The Science of Sleep (Reviewed)

Michel Gondry, at 43, is a boy genius. Give him a pile of Legos and he might make an animated video of the White Stripes out of them. Give him some egg cartons, boxes, and a shower curtain and perhaps he'll construct an imaginary TV studio, where the programming consists entirely of the dreamer's dreams. Give him some cardboard tubes, and he can build an entire miniature city, complete with skyscrapers, factories and public transportation. Gondry, the director of numerous music videos and his prior two films Human Nature and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, creates a story of Love and Attraction in Reality and Dreams with "The Science of Sleep," a hand-crafted fantasy he has written and directed about a little boy in the body of a small young man, who confuses waking, sleeping and dreaming.

Stephane, a shy would-be graphic artist, returns to his mother's apartment after his father's death and in doing so meets and develops a fitful crush on his across-the-hall neighbor, Stephanie, in part because he imagines her as his ideal counterpart. Stephane, on his mother's recommendation, takes a lousy uncreative job pasting together the boring parts of calendars at a small, technologically backward printing company.

Without giving anything away, "The Science of Sleep" is bursting with ingenious handmade retro-toys and gadgets (like a time machine, using an old Polaroid flash attachment, that skips only one second into the past or the future) and cleverly animated miniatures, all low-tech creations which I expected made from common recycled household items, like an ocean of cellophane or a thought-transmission device made from bicycle helmets and wire. Gondry fans will recognize some of the movie's motifs and images from his music videos, shorts and commercials, like the enormous clumsy hands Stephane grows (like Dave Grohl in the Foo Fighters' video for "Everlong"). Gondry appears to have designed "The Science of Sleep" as an elaboration on a short film, "La Lettre" ("The Letter"), which available on his DVD collection. In it, a real boy (10? 12?) believes he is in love with a girl, while his older brother pressures him to French kiss her. It works better with an actual child.

It also seems that although the diminutive (5-foot-6-inch) Bernal emanates an infectiously playful and energetic charisma, there comes a point when you just have to look at him with worry and fear of what could and might come form someone like him. Is he childishly mental or dangerously unstable? There's definitely something unhealthy, even pathological, behind Stephane's notion of this asexual/heterosexual "relationship" he looks and hopes for.

In the end the boy may be charming, but not quite as charming as Gondry thinks he is. I loved the film's magic up until the last five literal minutes of this wonderfully visual exercise, but I fear it may have been better off with adult supervision by the likes of Charlie Kaufman, someone who seems comfortable with swimming in an imaginary kids'pool but able to handle adult reality just as easily.

Grade: B -
Additional reviewing by Jim Emerson