The Science of Sleep
The hero of Michel Gondry’s “The Science of Sleep” is a shy, eccentric artist who struggles to differentiate dream from reality. Yet the movie encompasses much more than the hero’s kooky headspace. Gondry has created a vivid and beautiful film that should resonate with anyone who’s ever tried in dreamland to smooth out the waking world’s disappointments. Gondry’s previous movies, “Human Nature” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” sometimes lacked a human touch. Not so here. Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane and Charlotte Gainsbourg as his next-door-neighbor, Stephanie, balance childlike enthusiasm with adult neuroses to create a potential love match worth rooting for. As their names suggest, Stephane and Stephanie are too much alike. When they’re working together on a whimsical art project, their chemistry is off the charts. But the rest of the time, they’re awkward, hostile and confused. “The Science of Sleep” is wondrous when it captures the excitement of collaborative art and stinging when it explores the emotional violence we sometimes inflict on those we love. At first, Stephane complains that he can’t dream about Stephanie, but she slowly gains prominence in his dreamscapes, suggesting his growing affection for her. Gondry’s handmade visual effects are confident and seductive, and he gets the little details right, like the way physical space is altered in dreams. “The Science of Sleep” unspools like a funny and poignant dream you don’t want to wake up from.
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For a longer essay about the movie …
The third narrative feature from inventive Frenchman Michel Gondry (”Human Nature,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) is his best to date — a delightful and resonant study of the line between dream and reality and how blurry it can become, particularly within the mind of an artist. We all know that artists can be tough to deal with, that they can lack social skills and the patience to deal with life’s complications and inanities. In “The Science of Sleep,” Gondry shows us one reason why. Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) is comfortable living inside his head, and less so living in the world. Worse, he can’t always tell whether he’s here or there.
The product of a Mexican father and a French mother, Stephane moves back to Paris, to the apartment where he spent part of his childhood, after his father dies. His mother has lured him back with the prospect of gainful, creative employment at a firm that designs and manufactures wall calendars. (Stephane has created a calendar of his own, “Disasterology,” which commemorates a different disaster every month with whimsical, cartoonish drawings.) He finds, however, that his mother has misled him: The job is menial and tedious. After beginning with a dream sequence in which Stephane is the host of his own educational TV show, Gondry segues smoothly into a deadpan workplace comedy, “The Office” with an absurdist tinge. When Stephane moans about his job, Guy (Alain Chabat), his chipper sex-addicted co-worker, notes, “Your predecessor committed suicide two weeks ago.” Chabat’s quicksilver delivery enlivens every scene he’s in, but Guy isn’t just comic relief: He’s an important grounding influence on Stephane, with his unabashed carnality and his delight in simple pleasures.
“She’ll drive you crazy,” Guy warns about Stephane’s luminous neighbor, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and he’s right. As their names suggest, Stephane and Stephanie are too much alike. When they’re working together on a whimsical art project, their chemistry is off the charts. “The Science of Sleep” is wondrous when it dramatizes the excitement of collaborative art, the same sort of frisson that I’m certain exists on Gondry’s movie sets, with inspired ideas coming from every direction.
The rest of the time, Stephane and Stephanie are awkward, hostile and confused. They constantly send each other mixed signals. And they may just be deeply in love. Stephane does everything wrong that he can. He first encounters Stephanie when she’s moving in but neglects to mention that he lives across the hall, then tries pathetically to maintain the subterfuge. He also can’t hide his interest in Stephanie’s more conventionally attractive friend, Zoe (Emma de Caunes), even though it’s clear she would be a terrible match for him (she assumes he’s stupid because of his rough French). Stephanie, quite understandably, is revolted by much of Stephane’s behavior, yet she can’t deny the magnetism of their shared imagination. Bernal and Gainsbourg are on the same page, balancing childlike enthusiasm with adult neuroses.
Whether it’s conjuring dream or reality, “The Science of Sleep” is vivid and inventive. Gondry constructs some ingenious set pieces, like Stephane dreaming that he’s written and slipped under Stephanie’s door a jibberish-laden note that concludes by asking for Zoe’s phone number. Imagine how horrified he is to wake up and discover that he’s actually composed and delivered the note. Gondry then shows us this event from Stephanie’s point of view.
The dream sequences have a seductively rough-hewn, handmade quality, using cardboard props and stop-motion animation to visualize Stephane’s kooky headspace. Gondry gets the little details right, like the way physical space is altered in dreams (Stephane’s dream office is much bigger, with a vast staircase). And yet for all its bizarre visual effects, the movie is never belabored. It doesn’t scream, “Look at me!”
“The Science of Sleep” gains its resonance from its incisive contrast of blissed-out dreams with messy reality. It captures our yearning for the impossible and our heartbreak when the possible eludes our grasp. While his hero is an eccentric artist, Gondry has created a beautiful film that speaks to anyone who’s ever tried in dreamland to smooth out the waking world’s disappointments.