Is the basic premise of While You Were Sleeping (1995) creepy? Of course it is.
Regardless of the intensity of your infatuation, you should not pretend to be someone’s fiancé while they are in a coma, thereby instantly ingratiating yourself with the coma patient’s family. That’s weird and wrong and, again, super creepy.
But I’m a sucker for the found family trope. In any and all iterations, if there’s a story about a character who is searching, in some way, for some kind of community and they find themselves drawn into a ragtag group of weirdos, I’m in.
This film is a distinctly nineties-flavored film. I don’t really think it is a story that could, would, or should be made today. It has all the classic characteristics of a twentieth-century romantic comedy: wildly unlikely shenanigans spurred by wildly unlikely coincidences exacerbated by wildly unlikely modes of deception; a first-act love interest who ends up not being the second-act love interest; and a witty, self-aware female protagonist played by either Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. It’s like the movie execs looked at the script, thought, “How on earth do we make any of this endearing?” and then decided to haul in the big guns: Sandy herself in all of her lovable, brown-haired charisma.
Sandra Bullock’s character, Lucy, is a lonely woman working at Chicago Transit Authority as a token collector. Day after day, she accepts the tokens of a handsome businessman, Peter, (Peter Gallagher) and develops a fervent crush. One morning, she witnesses two muggers attack Peter and, in the ensuing struggle, he falls onto the train tracks. Lucy subsequently saves him from an incoming train. When she accompanies him to the hospital, a nurse mistakes her for his fiancée—and informs his worried family that she is his girlfriend.
A loud, affectionate bunch, the members of Peter’s family immediately invite her over to their home for dinner. At first, Lucy is hesitant, but she eventually agrees to meet them later that night. Her father died a year prior and she lives alone in the city. For years, Lucy has quietly longed for the fierce kindness and loyalty that Peter’s family shows her. She knows that she has put herself in a bizarre, deeply untenable situation. She knows that she is wrong to uphold such a charade. She frets and she worries and she even confides in one of the family members, Saul, about her deception. But Saul, like the rest of the family, has taken a shine to Lucy—and he tells her to wait it out.
Bullock plays Lucy with a quirky self-awareness. She hunches her shoulders, overwhelmed by attention, but then asserts herself later, rolling her eyes and swatting away an overbearing neighbor. She brushes a hand through her bangs, cocking her head and inhaling, when she is about to do something she isn’t sure she should do. It’s hard not to relate to her in some way. Who hasn’t yearned to escape their dead-end job and travel the globe? Who hasn’t fallen in love with someone from afar, fantasizing about what could be if you just took the chance to reach out? Who hasn’t experienced loneliness in a high-speed environment, feeling like everyone is outpacing you in every way?
When Lucy visits Peter’s family at their house, she quickly falls in love with them as people: his sociable mother, his jokey father, his thoughtful younger sister, his absentminded grandmother, and his benevolent godfather. They’re raucous and assertive and warm. They give Lucy presents even though they just met her. They embrace her with open arms, no questions asked, and their home is brightly-lit, intimate. Here, Lucy finds a family. And she doesn’t want to part with them. We don’t want her to either.
However, Peter’s older brother, Jack (Bill Pullman), is immediately suspicious of Lucy. He rightly points out the strangeness of the fact that none of the family knew about her or the engagement. He watches Lucy, distrustful, trying to catch her in a verbal slip-up.
And there, of course, the chemistry crackles.
This is Bill Pullman at his swooniest. Floppy-haired and clad in flannel, he peppers Lucy with questions, making her defensive, and their foe-like relationship draws out greater narrative tension. Jack keeps trying to “hang out” with Lucy so that he can figure out who she really is. At first terse, he learns more about Lucy and her dreams and, instead, grows attached.
In one of the best moments of the film, Jack walks Lucy back to her apartment at night. Together, they attempt to traverse the ice and end up flailing, arms out, reaching for each other—and they fall, hard, on the ground. Lucy laughs, snorting, and tries to get back up, elbows bent forward like a toddler. The physical comedy, the laughter, adds up to a charming form of intimacy—they’re friends, they’re weird, they feel comfortable being themselves around each other. Jack does, indeed, see Lucy for who she really is—and he falls in love.
I watch this film every December with my family. It makes my heart happy. And, honestly, Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman are absolutely irresistible. It has Christmas cheer and wacky family hijinks and, most importantly of all, a good-natured, shimmering kind of love.
Drink it up with your hot chocolate and tiny marshmallows.