Sleeping Beauty (*** out of **** stars)

I said earlier this year that Womb was the most "haunting" movie I've seen this year... it still is. Sleeping Beauty makes a worthy second place though. The film is dark and oozing with sexuality. It has mystery to make your skin crawl and your mouth drop. Don't mix this up with the Disney classic. This is a odd movie probably unlike you've ever seen.

Lucy (Emily Browning showing her talent) is a unusual college girl. She works several jobs, avoids her alcoholic mother, is in love with a dying man (the only man she won't sleep with) and fucks random bar patrons at an up scale establishment. She enters a program to earn some extra money. This is where things get interesting. She goes to a mansion, drinks some tea, the tea has sleeping pills in it of course and she's placed in a grand room in a large bed. Then a man enters the room. They pay to be able to do anything they want to her but they can't penetrate her. You may ask "what's the point?" without sex but that's where the intrigue lies. What they do is bizarre but you can't look away. Your drawn into what brought these men here. Sleeping Beauty is unafraid of being all it could be. It's not a perfect movie, or really something that is brilliant. It works well with what it is but not every mystery is intoxicating from the start. Some are better than others. This would fall just above the middle.

*** out of **** stars