MovieChat Forums > Sleeping Beauty (2011) Discussion > Pretentious crap.

Pretentious crap.

posted 12 years ago by TheManInOil
7 replies | jump to latest

What's with young actresses all thinking they have to do some 'erotic' film to prove they're grown up? This movie is utter *beep* It has nothing to say. I kept looking for any possible significance to any of the events and images, but there just isn't any. It's an excuse to film grody scenes of old men groping an unconscious and nude Emily Browning. The very act of bothering to film this is pretention. There's nothing to see here folks, move on.

"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

[–] CarpeDiemO_O 12 years ago

I totally get that this movie isn't for everyone because it is pretty unsettling. Having said that...in what way was this movie trying to be erotic? If sexy/erotic was what they were going for, they would've had young, good looking guys climbing into bed with her. Those scenes are meant to make you feel uncomfortable. This movie is simply a very dark, sad version of the fairy tale. The story is a girl who doesn't give a sh!t about herself (or anything really) and is "sleeping" through her life until things in her life start to happen that finally get her to care or "wake up", hence the name of the movie. The part with the madam giving her mouth to mouth was supposed to symbolize the part in the fairy tale where she gets kissed awake. This movie IMO is just the writer/director's take on cynicism.

[–] janed74 12 years ago

Yay. Glad that was cleared up for me. I just didn't get it. I thought it was a beautifully filmed and acted movie, I just think there were a couple of anomalies which didn't seem to me to 'fit' like her friend the birdman, what was that all about??

[–] CarpeDiemO_O 12 years ago

Birdman was her friend and probably the only person she felt close to. He was dying from his alcoholism and knew it, so he was pretty much planning to kill himself the entire time, which is what he meant when he told her "I think I'm ready" or something like that and then she said "We could get you back into detox" and he told her he didn't think he'd make it which is when you can see her get visibly upset but she holds it in. Then she gets the call from him when he takes the pills and waits for her to come over so she can lie there with him while he dies. This I believe is the main reason she had such a fit when she woke up next to the dead old man because yet another person used her to have someone to die next to.

[–] LilRed_RoRo 12 years ago

I kind of agree with the OP, to me it just felt like the director wanted to make a weird, disturbing movie for the sake of it being weird and disturbing, not because it actually had any point. Like the whole scene where they tell Lucy to put on lipstick that matches the colour of her labia??? To me it just seemed like the film was just trying to be to get a reaction out of the audience for the sake of it.

Although I think the resuscitation being the kiss from the original fairy tale is a really clever observation! I never would have thought of that!

[–] rockethulsey 12 years ago

Art is perspective.

[–] zharth 11 years ago

Growing up = sexual maturity, among other things, so why shouldn't a young actress consider taking on an erotic role a 'rite of passage', if you will, of growing up? Sounds to me like you're just too hung up on sex, or, more accurately, sexual purity.

[–] lazarillo 11 years ago

If a movie isn't 1 a Hollywood action movie with lots of explosions and car chases, 2. a Hollywood rom-com with beautiful Hollywood actors and all the meet-cute clichés, or 3. self-important Hollywood Oscar-bait that they roll out at awards time, then it inevitably gets called "pretentious". Some movies are pretentious, but is that really a worse crime than being just more of the same old sh*t?

And they didn't make this movie just so Emily Browning could change her image. It would have been made with or without her. And whether this movie is entirely successful or not, most Hollywood actresses wouldn't have had the stones to do a movie like this. So if you don't like it, go watch something unpretentious like "Transformers 4"