"Sleeper" - Film Review

Sleeper is a silly movie, but it’s a movie that knows it’s silly. It feels like a live-action cartoon. Benny Hill-esque music plays at a number of points. Woody Allen comes off as though he’s playing a caricature of himself, as he does in so many of his films.

Part of this silliness comes from the goofy satire of science fiction in the film. It’s not always attacking any given film (though there’s an obvious one directed towards 2001 that’s spot-on, and some vaguely reminsicent tinges of 1984), but the film takes fun in aiming its sights on sci-fi clichés more generally including technology, bureaucracy, cryogenics, and dystopian dictatorships. The humor of this largely stems from how corrupt, inefficient and idiotic so many things have become 200 years into the future. The robot servants are more trouble than they’re worth, and the weapons utilized by the police and military end up doing more harm to themselves than the people they chase.

Allen’s Miles Monroe was cryogenically frozen for what was meant to be a few days and ended up being two centuries. Scientists, part of a resistance movement against the current autocratic government, awake him to use him in part of their scheme to overthrow the government. This quickly goes awry and Myles finds himself on the run. He disguises himself as a robot servant, which leads to him being employed by a ditzy woman Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton – his frequent film collaborator and complicated real life romantic interest). Luna is a great foil to Miles. She, of course, misunderstands all his sarcastic comments.   

So much of what makes the film funny is how understated the humor is. Allen is constantly underselling jokes and never feels the need to explain a joke. Much of the humor is irrelevant to the genre its set its eyes on. Many of the funniest moments are just Allen making a well-timed quip. It’s the exasperated off hand comments as his protagonist Myles traverses an unfamiliar future society that really sell the film. 

The film’s satire isn’t all aimed at sci-fi though. Many of the best moments in the film are satirically pointing their attention at contemporary society. The film keeps returning to mocking how Myles ran a health food store. In one memorable scene, scientists show photos to Myles from contemporary culture and he has fun at the expense of the questioner’s lack of knowledge.  

Myles is assigned by the scientists to meet up with the resistance movement to discover what the government's secret project is. This is the film’s Macguffin. It hardly matters what the project is, and we only learn within the films last twenty minutes or so what it is. The plot is simple and not entirely that interesting. But it doesn’t really matter. Allen is more interested in making us laugh. Myles attempts to escape the government, reveals his identity to Luna, has to deal with her being hysterical, gets caught, has his memory erased, gets rescued, remembers everything, and stops the secret project from succeeding. 

But what you really need to know is there is a point where Myles holds a gun at the disembodied nose of the dictator as if it’s a hostage. Everyone takes this absolutely seriously despite how ridiculous it is. That’s the sort of movie this is. Allen strings the film along through a series of wonderfully executed sight gags and slapstick.

This is all thinly strung together but it’s also so funny, irreverent, and intelligent that it doesn’t matter. There's an absurdity to it, but Allen is aware of the absurdity, constantly acknowledging it through the way scenes are shot or how he undercuts them. It's at once a film that parodies sci-fi and yet embraces the elements inherent to the genre. And it's all filtered through Allen's hilarious and inimitable worldview.

Grade: A-