Science des rêves, La (2006)

Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane

And, as with Wonka, Gondry has an imagination so infectiously childlike and enthusiastic that his art is great in spite of its imperfections—in fact, one is inclined to say that the blemishes just make his movies all the more charming. That's certainly the case with The Science of Sleep, a movie that flaunts Gondry's greatest weakness and dazzles in spite or because of it. Simply put, the man isn't a great screenwriter; he's got too many big ideas and not enough focus or sense of purpose. In the past he's brought in hired pens like Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature) to give his flights of fantasy some basic structure, but in Sleep he goes it alone. Thus, any sense of narrative focus is derailed after half an hour, but don't let that bother you—the fun just keeps flying by, deliriously inventive, full of exuberant whimsy and ramshackle energy.

Stephane is all ears while listening to Stephanie

One almost wonders if the film is some kind of abstract autobiography. Gael Garcia Bernal plays a guy named Stephane, but he really seems to be playing Gondry himself—a man immersed in a world of dreams and fancies, not always sure of what's real and what's just in his head. Stephane is a timid artist who lives with his mother and works a boring, unfulfilling job in Paris, which gives his mind ample opportunity to wander and concoct all manner of strange romances. He develops a crush on his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). And then … well, things get a little tricky. Gondry's film drifts freely between the real world and the dream world, with the distinction growing blurrier and blurrier. Thus, the film becomes less about plot and more about the hallucinatory images and trippy metaphysics.

That doesn't mean that the film is plotless; it just means that the real treasures here are in the witty observational humor, the quirky character interactions, and Gondry's fixation on messing with our perceptions of what's real. The film is riotously funny, but it can also be thought-provoking, if you choose to engage its wonderful weirdness on an intellectual level. Gondry creates some fascinating and clever parallels between the real and the dream, showing how the happenings in Stephane's daily life influence his imagination, showing up in mutated forms while he's sleeping. The film even raises some interesting questions about the nature of dreams, asking us to consider in what ways they can help us and in what ways they can lead to trouble; Stephane's infatuation with the dream world makes him a creative and romantic individual, to be sure, but at what cost?

Guy more than has his hands full with Stephane

The cast members—Bernal in particular—give sterling performances that very much keep to the film's sense of whimsy and wonder, but also ground it in very real human emotions. Even that can't keep the movie from starting to unravel a bit at the bumpy, confusing climax, but no matter—the real star here is Gondry, and he's brought his A-game. Like Willy Wonka, Gondry has more than just a dazzling imagination at his disposal; he's also got the know-how to make his dreams a reality, manifesting them and packaging them as colorfully as possible. The Science of Sleep brings its dream world to life with the best special effects you'll see on the big screen all year—and very few of those effects are computer-generated. Gondry goes at it with the DIY-method here, eschewing fancy animation technology in favor of cardboard, cellophane, and summer-camp arts and crafts. That's what makes the film, above all, a collection of small, simple treasures—a city made entirely out of cardboard, for example, or a motorized cloth donkey. (Gondry's creativity and ingenuity are mirrored by Stephane's ambitions to be an inventor—some of his gadgets, like his one-second time machine, are priceless.)