Julia Leigh‘s Sleeping Beauty isn’t your kid-friendly Disney version of the classic fairytale, as the new trailer suggests. The controversial psycho-sexual drama that premiered at Cannes earlier this year stars Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) as a young high-end prostitute with an unusual specialty. Sleeping Beauty was picked up by IFC Films and will be hitting VOD on November 1st, preceding a December 2nd theatrical release.
Sleeping Beauty is Leigh’s directorial debut, and some critics have compared her minimalist and visually artistic style to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Leigh’s screenplay, which earned a place on Hollywood’s ‘Black List’ of notable un-produced scripts back in 2008, presents a twisted look at the classic myth and roles of feminine sexuality.
Sleeping Beauty will be available nationwide on demand via IFC in Theaters on November 1st. The limited theatrical release is set for December 2nd, with a wider release to follow. Check out the synopsis and new trailer below.
Sleeping Beauty is a fascinating depiction of a young woman’s reckless decent into a shocking world of erotic desires. Lucy (Browning) is a young university student possessed by a kind of radical passivity. She lets a flip of a coin decide the outcome of a random sexual encounter and she displays an uncomplaining patience when facing the repetitions of her various menial jobs that fund her studies.
One day she answers an ad in the student newspaper and interviews for a job to be a lingerie waitress. But she is secretly being initiated into a world of strange new work; one where she will have to give into absolute submission to her clients by being sedated; becoming a Sleeping Beauty. Eventually this unnerving experience begins to bleed into her daily life and she finally develops the will to break the spell by discovering what happens to her while she sleeps.
