While You Were Sleeping
The 1995 film “While You Were Sleeping” starring Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman is the perfect romantic comedy to watch on a Saturday night. It has viewers laughing and crying at the same time and reminds them of a time when Bullock was still on the rise.
Bullock plays Lucy Moderatz, a Chicago Transit Authority token collector. Lucy lives alone with her cat, a sad little Christmas tree and near a creepy neighbor who won’t leave her alone. Each day she goes to work then comes home and makes a dinner for one. The highlight of her day is when handsome Peter Callaghan, played by Peter Gallagher, comes and drops a token into her window stand next to the train tracks. She daydreams of marrying him even though he doesn’t even know her name.
One day a group of muggers attempts to take Peter’s coat and pushes him onto the tracks. After saving him from his death, Lucy follows him to the hospital. When confronted by a nurse, she mumbles “but I am supposed to marry him.” The nurse allowed her to stay with the now-comatized Peter, and when his family shows up, they are told Lucy is Peter’s fiancée. She goes along with it.
The story continues as Lucy becomes closer and closer to the Callaghans through attending Christmas dinner and spending time with Peter’s younger brother Jack, who quickly falls in love with her. Jack conceals his feelings for her because he thinks that she is engaged to her now-disabled brother. The family makes Lucy feel loved, and though she feels guilty, she cannot bring herself to tell them the truth. As an orphan and someone with few friends, it is the first time in her life that she has ever felt like she belongs.
The film was produced by Roger Birnbaum and Joe Roth for Hollywood Pictures and Caravan pictures. It was also directed by Jon Turteltaub and written by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric Lebow. Bullock received her first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. “While You Were Sleeping,” along with “Speed,” a 1994 film, gave rise to the stardom she has today.
The original plot captivates viewers and keeps them wondering: What is going to happen when Peter wakes up? As Jack and Lucy become closer, the plot does become predictable, but by then the story is pulling at the audience’s heart strings. Peter and Lucy as strangers and Jack and Lucy falling in love creates such a strange conflict that viewers are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for it to all play out. The light hearted jokes and touches of romance make it one of the 90s best rom-coms.