Selima und John

Although THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY is not that well known and never had a theatrical release, it is by far one of the best movies of 2002. My sister had to pursuade me to first rent, then watch this movie because the idea of a British colonial officer who falls in love with what is known as a Sleeping Dictionary...that is a native woman who sleeps with a man while teaching him the native language. Jessica Alba, who is most well known for her stint on "DARK ANGEL", deftly portrays Selima, the native sleeping dictionary for John Truscott. Hugh Dancy, who portrays John Truscott, is a young british actor who is on his way up. Dancy and Alba have chemistry, and you can hardly take your eyes off of them. The supporting cast is also excellent. Brenda Blethyn, Bob Hoskins, Emily Mortimer, Noah Taylor, Junix Inocian, and Eugene Salleh each portray their parts perfectly and add a unique flavor to the movie.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being lowest, 10 highest), I rate THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY a 10.

My wife and I watched this film not knowing anything about it except a two sentence introduction on a movie-card. We were impressed by all aspects of it-particularly the substance of the script-it was a brave script-a script that should have made people uncomfortable because of the swipes taken at British colonialism and what that evil did on a personal level to everybody concerned. Living as I do in Western Australia, the dark legacy of European colonialism is just below the surface and I have seen firsthand the outlines of the story presented in "The Sleeping Dictionary"-not of course the same geography or the same details but once colonialism left its tread on the floor of world history it matters little the particulars.

The enormity of the personal tragedy of that period is something not to be derisively dismissed as one commentator remarked-as a film fit for screening at the old folks home on a Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately the world is still dealing with that evil period of recent history.

I was moved by all the decisions that the characters faced throughout the film. Brenda Blethyn's character as the wife of Hoskin's colonial official was as much a victim as anybody in the film. Although she emerges as the "baddie" she must try, with little background, to stitch together a semblance of what she feels is an acceptable canvas in order to paint her English life-such of it as there is in Sarawak. And what of Hoskin's torn character-a man who can only fall back on "duty" to country in order to find reason for the completion of duties that he recognizes as damaging to all involved.

A brave film-look for it!

The puzzle is, why did this film go directly to video and why isn't it a better film?

Fineline apparently relegated this to the video bins because of a crowded release schedule, but more likely because it had just one American star in it, Jessica Alba, and her TV series, "Dark Angel," had been canceled, meaning she no longer brought any "heat" to the project.

That's a shame, because this film is light years better than most direct to video releases.

While the plot is quite complicated, it is basically about a young Englishman, played by Hugh Dancey, who goes out to Sawawak (Borneo) in the mid-thirties to follow in his father's footsteps and bring the benefits of a good English education to the natives and headhunters of the region.

He needs to pick up the language, though, and thus is assigned a "sleeping dictionary" a fetching young local woman who will teach him the native lingo, while giving him an education in bed at the same time. While that may sound as contrived a plot as you could find, it is probably grounded in fact, and certainly grounded in solid, British upper class hypocrisy of that day, which, taking into account the fact that he'll be there for three years, sees no reason why he can't avail himself of the local talent to satisfy his sexual needs. In fact, when he initially rejects the beautiful Jessica Alba, they offer him a young man, he being the product of British boys schools and all that.

After a very brief period of conflict, Dancey and Alba fall head over heels for each other, decide they want to marry, and find themselves in hot water from that point on. The film goes on to rightfully bash British upper class racial prejudice, but never quite deals with the key issue facing Dancey's character. Does he ever catch on that the education he wanted to bring to the natives is the same education that says, one Englishman is worth a thousand natives?

Anyway, the film, written and directed by Guy Jenkin, is fairly well scripted, well directed and absolutely beautifully shot. Word is, it cost just $15 million, but it has the look of a much more expensive picture, definitely not some cut rate direct to video thriller. This is not some prison women in cages film shot in the Philippines.

There are some good characterizations here. Bob Hoskins starts out very strong as the cynical governor of this province, but then is very under utilized. Brenda Blethyn is fantasic as Hoskins wife, a manipulative upper class snob who is the real villain of the story.

