Science of Sleep

Daily Mail 1/5
Daily Telegraph 4/5
Independent 2/5
The Guardian 4/5
The Times 3/5
The Sun 2.5/5
The Mirror 4/5
Financial Times 2/5
A good indication of how the Science of Sleep is splitting the critics right down the middle! its the second feature film from Michael Gondry, and has almost as much heart and beauty as his first 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'.
I was wary of his new effort, as it was almost impossible to do better than his first in my mind. Its a perfect 'break up' movie, and captures that traumatic time with great realism even withint the strange world he creates and sees it for what it is. The Hollywood ending does remove some of the charm, but its one of the few films i've sat in meeting house square in the rain to watch. Guess that makes me a big girl!
His new movie treads similar territory with a disfunctional love affair. It is seen through the eyes of a young man who's mother describes as 'always having difficulty defining dream from reality'. This allows Gondry an open pallet to create a complex world that makes sense within itself. It relies heavily on stop motion animation, another thing that has never lost its charm, and is clearly owes a debt to jan svankmajer. The best parts of the movie are in the dreams themselves, where no rules of normal world confine and Gondry's imagination can run wild.
Go see it. It'll give you the warm fuzzies, if you have half a heart at all. Honest!
4/5