The Science of Sleep

by Ryland Walker Knight

I was going to write a review full of pull quotes: a tribute to how Michel Gondry seemingly constructed this new diary entry of a movie. Here's the best I could come up with for a one liner:

A wildly inventive visual feast for immature romantics with self-pity to burn and little to offer the world but their wonder with it.

-- Ryland Walker Knight, Vinly Is Heavy

Pretty good, right? I thought so. Better than any writing on display in the film.

Anyways, you should probably see this in a theatre where you won't be tempted to fast forward to the next dream sequence, or any scene with Alain Chabat as Guy, because it is a delight to behold. I wasn't blown away by ETERNAL SUNSHINE but I dug its rhythm and visual flair and Jim Carrey is great helping you believe the fantasy. Where that film succeeds and this one fails is the former had true insights about how love crumbles when people are petty on top of its brilliant premise. And you might could identify with its protagonist from time to time despite his loser demeanor. But with SCIENCE OF SLEEP you suspect Michel Gondry has a serious love-hate relationship with his own psyche: always fascinated by his own imagination but not enough of an adult to process its flights of fancy for a healthy lifestyle. Gael Garcia Bernal is a decent enough stand-in for Gondry in the lead but the great acting is done by his coworker, Chabat, and his love interest, the obliquely beautiful Charlotte Gainsbourg.

02006: 105 minutes: dir. Michel Gondry: written by Gondry