Rom-coms are not my bag; 99% are utter crap. 'While You Were Sleeping' is one of, maybe, three I've ever re-watched. It's criminally low-rated here.
8 great things about While You Were Sleeping:
1. If you watch it again, and pay attention, you'll pick up something new. Like the whomping thud of a fall by the ice skater at the end of the Chicago winter montage opening credits.
On (at least) my fourth watch, I finally realized *why* Lucy has such a thing for Peter. It's not because he's handsome, or his clothes scream money: It's crush at first sight because he looks like her father, down to the bushy black eyebrows.
2. The soundtrack is sneaky-good, full of bluesy/old school R&B. Natalie Cole, Koko Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald, Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials. Yes, it closes with a cheesy duet-but it's Daryl Hall and Dusty Springfield herself. Sign me up!
3. There are scads of memorable lines and one-liners. Everyone who enjoys this movie has a favorite. I'm partial to Jack and Peter's 'you suck' exchange in the hospital chapel.
4. Remember when lots of movies had real-looking people with real-looking houses, before the days when even a NYC teacher has to be drop-dead gorgeous with a $2mil loft? Only the rich lawyer in WYWS has a rich pad, and that's cool.
5. The leading lady has no vanity. She never wears spike heels or shows cleavage. Lucy (Sandra Bullock) dresses like lots of women you know: jeans and baggy sweaters, boots for icy sidewalks. As Peter tells his out-going girlfriend, "Lucy is *not* a bimbo."
Her hair is a mess nine scenes out of ten, and Bullock is so warm and genuine you love her for it.
She's also not taking the world by storm. Lucy is funny, adorable, sentimental...and the hot dog vendor she sees every day never remembers her.
6. Jack (Bill Pullman) is a woodworker! Let's just say I've known loads of craftsmen and lawyers in my professional life...and one creates things from nothing while the other largely takes things apart.
Most rom-coms have 'insert hot guy here' interchangeable casting, but Pullman is perfect here: self-effacing, funny, a little scruffy, with just the right amount of gravel in his voice. He's charming, a bit snarky-and he single-handedly redeems the film's cheesiest scene by facing the camera with sudden tears in his eyes.
7. You can relate to the Callaghans. If you've ever been shushed in church. If non-sequiturs and talking-over fly at the dinner table. Argentinian beef and nazis, tall actors and mashed potatoes. If there's at least one rogue grandparent
or mensch friend and nobody's perfect but everyone laughs a lot. You don't have to actually be Irish. Though it helps.
8. The supporting cast is pretty flawless all-around. Even the trope roles are lively. Jack Warden, Glynis Johns, Peter Boyle, Ally Walker and Peter Gallagher as a largely comatose, narcissistic, wide-eyed doofus of a one-balled squirrel-saver.
In the end, WYWS is more funny than trite, a low-gloss, feel-good film with a saving grace of quirk.
