Lucy is your normal young woman. She goes to college, works at some restaurant cleaning tables, at some office making copies, as a test subject in some lab. She has a hard time paying rent. On some nights she goes to some fancy bar where she's up for anything...doing cocaine when offered, accepting sexual offers or offering herself in a very straightforward way. She has some type of innocent romantic friendship with a sick guy.
One day she responds to a work ad in a paper. She goes to the interview with some strict woman who tells her that her vagina won't be penetrated and that they value discretion above else. They inspect her mouth and skin and then have her cleaned up and made up. Her first job is to serve drinks wearing a bikini for some club of old very rich geysers, while other topless girls serve fancy food. She does well and is called back. Now she's drugged and while she sleeps an old guy can do to her whatever he wants, except penetration. Things get weird as one can imagine.
Lucy is kicked out of her apartment and leases a fancy room in a high-rise. The sick guy dies, which seriously affects her. She loses her clerical job. When she sees a sleeping woman on a train she's intrigued and panics. She requests to see what goes on when she sleeps but is rebuffed by the woman. One of the old guys requests as a last wish to drink the sleeping drug and dies sleeping with Lucy, which freaks her out when she wakes up. Apparently he even had some wishes for after his death, which I guess is shown in the final scene but it's not clear.
Ordinarily, I'm more than happy to interpret a movie, but Sleeping Beauty doesn't want to be interpreted. It gives you little to go on and it doesn't give you a reason to care. There's very little dialogue and most of that is utterly meaningless. There are three longer monologues which I guess are supposed to be meaningful. One by Lucy's sick friend about a marsupial mouse, the other two by one of the old guys. There's only one instance that tells us something about Lucy's past. For the most part this movie's scenes are meant to look like living still life. The camera is usually motionless in the center of a symmetric setting. The movie has a cold greenish look to it, strange for an Australian movie. A shame because a warmer color would have gone much better with Browning's naked body. The tone is also cold and distant. Not even Lucy manages to get us to connect with her. As most reviewers mention, there's no shortage of pointless scenes: Lucy sleeping naked, suddenly waking up, just to put on underpants; Lucy walking between buildings, Lucy doing drugs. Lucy is clearly up for anything, but when sick guy asks to watch porn with her, she refuses.
This movie aims for subtlety but overdoes it. What are we to make of all the death surrounding the young Lucy? Of a movie that focuses on sex but whose characters are incapable of it? In the one, single intriguing scene we see the face of the woman/madam not her usual confident self as she listens to one of the old guys and there she looks like an older Lucy. Even though this movie has little going for it aside from the lovely Emily Browning, it's oddly watchable for its Australian good-nature, despite the questionable theme.
One day she responds to a work ad in a paper. She goes to the interview with some strict woman who tells her that her vagina won't be penetrated and that they value discretion above else. They inspect her mouth and skin and then have her cleaned up and made up. Her first job is to serve drinks wearing a bikini for some club of old very rich geysers, while other topless girls serve fancy food. She does well and is called back. Now she's drugged and while she sleeps an old guy can do to her whatever he wants, except penetration. Things get weird as one can imagine.
Lucy is kicked out of her apartment and leases a fancy room in a high-rise. The sick guy dies, which seriously affects her. She loses her clerical job. When she sees a sleeping woman on a train she's intrigued and panics. She requests to see what goes on when she sleeps but is rebuffed by the woman. One of the old guys requests as a last wish to drink the sleeping drug and dies sleeping with Lucy, which freaks her out when she wakes up. Apparently he even had some wishes for after his death, which I guess is shown in the final scene but it's not clear.
Ordinarily, I'm more than happy to interpret a movie, but Sleeping Beauty doesn't want to be interpreted. It gives you little to go on and it doesn't give you a reason to care. There's very little dialogue and most of that is utterly meaningless. There are three longer monologues which I guess are supposed to be meaningful. One by Lucy's sick friend about a marsupial mouse, the other two by one of the old guys. There's only one instance that tells us something about Lucy's past. For the most part this movie's scenes are meant to look like living still life. The camera is usually motionless in the center of a symmetric setting. The movie has a cold greenish look to it, strange for an Australian movie. A shame because a warmer color would have gone much better with Browning's naked body. The tone is also cold and distant. Not even Lucy manages to get us to connect with her. As most reviewers mention, there's no shortage of pointless scenes: Lucy sleeping naked, suddenly waking up, just to put on underpants; Lucy walking between buildings, Lucy doing drugs. Lucy is clearly up for anything, but when sick guy asks to watch porn with her, she refuses.
This movie aims for subtlety but overdoes it. What are we to make of all the death surrounding the young Lucy? Of a movie that focuses on sex but whose characters are incapable of it? In the one, single intriguing scene we see the face of the woman/madam not her usual confident self as she listens to one of the old guys and there she looks like an older Lucy. Even though this movie has little going for it aside from the lovely Emily Browning, it's oddly watchable for its Australian good-nature, despite the questionable theme.