While You Were Sleeping Synopsis: A love story built on a misunderstanding. A transit worker pulls commuter Peter off the tracks after he’s mugged. But while he’s in a coma, his family mistakenly thinks she’s Peter’s fiancée, and she doesn’t correct them. Things get more complicated when she falls for his brother, who’s not quite sure that she’s who she claims to be.
Lucy (Sandra Bullock), a lonely transit worker, saves her longtime crush, Peter (Peter Gallagher), from the path of an oncoming train. It’s then that she finds herself unexpectedly in the role of his fiancée due to a misunderstanding at the hospital. With Peter in a coma, his family embraces Lucy as one of their own after she finds she can’t tell them the truth. Complications arise when she meets Jack (Bill Pullman), Peter’s brother, and finds herself falling for him.
“Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I betcha don’t, you’re probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody, and you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that you were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with? Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven’t even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?” – Lucy
Since it was released in theaters in 1995, While You Were Sleeping has been one of my favorite romantic comedies. Sandra Bullock slipped seamlessly into the role first offered to Julia Roberts, and the film catapulted her to stardom. While the premise itself was a bit improbable, the cast (specifically Bullock) and Jon Turteltaub’s direction somehow managed to make it work.
Lucy is not your typical rom-com beauty queen (nor does she have to undergo some magical transformation from drab to fab in order to win her man), and she never has to change who she is in order for Jack, or Peter for that matter, to fall in love with her. She’s awkward, kind, and relatable on every level, while Jack and Peter could not be more different, Peter being a wealthy, self-absorbed attorney and Jack a blue-collar boy next door who likes to build furniture.
“I’d say that she gets under your skin as soon as you meet her. She drives you so nuts you don’t know whether to hug her or, or just really arm wrestle her. She would go all the way to Europe just to get a stamp in her passport. I don’t know if that amounts to insanity, or just being really, really… likable.” – Jack
Jack and Lucy’s chemistry is really what makes While You Were Sleeping work. There aren’t many rom-com tropes here. They’re not bitter enemies fighting the attraction. They’re not forced together in contrived situations. Their interactions are natural despite the unusual circumstances, and even once you realize they’ve fallen in love over the course of what is essentially a week, you still believe it. What more could you want from a rom-com?
I still love While You Were Sleeping; it remains in my top 5 romantic comedies.
Watched: 10/10/2018
Notable Song: Wherever I Would Be by Dusty Springfield and Daryl Hall
