While You Were Sleeping

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Likable Romantic Comedy With Some Complexity
Review: A lonely subway ticket-booth worker, Sandra Bullock, has a crush on a daily commuter, Peter Gallagher. When suave Gallagher is mugged and almost killed, Bullock saves the day. At the hospital, she is mistaken for Gallagher's fiancee, which feels so good that Bullock goes for it. Gallagher's slightly eccentric but very warm and likable family instantly adopts her. Meanwhile, Bullock finds out that the comatose Gallagher was not really very charming, but was actually shallow, materialistic, and snobbish, as is his real fiancee. However, Gallagher's brother, Bill Pullman, is what Bullock thought Gallagher was, and . . . well, nature takes its course.

Sandra Bullock is completely charming in her first starring role, and you want to either take her home or have her move in next door. Her "fiancee's" family consists of a very likable and somewhat eccentric group, played by a veteran cast including Glynis Johns, Jack Warden, and Peter Boyle.

This is a very nice movie filled with nice people. For my money, it's better than "Sleepless in Seattle". It has a little more depth, more realism, and less perfection. "While You Were Sleeping" is not completely predictable, like "Sleepless" is. For what it is, few movies do it better.

Rating:
Summary: The perfect date movie AND the perfect holiday movie as well
Review: This is the rare Hollywood comedy that is funny, romantic, AND heartwarming. It's also surprisingly old fashioned. Yes, there are a few cuss words (I guess the film's producers were afraid that without profanity it would have gotten a G rating -- heaven forbid) but aside from that it's a great movie not only for you romantics out there but also for kids as well as anyone who prefers Turner Classic Movies to HBO.

Parts of the movie are pure slapstick or screwball comedy (the Joe Jr. character, for instance). Others scenes are more sentimental and romantic (Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman's nighttime walk, for instance, is one of my favorite scenes). But even though the movie keeps shifting gears, almost all the material works.

Which brings me to Sandra Bullock's performance. "Speed" may have given her name recognition, but it's this film that established her as a star in her own right. She's absolutely winning as the main character, Lucy Eleanor Monteratz -- and she's the primary reason the film works. (Reportedly Bullock's role was first offered to Demi Moore, who turned it down. I love Moore, too, but I can't imagine anyone doing this part better than Bullock).

Praise also goes to co-stars Bill Pullman, Jack Warden, Ally Walker, Peter Boyle, Monica Keena, Jason Bernard, and, of course, Peter Gallagher as "the coma guy".

One last thing: this movie takes place during the Christmas season, making it the perfect holiday movie, as well. I watch it every Christmas and New Year's and it never fails to brighten my spirits.

Rating:
Summary: leaves you with a great after glow
Review: Sandra Bullock plays the part of a toll-booth ticket person on a subway and while she's working there she falls for one of the commuters (who doesn't realize she's even alive). She looks forward to seeing him every day and dreaming about him. One day she saves him from being killed, even though he ends up in a coma as a result of his injury. She goes to see him at the hospital, and somehow or other his family thinks she is his fiance and before she knows it she is ensconced in his family. His family treats her as one of their own and she falls in love with them too. Enter the brother, Bill Pullman, (sp?), of her make believe fiance, and see the sparks between them start to fly. He doesn't think she is his brother's type and is skeptical of the relationship and yet is drawn to her. It is a sweet, touching, comedic drama that will pull at your heart strings. Beautiful!

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Romance for the Holidays!
Review: In the overfed, overtired stupor that was my Christmas Day 2000, I decided to watch this movie again, having seen it maybe five times before. I never realized before what a perfect holiday movie it is! Of course, it's funny and romantic, and Sandra Bullock is perfect in her role as the lonely toll booth worker (though she may be just a tad too beautiful to be entirely believable as a single woman) and Bill Pullman-funny, smart, boyishly handsome Bill Pullman-finally gets the girl in a film.

But the movie also makes one realize the importance of family and people to love and be loved by, especially around those Major Holidays when we're usually too stressed out with gift-buying and feast-cooking to notice the really important thing-people. Watch this film some cold winter day, either alone or with loved ones, and you'll realize the same thing, along with being warmed from the inside out.

Rating:
Summary: Lucy and jack. 16th april 2004.
Review: Lucy[sandra bullock], see A man peter[peter gallagher] again even though i don't think she even knows him, she fancies him. He is pushed onto a train track, she saves him by moving him away before he gets killed. Peter is in a comber, and all his relatives think that she is his fiancee. Peters brother jack meets her and while he is still in hospital, they both fall in love, but when peter is finally out of hospital, he wants her too. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING, EVERYTHING WENT ON WHEN HE WAS IN THAT HOSPITAL BED.

