Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Slow
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- chilly
- eerie
- surreal
- arthouse film night
- late night viewing
What critics said
Critics broadly found the film visually precise, eerie, and distinctive, while divided over its deliberately elusive characterization and limited narrative development.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Lucy is presented through repetitive actions and enigmatic encounters rather than explanatory backstory or conventional emotional exposition.
The sleeping arrangements, private dinners, limousines, and client interactions are framed with somber, restrained detachment.
Lucy’s paid work specifically requires her to sleep beside customers, while the film repeatedly links erotic service with disappearance and unconsciousness.
Lucy’s financial precarity contrasts with affluent clients who pay for access to her body and controlled vulnerability.
Films like Sleeping Beauty, and why
The Piano Teacher
shares chilly erotic drama, psychological detachment, and unsettling power dynamics around transactional intimacy
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
shares austere pacing, enigmatic female subjectivity, and provocative treatment of sexuality and emotional alienation
Belle de Jour
shares surreal eroticism, deadpan humor, and critique of bourgeois sexual power structures
Movie Details
- Director
- Julia Leigh
- Release Date
- 2011-06-10
- Runtime
- 102 min
- Rating
- 5.4 / 10 (701)
Cast
- Emily Browning
- Rachael Blake
- Ewen Leslie
- Peter Carroll
- Chris Haywood
- Hugh Keays-Byrne
- Tammy Macintosh
- Eden Falk
- Mirrah Foulkes
- Robin Goldsworthy
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Philo, AMC Plus Apple TV channel, AMC+ Roku Premium Channel, AMC+, Sundance Now
- Rent
- Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube
- Buy
- Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Sleeping Beauty about?
- A financially strained university student enters an enigmatic world of paid sleeping arrangements where erotic service becomes a study in detachment, control, and chosen oblivion.
- What is Sleeping Beauty like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Sleeping Beauty as slow, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Sleeping Beauty violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Sleeping Beauty as mild.
- What did critics think of Sleeping Beauty?
- Critics broadly found the film visually precise, eerie, and distinctive, while divided over its deliberately elusive characterization and limited narrative development.
- Which films are like Sleeping Beauty?
- Films with a similar feel include The Piano Teacher, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, and Belle de Jour.
- How long is Sleeping Beauty?
- Sleeping Beauty runs 102 minutes.
- Where can I watch Sleeping Beauty?
- In United States, Sleeping Beauty streams on Philo, AMC Plus Apple TV channel, AMC+ Roku Premium Channel, AMC+, Sundance Now.
