-Lucy (Sandra Bullock): Peter (Peter Callagher) once asked me when it was that I fell in love with Jack . And I told him: It was while you were sleeping.
Lucy (Sandra Bullock) has a big platonic crush on a nice-looking guy that she sees everyday- she is a ticket collector at a train station and doesn’t know anything about the guy. One day, she gets to save his life. This guy – Peter (Peter Callagher)- is unconscious and through a series of misunderstandings, his family thinks Lucy is his fiancé. They are so happy that Peter is finally dating a nice, down-to-earth girl. Something always gets in the way of her confessing the truth. So Lucy is happy that she has found a family-even for a temporary basis.
But then Jack (Bill Pullman), Peter’s brother, shows up and he is not ready to embrace Lucy so easily. Lucy is nothing like the spoiled, rich and blonde women Peter dates. He questions everything about Lucy and they are seemed to be thrown together on family matters and Jack’s quest to prove Lucy is not Peter’s type.
But the more time he spends with her, it seems like he is starting to wish he is the one who could be with Lucy. And Peter will eventually wake up from a coma…since this being a romantic comedy and all…
No, I did not give any spoilers. I mean look at the poster. It is Bill Pullman and Sandra Bullock. Well, even if you don’t know who Jack is, you will know she is going to fall for him in the first 10 minutes or so. For one thing, Peter is in a coma. Then Jack comes in, spends all that time with Lucy. And you just know. Romantic comedies don’t try to keep you guessing about who is going to end up with who. They just show how.
It is emotional and very funny. For one thing, The family is hilarious. For another, Lucy’s nutjob of a neighbor is just a hoot.
This movie is from 1995. I don’t remember when I first saw it, but it was in a time when I was much less cynical about romantic love and much more hopeful about finding it. You see, this movie just feels so warm and sweet. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. Then I saw this other movie with Bill Pullman in it. And I was thinking how I enjoyed Pullman’s presence, whether be it a supporting role or a leading one. Then I remembered how it all started. I just love Jack’s character. And I guess even my teasing male friends can’t say it is because he is so gorgeous. Oh, I think he is adorably cute and really good-looking in this film. But Pullman is charming in a way so much more different than Hugh Jackman or Keanu Reeves or an actor who frequents the sexy actor lists. His Jack is so unpretentious. He is fun to talk to. And he seems so accessible. The thing with Jack- you know you wouldn’t have to play games with a guy like that. He wouldn’t play and he wouldn’t want you to. I guess you might be calling me delusional, but that’s how I have always wanted a romance to be- an excitement based on the purity and the intensity of the feelings; not some lame idea that chasing makes it worthwhile. And something that grows as you get to know one and other.
Am I dreaming, maybe? But if you know me a little, you will know that I love imagination. And if anyone asks me when I started to have a crush on Pullman, it was while I was watching “While you were sleeping” …
Written by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric LeBow. Directed by Jon Turteltaub. 6.5 on IMDB.
Buy the While You Were Sleeping DVD on Amazon.com
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