Sleeping Beauty (2011 film)

Sleeping Beauty
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJulia Leigh
Screenplay byJulia Leigh
Produced byJessica Brentnall
Starring
CinematographyGeoffrey Simpson
Edited byNick Meyers
Music byBen Frost
Production
companies
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • 12 May 2011 (2011-05-12) (Cannes)
  • 23 June 2011 (2011-06-23) (Australia)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$3,000,000
Box office
  • US$36,578 (United States)[1]
  • A$300,888 (Australia)[2]

Sleeping Beauty is a 2011 Australian erotic drama film written and directed by Julia Leigh in her directorial debut.[3] The film stars Emily Browning as a young university student.[4] She takes up a part-time high-paying job with a mysterious group that caters to rich men and women who like the company of nude sleeping young women. Lucy is required to sleep alongside paying customers and be absolutely submissive to their erotic desires, fulfilling their fantasies by voluntarily entering into physical unconsciousness.[5]

The film is based on influences that include Leigh's own dream experiences, and the novels The House of the Sleeping Beauties and Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Nobel laureates Yasunari Kawabata and Gabriel García Márquez, respectively.[6][7]

The film premiered in May at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival as the first Competition entry to be screened. It was the first Australian film in competition at Cannes since Moulin Rouge! (2001). Sleeping Beauty was released in Australia on 23 June 2011. It received a limited release in the United States on 2 December 2011. Overall, critical reception of the film has been mixed, rising to some approval through June 2016, after circulation of the film on the festival circuit.[8][9]

  1. ^ "Sleeping Beauty (2011) (II) (2011)". Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. ^ "Big Mamma's Boy posts decent opening at the Box Office". If.com.au. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference saf was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Sleeping Beauty, Julia Leigh, 101 mins (18)". Independent. 11 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  5. ^ "Sleeping Beauty – review". BBC News. 11 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  6. ^ Macauly, Scott (30 November 2011). ""Sleeping Beauty" writer/director Julia Leigh". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
  7. ^ Lim, Dennis (15 June 2011). "ArtsBeat: Cannes Q. and A.: Julia Leigh on a Modern-Day 'Sleeping Beauty'" (NYT arts blogpost). The New York Times. Retrieved 10 June 2016. The Australian novelist-turned-director Julia Leigh traces the origins of her first feature, "Sleeping Beauty," to what she calls a bout of 'self-exposure.' The attention she received for her well-received first novel, 'The Hunter' (1999), led to a recurring nightmare about being watched in her sleep.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference rottentomatoes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference metacritic was invoked but never defined (see the help page).