The 2011 Australian film 'Sleeping Beauty' is not another remake of the classic fairytale story, but rather an examination of the objectification of the female body and a character study of Emily Browning's Lucy. The first and so far only film directed by the novelist Julia Leigh, 'Sleeping Beauty' is done in a very clinical style, largely muted emotional responses from the characters, very formal, often static framing of shots and I suppose of characters. The film reminded me alot of the work of Stanly Kubrick, principly 'Eyes Wide Shut' and David Lynch, principly the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks and the character of Laura Palmer, across her various incarnations.
Lucy is a very Laura Palmer type character, enigmatic and with a lot going on in her life, ranging from the sweet, to the mundane to the disturbing. We learn what we learn of Lucy in pieces spreed throughout the run time of the film. She is a college student, has an alcoholic and trying mother, she is apperntly short on money and works multiple jobs to get by. Her employments rang from making copies and cleaning tables to working as a high end call girl. She drinks and does hard drugs but tells a potential employer her worst vice is the occasional cigarette. Here roommates (including a pre Succession Sarah Snook) kick her out over rent issues, but she then movies herself and her meager belongings into what looks like a rather high end apartment. She goes out and solicits sex, sometimes aggressively and possibly without payment, at other times she is much more coy. In one scene she only agress to sleep with a customer because he wins three consecutive coin tosses. Later we see her literally burn money.
Lucy's closest relationship seems to be with a character named Birdman (Ewan Leslie), whom she knows through an old boyfriend and to whom she appears to have a great deal of affection. She stops to visit him regularly in the small apartment where he is slowly dying of unspecified causes, she brings him food and vodka, they playfully talk about getting married.
Lucy takes a job at a mansion which is some kind of exclusive club. At first her role is to serve champaign to rich old men while wearing only lingerie. The 22 year old's, short, thin, porcelain doll looks, her "unique beauty" as one character calls it, is well received and earns her an offer of promotion. This new position simply requires her to take a concoction of sleeping pills and well, just sleep. The catch is she must sleep naked in a room with a paying client, always an old man. That client can do anything they like with her short of penetration. We see what a number of these clients do, ranging from simple snuggling, to verbal and physical abuse, to one big man who just likes to pick up and hold the whispy young woman. There is a lot of fondling.
Lucy likes the good pay for easy work, but becomes increasingly obsessed with what happens to her during these sessions, after she discovers a cigarette burn on the nap of her neck (after which the club changes its rules to anything short of penetration and leaving a mark). Lucy decides to sneak a small camera in one night to see what is done to her, what she sees...
The film constantly caresses Browning, who is almost always center frame and who spends a good deal of the film in underwear or naked. This frankly for me was the films principle inducement, but the movie is art, it is clearly saying much, even when it's not all exactly clear what. It's a puzzle of movie, where the riddles are what is this mysterious club and who is Lucy? A hypnotic film that is an odd mix of feminist critique and prurience. It probably warrants a second watch. ***
