Science of Sleep

D

Directed by Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" showcases both the director's original aesthetic but also his utter inability to make anything resembling a coherent film when left to his own devices.

Stephane, a graphic artist from Mexico, is lured to Paris by his estranged mother by the promise of a job in a design firm. He finds out to his horror, however, that the jobs consists of doing the layout for corny novelty calendars. He escapes his dreary life by chasing his neighbor, the bohemian Stephanie, while at the same time combatting a weirdo sleep disorder.

Michel Gondry, like his sometime collaborator Charlie Kaufman, is a director who often does best when he works with others. Left to his own devices, he mostly produces imaginative but sloppy work that seems to do away with plot and character development entirely in favor of arts and craft set pieces. Gondry first came to prominence due to his music videos and his style has always seemed better adapted to that medium. "The Science of Sleep" suffers to make any sense and stumbles through its running time with no clear idea of what it's about or where it's going. In the end, Gondry's film annoyed me more than anything because I felt the whole enterprise made zero effort to connect with the viewer. Much llike "Be Kind Rewind," Gondry's latest effort which I also disliked, "The Science of Sleep" seems to have been an excuse for Gondry to extract some cash out of a studio and just go do his own thing rather than make a real film. Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both great actors in their own right, are utterly wasted here.