Rating:
Summary: The SWEETEST movie!
Review: While You Were Sleeping is one of my favorite movies of all time. I must have watched the DVD at least 20 times. My husband is getting a little tired of it, but there are nights when I tell him, "It's either this or 'Babe'!" From the opening scene, there is something sweetly philosophical about this movie, and Sandra Bullock has never been more appealing as a funny, klutzy girl who never makes it out of Chicago. (Of course, Sandra Bullock playing a woman who is frumpy is stretching credibility a bit.) And if any woman can keep from melting when Bill Pullman focuses that sweet, intense gaze, I've yet to meet her.

The vulnerability of the main characters gets you pulling for them right from the start, and the secondary characters do a wonderful job of convincing you that they are real with their own histories.

Peter Boyle is hysterical as the decent, but frustrated, father of Bill Pullman. And Peter Gallegher does a star turn as a handsome, spoiled "putz," as one of the characters calls him. Glynis Johns is laugh-out-loud funny as the sweetly confused grandmother.

All in all, this is a movie that is well worth watching over and over again, especially when you need a little reminder that love is waiting out there for us all.

Rating:
Summary: Blows "Sleepless in Seattle" right out of the water!
Review: Forget all the rest, "While You Were Sleeping" is the best romantic comedy to come out of Hollywood in the past decade. Every moment of this sweetly endearing story will leave you with a warm and tingly feeling all over that won't wear off until long after the movie ends. In her first starring vehicle, an extremely appealing Sandra Bullock plays lonely subway worker Lucy and brings a warmth, freshness, and vulnerability to this character that everyone can identify with. After all, we've all had unrequited crushes on someone else at one point in our lives, but when Lucy saves the life of her "dream man" Peter, a hilarious comedy of errors ensues at the hospital when she is mistaken for his fiancee and passed off to his family as such. In the beginning, Lucy reluctantly plays along with the ruse, but as she falls in love with Peter's family and especially his brother Jack, she finds it very difficult to tell them the truth - that she is not engaged to Peter, indeed she has never even spoken to him! Bullock and Pullman shine as the two romantic leads who are loath to admit how attracted they are to each other, and the marvellous supporting cast add many laughs to this gem of a movie. This is a very entertaining way to spend over ninety minutes. You would have to be very hard to please if you didn't enjoy this movie about love at second sight. Film makers should shoot more stories like this!

Rating:
Summary: Gentle seduction, in spite of schmaltzy plot
Review: Well, it all depends on your taste in movies and your mood at the time - and whether or not you're enamored of Sandra Bullock. If you enjoy the occasional romantic chick flick, if you're in the mood to watch something upbeat that's not too deep, and if you think Sandra Bullock is just fine, thank you very much, then this is the movie for you.
While You Were Sleeping was Bullock's first starring role after her blockbuster success in Speed, and it does a good job of showcasing her wide appeal to viewing audiences. She captures our support, trust, and interest from the very beginning, playing a Chicago tollbooth ticket-taker who has a 'thing' for a commuter guy she sees go thru her turnstile daily. Then he's mugged, she saves him, and somehow allows her family to believe that she's his fiancée - and then, the plot thickens. At the bedside of this unconscious guy, she meets his brother - and she falls even harder for him.
Okay, that's enuf: watch the rest of it yourself. Just be on the lookout for the scent where they're walking on an icy sidewalk - it's just awfully well done, as is the rest of the movie.
...but only if you like this sort of thing! I sure did.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely charming!
Review: Honestly, I could watch that movie over and over and never get tired. This is the sweetest story I have ever seen. Sandra Bullock is giving a very believable performance here and Bill Pullman...oh my...isn't he the most handsome actor? YES. All the actors in that movie act brilliantly, everybody is "in it", so much so that we nearly believe that the story really happened somewhere in Chicago. I am thinking of buying the DVD so I can watch it whenever I want to. A treasure of a movie!!

Rating:
Summary: The worst DVD!!!!
Review: This review is on the DVD not the movie! The movie I would give 10 stars, but the DVD, Zero stars. Where are the deleted scenes? Where is the cast commentaries? We don't have a "Making of the Film" documentary, we don't have a "behind the scenes" look, we have nothing but a single theatrical trailer. Come on, re-release this film with some extras, anything.