Sleepwalk

James Savoca is in love with his characters. This is a rare and great quality nowadays because many independent films mock or exploit and don't celebrate human beings. James Savoca does.

His male lead Ray (beautifully played by Ivan Martin) loves life. Even when he's scraping the bottom he knows how to have a good time. He falls in love with Henry (a girl), who is a fresh female character, very well captured by a male writer. She is a painter who clearly suffers from loneliness and past rejection, unable to meet an interesting guy in a sea of boring self-interested losers in NY. The way they fall for each other is touching in it's intimacy and playfulness. These are people with no other interest than each other. Savoca has a really nice almost unique way of capturing romance and would be ideally suited to tell more love stories.

Check it out.

This picture ran as the Independent Film Channel's "IFC's Next Wave" feature. If this represents the next wave of ANYthing (film, art, culture, intellect, society.....), the future looks grave. This is a yawner in which the people are nowhere in particular at the beginning, and nowhere in particular at the end, and pretty well avoid being anywhere in between, although there is some banal conversation. The music over the closing credits sounds like the tape is played backwards, suggesting perhaps that the film could have started at the end and played in the opposite direction, as a viable alternative.

James Savoca proves that he has a bright future ahead of him with his debut feature film, Sleepwalk. Great cinematography, script writing and direction, coupled with wonderful acting; drive this film that you truly never want to end. The actors seem wonderfully comfortable, while never really fitting into their own skin. While the last statement may seem contradictory, if you see or have seen this film you will understand what it is that I am referring to. I have actually spoken to Mr. Savoca and I must say that he is indeed a great guy, as well as an awesome director. It is a great thing to find a director who is down to earth and willing to speak to his fans. This fact makes me enjoy his movie that much more, and appreciate that he shares his vision with us. Highly recommended!

Saw this on the IFC. Great effort for first time director James Savoca. The look of the film is terrific and the acting superb. Definitely check this one out. If you like John Cassavetes' films, you'll like this one. If you're looking for 'Die Hard, Part 27' you'd better go elsewhere. This film's got class.

Writer/director James Savoca's super low-budget first film "Sleepwalk" opens out with an intoxicated man named Ray, lost, but for some reason drifting along an apartment rooftop in New York. Angry at society, he shouts down air vents leading to the apartments below. Soon he gets a threatening response from a strong young woman, but with a likable charm he has, he manages to get invited into her room. Of course they fall in love, and the film progressively follows these two people who come to symbolize the American dream.

The characters are what really shine in "Sleepwalk". Ray is a man filled with mystery. We learn that he is not completely honest, but who is when they fall in love at first. This leads to discovery and character revelation. Savoca isn't so much interested in where the relationship ends up, but more in the complexities of the leads. Good for him. His story has a great setup for a good romance film, but he gracefully keeps it thought-provoking and intelligent enough to prevent it from morphing into a corny chick flick.

The performances compliment the writing well. Ivan Martin plays Ray passionately. His character isn't the most accomplished person on the planet, and in fact lays at the bottom of the barrel socially, but Martin draws in remarkable sympathy and creates a character that becomes absorbing, not annoying. The woman in the apartment (named Henrietta) is played by another underknown, Drea De Matteo. She is beautiful, but also skillful, credibly portraying a woman who is trying to find success, but remain true to herself in the process.

However, a problem with "Sleepwalk", one of those movies that are simple in form but deep in ideas, is that it has some trouble introducing scenes. Movies like these, with tiny casts and little location changes often rely on a lot of dialogue (Richard Linklater's "Tape" or James Toback's "Two Girls and a Guy" for example). This is where Savoca has trouble shifting into his ideas. The meeting is random, but the dialogue comes on too fastly, making the characters unrealistically comfortable with eachother. This is a movie that moves along on a very slow pace, but Savoca needs to ease on into his scenes.

I would recommend "Sleepwalk", because of its good performances and adroit, subtle direction. Not a whole lot happens here, but (wonderfully enough) it lies on an intellectual level most romance films don't. This is a stylish, good debut.