Contrary to a title that suggests an Apichatpong Weerasethakul–style slow cinema experiment in collective dreaming, Sleep is a Korean comedy-horror billed as the directorial debut of Bong Joon-ho’s former assistant. Those are high expectations to place on any director, much more one making his debut. Those looking for Bong Joon-ho’s twisted sociopolitics will be disappointed, but director Jason Yu shows a deft, trained eye for visuals and a simple core message that thankfully strengthens towards the end.
Struggling actor Hyun-su and executive Soo-jin are a perfectly happy, model married couple, until Hyun-su begins to sleepwalk. While sleepwalking, his actions become increasingly disturbing and start to threaten the couple’s (and their unborn baby’s) safety, and Soo-jin resorts to more and more extreme methods to safeguard her marriage and family.
Sleep is a very typical genre picture coming out of the more developed Asian cinemas, especially South Korea, which has perfected their pipeline of producing slick, polished films that balance commercial appeal and critical thinking (the apex of this being Parasite). And perhaps as a result of the “Bong Joon-ho disciple” label, I’m most inclined to first notice Sleep’s visual maturity, especially impressive coming from a first-time director. Much like in Bong’s films, every single camera movement and music cue in Sleep is precise and maximized for thrills, scares, or laughs. The entire look of the film is meticulously mechanical to the point of almost stifling the film; thankfully, the premise allows room for that. It’s very much reflective of a well-oiled industry that a director making their debut can deliver craftsmanship just as well-oiled.
Despite the air of pretension gifted by chaptered title breaks, Sleep follows a very traditional three-act escalation, and at one point, the film gets so obsessed with doubling and tripling its genre thrills that it seems to forget what point, if any, it’s making. But thankfully, the film ties it all back together when it reveals itself as a treatise on marriage, with a rather cynical take on marriage and the artifice required in sustaining one. That brand of cynicism has been en vogue since at least the 1970s (coming to my mind are Kramer vs. Kramer and Scenes from a Marriage, but I’m sure this is a tale as old as time), yet doesn’t lose an ounce of its relevance. As expected from a Korean genre film, all the planting in the beginning pays off and the character arcs are completed; everything is neat and tidy without an extra frame.
Despite an apparent reversal of gender roles—with the wife as an executive and the breadwinner—Sleep reveals itself as a rather traditional if not conservative film. Again, despite early signs of progressivism, it eventually falls into the typical archetypes of the mad woman and the man keeping it all together. And once again as expected in Korean elevated genre fare, the performances are fiercely committed from one extreme to the other, but lack a spontaneity and flaws that makes the characters truly human.
My problems with the film can perhaps stem from the very premise: how can a marriage be this happy and picture-perfect? Clearly, this is not a film aiming for realism, despite the social relevance of its central theme, but there needs to be a certain amount of authenticity present. As such, Sleep is too polished and calculated, lacking the grit or extremity that makes Bong Joon-ho’s films so searing. But the simplicity of Yu’s film does remind me of Bong’s directorial debut Barking Dogs Never Bite, and if that’s our starting point, then Yu has a bright future ahead.