Music, Style & Culture

Sleeping Beauty

An elegant, thought-provoking nightmare, it unnerves and fascinates.

Released in cinemas 14th October 2011.

Australian novelist Julia Leigh makes her directorial debut with a visually arresting and unsettling drama, a modern day fairy tale - influenced by Yasunari Kawabata's novel The House of the Sleeping Beauties, itself steeped in lore - where men pay to sleep with unconscious, pliant women.

Emily Browning gives the very definition of a "brave performance" as Lucy, an Australian student sleepwalking through her studies and several part-time jobs. Warning signs of her lack of boundaries come in the (literally) stomach-churning opening scene, where Lucy passively submits to a medical experiment that involves swallowing a balloon while barely flinching. A sexually forthright woman who gets her kicks from strangers flipping coins to see who gets to take her home, she trawls bars without any real friends. With snooty flatmates, and a prickly relationship with an unseen, dysfunctional mother, the only time she opens up is in the company of the sickly, housebound Birdmann (Ewen Leslie), with whom she has a long-lasting brotherly relationship.

Struggling for money, she takes on discreet lingerie waitressing for wealthy clientele, looked after by the elegant but prosaic madam Clara (a compelling Rachael Blake). It's when Leigh's film really shifts into an off-kilter waking dream, where Lucy is examined like a prize show dog, and calmly instructed to match her lip gloss to her labia. Leigh films in wide, static shots, forcing the viewer to be a voyeur from the fourth wall as the disturbing scenario unfolds.

Lucy is promoted to a unique job in Clara's own home, that of the virginal sleeping beauty. Clara explains to the men that spend the night with the (willingly) drugged Lucy that they will not be judged in this room, but there must be no penetration, and no marks can be left on the skin. Leigh's script excels during some increasingly uncomfortable scenes, with the commanding Peter Carroll delivering an extraordinary monologue to a visibly emotional Clara. With Lucy oblivious as to what happens to her, paranoia bleeds into her everyday life, and despite rejoicing in the unpredictable, when a tragic event occurs, Lucy becomes desperate to witness the unknown.

Although Lucy is a silent, often petulant woman, Browning is exceptional. With a backstory that has to be deduced, her captivating face is hugely expressive, and she finds the surliness and humour that is so needed to break the tension. With Browning completely nude for a lot of the film, she must be admired for enduring such a physical role, the demands of which are hard to comprehend. The actress makes an underwritten and initially unsympathetic character completely understandable, as Leigh's fairy tale offers few conclusions. It's staggering to think Mia Wasikowska was the original Lucy, as Browning brings a confident sensuality to a film that is depressingly clinical about men's sexuality. As we never observe Lucy's sexual encounters, Sleeping Beauty is very much a film about the male desire, but there is nothing titillating about the depiction of women as props.

"Presented by" an otherwise uncredited Jane Campion, Sleeping Beauty is an unforgettable debut that is guaranteed to polarise. Kubrickian in its striking production design, it finds artistic beauty in the display of female flesh amongst the grandeur, but maintains a judgemental, not salacious, eye. An elegant, thought-provoking nightmare, it unnerves and fascinates.

Rating: 8/10