Sleeping Beauty
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Sleeping Beauty
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When it comes to arthouse film it's amazing how often sex and nudity go hand-in-hand with having something serious to say.
A
more cynical type might think that this suggest a certain lack of
confidence in finding an audience who wants to listen to what you have
to say, and a lot of the time that's true. Not here though.
Australian
novelist Julia Leigh's debut film isn't just packed with nudity - from
about a third of the way in it's more surprising when a scene doesn't
end with star Emily Browning getting naked – it's a film that's
actually about the female form and it's effect on men.
Browning
plays a university student who, we fairly quickly pick up as we follow
her through her life, has money troubles and no trouble at all picking
up men in bars.
This combination eventually leads her to a job
at a lingerie-based catering service, where aged, well-off men pay to
have topless women serve them classy grub.
Even this isn't
enough to solve her money woes, and eventually she ends up taking a gig
where she's drugged into unconsciousness, stripped, put in a bed, and
used as a plaything by the aforementioned aged, well-off men.
... Who are also naked - just in case you were worried this was getting a bit too one-sided in its exploitation!
There's
a lot going on here subtexturally – riffs on fairy tales, an
examination of gender roles, questions about exploitation and so on –
but to get to them you have to overlook a few problems on the textural
level.
Sleeping Beauty's
leisurely pace (most scenes play out in real time, with few cuts) feels
forced, and large parts of the purposely oblique story fail to convince
either as realism (the student grind feels sketchy) or as fantasy (the
not-quite prostitution all takes place in a sub-Eyes Wide Shut realm of upper-class decadence).
What isn't in doubt is Browning's performance.
Naked both physically and emotionally, it’s a powerhouse effort that demands your attention even when the rest of Sleeping Beauty wavers. 3.5 out
of 5
Sleeping Beauty
Australian release: 23rd June,
2011
Official
Site: Sleeping Beauty
Cast: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake and Ewen Leslie
Director: Julia Leigh
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