While You Were Sleeping
I have never seen Die Hard. But I have existed in the world long enough to have seen and heard many references to Die Hard. I know enough about the movie to be confident in the following statement: if Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie, then so does While You Were Sleeping.
A brief summary with spoilers: While You Were Sleeping is about Lucy (Sandra Bullock), a woman living alone in Chicago. She lost both of her parents and works in a token booth at a train station. Without ever speaking to him, Lucy develops a crush on Peter (Peter Gallagher), a man who comes to her token booth every morning on his way to work. On Christmas Day, Peter is mugged on the train platform and pushed onto the tracks. Lucy witnesses this and runs over to save him, jumping on the tracks to pull him out of the way of an oncoming train. Peter ends up in a coma and at the hospital a miscommunication leads Peter’s family to believe that Lucy is Peter’s fiancee. They immediately welcome her into their family fold, which is how Lucy meets Jack (Bill Pullman), Peter’s younger brother. Hijinks ensue and by the end of the movie Peter is out of the coma and all is revealed: Lucy was never engaged to Peter and she is now in love with Jack. Ultimately the movie ends with the following line: “Peter once asked me when it was that I fell in love with Jack. And I told him: it was while you were sleeping.”
I will be honest: just writing the summary of this movie made me really happy.
While You Were Sleeping came out in 1995, the year I turned 9. I don’t believe I saw this in the movie theater, but my grandparents got the VHS and my sister and I watched it at their house. I don’t remember for certain, but I am pretty sure that this movie was the first romantic comedy I ever watched. Even if it wasn’t the first I ever watched, it was definitely the first one I obsessively fell in love with. When I say my sister and I watched this movie, I don’t mean that we saw it once or twice. Oh no. We practically wore that tape out. For a couple of years there I am pretty sure we watched it nearly every time we went to Nana and Pop-pop’s house. No matter the season, we watched this movie.
Which brings me to consider whether or not this is a Christmas movie. As already stated, I vote yes, this does count as a Christmas movie. Peter’s accident happens on Christmas Day, and the fact that Lucy is alone without family makes everything that happens more poignant because it’s Christmastime. Major plot points happen because of the holidays: Lucy goes over to the family’s house to celebrate Christmas because they didn’t get to while they were at the hospital. A whole big miscommunication happens between Jack and Lucy while at a New Year’s Eve party. The fact that Lucy doesn’t come out with the truth right away, thereby separating herself from this lovely family makes more sense because it is the time of year when you don’t want to be without family. The holiday factor makes the viewer, or at least makes me, more willing to suspend disbelief that Lucy would behave the way she does.
Also there is a super cute scene under the mistletoe. Just saying.
Could the whole plot have happened at another time of year? Obviously. But it happens at Christmastime which makes the movie better and which solidifies it, in my mind, as a Christmas movie.
Now, are there romantic comedy tropes? Absolutely. Are there little holes in the plot or little flubs in the script? Honestly, not that many, but yes. Most notably there is one scene after Peter has come out of the coma where he says he doesn’t know Lucy’s last name because he has amnesia. Meanwhile, in the next scene between Peter and Lucy, he proposes to her using her first, middle, and last name which he somehow magically learned between scenes. So yeah, the typically romantic comedy cheesiness is there but honestly I do not care in the slightest.
Almost thirty years after its release (OMG, let me recover from that fact real quick…) I am still deeply charmed by everything about this movie. Sandra Bullock is so perfect in this part; she makes me want to forever wear overlarge sweaters with gigantic sleeves that can function as pockets (you will get that if you’ve seen the movie). This is also the movie which made me fall in love with Bill Pullman. I love his gruff voice and perfectly swoopy hair. My love for him is deep and real and will last forever because of this movie. I love the crazy family, who aren’t really crazy but just a beautiful representation of what a real family could be like: quirky and not without fault, but loving and forgiving. It’s just so nice to watch them exist together on the screen, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Unlike a lot of romcoms, there are no gratuitous “look at how hot the main characters are and they don’t even realize it” scenes. Jack is a woodworker for crying out loud and you never once see him in his workshop or even holding a hammer or anything. That doesn’t happen with modern day romcoms and I love that about this movie. I even love that the last line of the movie brings in the title in such an obvious, cheesy, and yet delightful way. I love it all.
I first encountered this movie as a child and fell in love with it before I was even really a pre-teen. But I have also watched this movie innumerable times over the years and, to me, it really holds up. Maybe I’m still looking at it through the eyes of a 10 year old, but I don’t think so. I think this movie is genuinely charming and well worth a gander if you have never seen it. If nothing else it is the type of movie that you can put on in the background to add a little charm and Christmas spirit to the room. You could even watch it three times in one weekend if you really want to…I mean, I don’t know who would do that…definitely not me.
It’s me. I’ve done that. Watch this movie, it’s great.
