While You Were Sleeping is a strange romantic movie written by Daniel G Sullivan and Fredric LeBow and directed by Jon Tureltaub. This 1995 box office hit stars Sandra Bullock as Lucy, Bill Pullman as Jack, and Peter Gallagher as Peter. It is listed as a romantic comedy but this movie has a little bit of everything in it from romance to drama to comedy to suspense. The plot is an ingenious tangle of the lives of people that are active in the world and a person that has never really known love and has always been alone. It brings together some comedic talents like Peter Boyle and Jack Warden while still keeping the action grounded between odd and over the top humor and truly bizarre drama and romance. While You Were Sleeping answers the age old question of what would happen if you pretended to be something you are not and wound up being more than you could ever dream of? It is a well written and well acted story that takes the viewer on an roller coaster ride they will not soon forget.

In While You Were Sleeping Lucy works in the ticket booth in the subway and lives alone with her cat. Since she has no family or friends to be with she decides to take shift to work on Christmas day. On this particular day she gets to see Peter who is a good looking guy that passes her booth on a regular basis and that Lucy has developed quite a crush for in a very schoolgirl kind of way. On this particular day Peter is mugged which would be the scum of the earth’s way of saying Merry Christmas. Lucy helplessly watches Peter get mugged and then watches as Peter is left for dead on the subway tracks. With no other choice Lucy rescues Peter and calls the authorities for help. As Peter is being taken to the hospital for medical attention it somehow gets confused that Lucy is Peters’ fiancé and the hospital decides that this is the information they will go with and Lucy does nothing to stop it. Soon after Peter reaches the hospital it is revealed that he will be in a coma and there is no indication for how long or how much recovery can be expected.

As Peter’s family starts to filter in to the hospital they are told of Peter’s situation and they are also introduced, for the first time, to Peter’s fiancé Lucy who is not only the girl that saved Peter’s life but also the girl he apparently is going to marry. Peter’s family is very grateful to Lucy and also very surprised to find out that Peter had a fiancé that they knew nothing about. But as Peter stays in his coma his family begins to accept Lucy and soon she finds herself in unfamiliar waters as part of a family. She is torn because she knows that it is wrong to keep up the charade but at the same time she never realized how wonderful it wold be to have a family again and the lure of family forces her to keep the lie alive. Over time Peter’s brother Jack, played by Pullman, becomes suspicious of Lucy and soon he does not believe that Lucy is his brother’s fiancé. But as they spend more time together Lucy and Jack start to realize that they are developing feelings for each other and soon the emotional confusion starts to set in.

While You Were Sleeping is a great example of be careful what you wish for as the lies and confusion soon start to create nothing but problems. The only question that remains is who, in the end, will Lucy wind up with and what will happen when Peter awakes?