My Favorite Movies: While You Were Sleeping

I remember going to a premiere showing of While You Were Sleeping when it came out in 1995. My best friend at the time, Amy, had won tickets through a radio station or something. I loved the movie immediately, and I’ve seen it many many times since. It’s especially nice to watch around Christmas, since it’s a Christmasy movie (so I probably should have saved this one for next December – oh well!).

WYWS is the story of Lucy (Sandra Bullock), a lonely Chicagoan with a crush on a sharp-dressed man (Peter Gallagher, who will always be Sandy Cohen to me) who passes her el ticket booth every day. When he falls onto the tracks and into a coma, Lucy takes him to the hospital, where she is mistaken for his fiancee. Before she can correct Peter’s boisterous family, they’ve taken her in as one of their own… and major hijinks ensue. Things get even more complicated when she falls in love with Peter’s brother Jack (Bill Pullman).

This movie is HILARIOUS, and I think men AND women can enjoy it. As you’d expect from the plot, there’s a lot of who’s-on-first mix-up comedy. The characters are all very likable, even Peter, who’s eventually revealed to be (in the words of his godfather) “a putz.” And any woman who’s ever been single and lonely can relate to Lucy and her desire to keep her newfound family even under false pretenses. This movie will make you laugh and leave you with a happy sense of well-being. Watch it if you haven’t!

Some of my favorite quotes:

“You are born into a family. You do not join them like you do the Marines.”

“Have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that you were the one that they wanted to grow old with.”

“If you fit into my pants, I will kill myself.”