The Sleeping Beauty (2010)
** (out of 4)
Director Catherine Breillat's second straight adaptation of a Charles Perrault fairy tale. While this one here fairs much better than the previous BLUEBEARD, there's still no question that there are some problems keeping it from being a good movie. An evil witch is at the birth of a new baby girl and places a curse on her saying that she will die at the age of 16. Minutes later three good witches get on the scene and while they can't break the curse they can at least make it easier. They make it that the girl will fall asleep at the age of 6 and remain that way for one-hundred years but when she wakes up she'll still only be the age of 16. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY has some very interesting things going on in it and it starts off rather strongly but as the girl's mission kept going the interest level started to drop. I thought the first thirty-minutes were rather interesting because the story made for something that should have worked much better. I thought the early scenes showing the girl getting ready to set off on this journey was interesting and I thought her first stop, to a new family with an older brother, featured some good stuff. From this point on the film started to lose me and especially when the various stops that the girl goes through. All of these look very good visual and there are some great looking scenes but sadly all of them are rather slow and seem to go nowhere. Carla Besainou plays the 6-yaer-old girl and does a very good job with the part. I thought she was quite charming and managed to carry the performance in a very believable fashion. The supporting players are all nice as well but no one can really save this picture. THE SLEEPING BEAUTY is aimed more at adults with its nudity and thoughts on sexuality but these just aren't enough to make it worth viewing outside of the director's fans.
