Sleeping Beauty (2001/IFC Films/MPI DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: D Film: C+
Lucy
(Emily Browning) is a young beautiful college girl whose sexual desires are as
common to her as saying hello, but when answering to an ad in the student paper
for a waitress in lingerie she enters the world of high society and rich men. Her body is thus being groomed into the
perfect girl to satisfy rich old men and their sexual fantasies. She takes a drug that puts her to sleep
allowing total submission and waking up without knowing who or what has been
done with her body... the money is good, but is it worth it?
Julia
Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty (2011) gives
us a Lucy with porcelain skin, red hair, sleek body and pert breast... the very
qualities that fit a sleeping goddess, but while she is beautiful, she is
always in need of money, working for research studies, bars, selling her body
to men... and her new job as 'Sara' to serve extremely rich men by sleeping
(naked) with them and have no memories of who they were or what they did to
her. Her body, her sexuality has little
to no consequence, but only a means to earn more money. As she gets more involved with her new job she
finds herself unable to stop her curiosity... what is happening to her when she
sleeps?
This film
is about the darker side of human nature and sexuality, and a beautiful girl
who isn't afraid to use it to her advantage. Desperate for money, she does anything for
money and chooses to service high society old and wealthy men, she seems oddly
passive about the consequences. Ironically
however, the person that she seemingly cared about (the only one who didn't
give her money) was a man who wasn't able to have sex with her (that he had a
condition, if he got too excited it could be fatal to him). She discovers too late her 'beauty' is only
skin deep, that she wasn't only selling her body, but her soul as well. Extras include trailers.
- Ricky Chiang
