their Touchstone/Caravan/Hollywood Pictures catalog. Mercifully, in the interim, While You Were Sleeping made its debut in the U.K. and Australia. Various sites advertise this disc as Region ‘B’ locked. But it’s actually Region ‘A-B-C’ friendly and will therefore play anywhere in the world. But let us not get so excited about this just yet, as the results are not altogether as satisfying as one might hope. While You Were Sleeping on Blu-ray is a definite upgrade from the old DVD. Overall richer colors, more accurately rendered flesh tones and a tighter image. These are definite pluses. Alas, film grain is problematic, at times taking on a digitized appearance – gritty, rather than grainy – and hinting of pixelization. These imperfections are more obvious on larger monitors and – particularly – in projection.  Also, there appears to be a strange lack of fine detail during darker scenes. Contrast also is somewhat weaker than anticipated. Again, the movie does not look awful. Alas, it is hardly up to contemporary hi-def standards. The big upgrade here is the 5.1 DTS audio, easily blowing the old Dolby Digital DVD out of the water. Bass is solid and dialogue and effects are exceptionally integrated. Very nicely done!

Disney Inc. continues to market ‘theatrical trailers’ as ‘special features’. Let’s just agree at this late stage that they’re not!  But it’s all we get on this disc – bare bones and typical of Disney’s efforts. Honestly, isn’t it about time we were given the rest of their Touchstone, Caravan, Hollywood Pictures output in hi-def? Titles like, I Love Trouble, Pretty Woman: director’s cut, Outrageous Fortune, Jane Austen’s Emma among them?!? My most fervent (dream) hope would be for a ‘third party’ distributor to iron out the details in bringing at least some of the aforementioned titles to Blu. But this is likely a pipe dream, given Disney’s territorial natural. No one does Disney - except Disney. Bottom line: if you are a fan of While You Were Sleeping you will want to snatch this disc up through Amazon.u.k. It definitely improves on the old DVD. Do not expect perfection and you will be alright…if marginally disappointed.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

0