Very good and utterly pessimistic. A young university student has several jobs including waitressing and shop girl. Then she finds herself getting occasional gigs with a company that supplies young female bodies in various states of nakedness, as decoration during different social functions of affluent people. The final stage of her process is she gets anesthesized in the nude and sleeps in a bed while an older man can do with her body anything he wants except penetrative sex. One of her “clients “ chooses to commit suicide lying in the bed next to her. He is not the first character in the movie to choose this exit. As I said, strong positive vibes. There is depiction of nudity throughout the story, but I would not call it titillating. If someone gets sexually excited watching this movie, that person needs psychiatric evaluation.

Between the long and lingering scenes and Emily Browning's muted but committed performance, there is much left unsaid and an ever-present sense of even more beneath the surface of this meticulous, unsettling masterpiece.

I watched this movie several times because it haunted me. It doesn't hand you the message, and you probably won't get it if you haven't realized at some point that you have been surpressing trauma and grief and moving like a sleep walker through your life, numbing yourself with careless choices. The main character seems to have no support, friends, family except for one person, who is the only person she shows attachment to, and is more broken than she is. She remains detached because she's practiced it, long before we see this part of her story, to protect herself from feeling the pain.

I just love Emily! But the movie is slow paced, not a very engaging story.

Boring and utterly disturbing film where nothing is ever explained. Tries to be profound, but isn’t worth the time investment.

The concept lead me to believe with would be a thrilling story alas disappointment. There is no depth in the characters and their story so each seen is as empty as empty can be. Disapointment is a start but just like this movie I won't delve into why

Where do I start….. I just don’t know but I will say that the acting is sub par at best, like everyone is doing it against their will and dosed up on lithium and antipsychotics…. Not to mention the final scene…. A less believable breakdown I’ve not seen ever!

This movie is interesting. It's a lot like the movie "Gummo", in the sense that there isn't a continuous plot, but rather a series of experiences. "Sleeping Beauty" tells the story of a young college student as she progresses further in her career at a high-end brothel. I think what so many people get wrong about it is that it's not supposed to feel like a movie. It feels as though we are watching someone in real life, as opposed to watching the life of someone in a movie. There is hardly any soundtrack; dialogue is shallow and bare, not bursting and bubbling; and hardly anything is explained. What this does is it paints a picture of people that are unattached from the audience. They aren't narrating things for the viewer, nor are they trying to be entertaining for them either. They are simply just like you and me. For example, many people have been confused and angered that the character Birdmann is never explained. But think about it- whenever you see your friends and family, would you have conversations with them so revealing it completely explains your entire dynamic to a stranger? No, you would not. That's why characters in this film are so blasé- they're just like anybody. If you were to work in an extremely private and secretive high end brothel, you wouldn't be walking around with an attitude entertaining for an unknown audience. This is the tone to the entire movie- realism. Things are boring, sure, but that's because what's being told is not for your enjoyment. I agree that it is very anticlimactic, but that's the point. After all, there's no big symphony playing as you argue with your mother. Your life is not a movie so neither is Lucy's. Things are hard to understand because they're not making it easy for you. You are purely just looking in on someone's life. You are the one that has to connect the dots, or just shrug because you not part of the inside joke. That doesn't mean that this movie can't be bad, but I think a lot of the flack it gets is from people who don't understand it. When watching this movie, go into it with an open mind. Don't look for the set up or the context. Instead, just experience it. It will leave you soaked in eery calmness. There's a reason why so many people have seen this movie despite calling it boring or pointless- it's alluring, it's got mystery to it. The acting is amazing, especially Emily Browning's performance. The characters are all rooted in realism. "Sleeping Beauty" truly is a piece of art- meant to be experienced, not enjoyed.

Weird but good. Not really sure what to make of it but I still had to watch it all the way through.

This movie reminds me of the Shakespeare Macbeth speech: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Emily Browning's presence in this film can't make up for such over the top creepiness in certain parts.

Highly artistic and highly symbolistic. Disjointed and uunexplicable. Tableau scenes fading to black.Who was Birdman and why was he part of her life. Never explained. An arty film lost on the masses because it doesn't tell a story. Bit of a wank really

This is a movie that might have been interesting both for its thematics and its characters but it ultimately felt shallow. The characters are mostly unexplored, we don't know what makes them tick, nor who they are or represent. We're given a cast of elderly aristocrats and only one barely opens the door to his inner thoughts, whereas the second one falls into cliché and the third just suffers fatigue both literally and figuratively. It gets 2 for effort.

A total slap in the face of all the hard work society has been doing of late to liberate women from the inequality chains that have bound us for centuries. I hate this movie, I feel awful for Emily. I couldn't get more than half way through it before realising my daughter is a part of this wretched world and turned it off to go vom! Good movie to miss!!

Medieval europe too sex

One of the worst films I've ever seen. It's slickly filmed, the production design is good and Emily Browning tries her best. But overall this film is a huge waste of time, money and talent. And in the end has nothing interesting or compelling to say. It doesn't even successfully sell its "male gaze" message. Our lead character is underwritten and underdeveloped so her motives are never clear or explained. Why can't she pay rent when he has multiple jobs? Then why does she burn her money? And get herself fired? What is she studying? Every time I thought I understood her motivations and actions she'd do something confusing or stupid. The film is repetitive, has some cringeworthy dialogue and uses shock value and grotesque imagery and thinks it's intelligent but instead it's confusing, boring, lazy, pretentious and a waste of time with nothing intelligent to say. Then the ending has no pay off and left me even more confused than before. Is this based on true events? What influenced the "plot"? I can't imagine why or how anyone could like this film, and walk away from it having learnt something or been entertained or give it a positive review.

A favorite of mine that I've watched many times. Everything about it is incredible. the candid acting, superb score, fresh and unique. My heart resonated perfectly with this film. A masterpiece.

Interesting watch, probably won't watch again, and can't really recommend. For some reason, Amazon had this region locked for America, so I actually watched it this time on youtube of all places. Emily Browning is beautiful, without a doubt, but she's a pretty good actress, and I would have liked to see her do more of that. There is some REALLY good acting by her in this, but most of the time she's just there. I've been thinking very hard about this, and I'm just not sure what the point of the movie is. Maybe it's to example the struggles of young women trying to get by through selling their body, maybe its to example the wretchedness of the rich who can afford to buy women for a time. Given some of the major events in the movie, it seems very nihilistic. Regardless of whether you're of the meek or the rich, it's all bullshit, we all have problems and then we die, maybe that's what it was saying. I'm all for seeing Emily Browning act, and she's lovely to see, in any level of dress, but there are too many other movies to see over this.

Terribly slow-paced and not headed in any seemingly determined direction, the movie might have some artistic merit, but did not secure the basics of movie-making. As is, it relies far too much on female nudity to hide its flaws.

This was beyond horrible! As it was moving forward it really was going nowhere or in maybe 5 different directions?! It’s meant to shock you and it does, but for all the wrong reason and the main one was that the script and direction of the movie was lost in the first 20 minutes! I fast forwarded it so many times and still made no difference...still a horrible piece a cinematic work.

Believe the critics are correct in the fact that the movie is boring and not entertaining. It's the script.