But there are script problems here. Dancey and Alba fall in love far too quickly, skipping over a lot of character build up which would have made us care for them a lot more than we wind up doing. There is sympathy for them, though, because of the obvious class and racial biases in the British empire. But you get the feeling there are a lot of missed opportunities here.

Perhaps the biggest flaw the film has are its two stars, though. Dancey,pretty much unknown in America, seems only adequate to me. He brings no real passion to the role of the young idealist.

The real enigma, of course, is Jessica Alba. Although as beautiful as any young actress in Hollywood today, she has yet to prove that she can actually act, and with every successive missed opportunity, she is building up a body of work that says maybe she can't. Her first feature staring role was in a flic called "Paranoid," in which she was frankly just plain dreadful. She has had supporting roles in a couple of other films, but the pictures were so dreadful you couldn't hang much of the blame on her, except maybe in her choice of roles. Her big break came in the James Cameron produced TV series "Dark Angel," which got its wings clipped after two seasons. In it, Abla was forced to play a rather depressing character in a depressing show and she could not get deep enough into it to make it the kind of hit that Jennifer Garner became in "Alias."

In Sleeping Dictionary, Alba definitely looks like someone any man would want to sleep with, but other than that seems in many ways miscast completely. I read one review here that mistakenly places this movie in South America. I wonder if the producers made the same mistake. The days when any dark skinned actress can play any dark skinned character, from Latino to Asian to Arabic, appear to be over to me. Alba didn't seem like a resident of Borneo. She in many ways seemed like a wise ass girl from East Los Angeles.

Then there's the main problem, her delivery of lines. Alba is excellent when she keeps her mouth shut. No, really, she does reaction shots extremely well. Her emotions play out beautifully on her face. It's when she has to talk that she often finds herself in trouble. In this film, much of her delivery of her lines was just short of bad.

More importantly, it wasn't good and that makes this film another big missed chance for Jessica Alba. It's too bad, because she was in part hampered by an under developed character, which may have been hampered by a restricted budget. Ten more minutes showing us who the main characters really were might have made all the difference in this film. But Alba still would have had to be good enough to handle the added material and I still don't know if she is.

She supposedly has another film in the works in which she plays some kind of hiphop dancer. Hopefully, at least playing the right race, she'll shine. But she just misses the mark for me in "Sleeping Dictionary" as she has missed it in everything she's done since "Flipper."

This movie was breathtaking to me. I figured it went straight to video since I never saw any previews for it. Jessica Alba is a favorite of mine anyway, so I have a bias I suppose. The movie was beautifully shot and the music was in great taste. I had never heard of sleeping dictionaries, so it was an interesting lesson. At first, Jessica didn't seem to fit the look of the other natives, but it made sense when she was mixed and I could see where her complexion played in. Her accent was surprisingly believable. Hugh was adorable as the sheepish "leader" of the community. It made all the sense in the world that they would fall for each other. I liked the angle of the British hypocrisy. It was alright to sleep with the people the ruled or "civilized", but not good enough to marry them or acknowledge the children they had with these people. It resonated with me because the same thing happened with slavery in America. I thought that angle was well played out. I do agree with some other users that they fell in love too quickly and they weren't together enough for the audience to see that dynamic. They spent far too much of the movie apart for it to be so dramatic and "love at all costs" type of love. It was weird that he left his wife who was pregnant for Selima, but I guess Cecil knew he wouldn't be happy with their little "family". I identified with her struggle to please her husband and hold onto him. Imagine that many wives of the colonialism era probably felt that way when their husbands desired not just another woman, but a woman they felt was inferior. It was a great movie. Watch it.

Liked this film a lot. A rework of the classic Romeo and Juliet impossible-love scenario, it managed to stand out from the crowd, not least because of the impressive cinematography (helped in no small part by the wonderful locales and the beautiful tribes people (The Iban). While never being earth-shattering, for a film to watch with a loved one (without being too girly) this is hard to top IMO. It shows the moral struggle of a man who has to choose between 'duty' and love. The arrogance and conditioning of British colonialism is dealt with well, as we struggled to impose our European values and God on peoples in far flung corners, and indeed it shows the irony that we struggled to retain it ourselves as the beauty of the place and people intoxicated our men (a few cads apart)

Watch it with wifey/girlfriend/prospective mate