ejamessnyder I enjoyed this film quite a bit and am surprised that it's not better known. It feels as if it could have been considered the quintessential nineties film that summed up the feelings of a generation, but somehow it was overlooked. It plays like a cross between Short Cuts and Clerks, with as much feeling and raw reality as a John Cassavetes film.The film is about a man who is in love with the wife of his best friend. The story unfolds through real-to-life scenes and dialog which gradually reveal more and more about the characters and their motivations. The plot meanders but never strays; we never feel lost. The film feels like real life and it is full of fun and memorable scenes and conversations which feel totally real to the point that you almost feel as if you are there in the room observing, rather than merely watching a film.The scenes are cut together with intertitles—similar to many old silent films—and it's done a charming way that I didn't feel was at all tacky or distracting. Perhaps their use was an afterthought by the filmmakers as a way to jump from one scene to the next, but it never feels as if we're being cheated out of anything. That's actually something that I wish was done more frequently, but it seems like films these days like to use other methods to transition between scenes instead. It's probably just as well, because the intertitles here made Sleep with Me feel more unique and original and helped me really get into each scene and enjoy the film.One of my favorite parts of the film is a brief appearance by Quentin Tarantino in what I consider to be his finest acting role. His performance here has often been called a cameo, but it lasts for several minutes and includes at least a few dozen lines of hilarious yet totally believable dialog, although the character is not essential to the plot of the film. While I love Tarantino as a director, I'm not normally a big fan of his acting work, but in this role he nailed it. Although brief, it's a part he was born to play.However, two of the things that I loved the most about this film were also the main things that I felt detracted from it overall and kept me from giving it a higher score. Those two things were the acting and the dialog. Although both of these aspects were typically great throughout the film and made it enjoyable, there were several instances in which they failed. Several pieces of dialog—including the very last lines of the film—felt wildly out of place and several bits of acting felt like they should have been scrapped or redone.I got the feeling that this movie was put together quickly and that very few takes were done for certain scenes, so perhaps that is why the acting and dialog were not always spot-on. Perhaps this was for budgetary reasons or perhaps the director felt the scenes we more spontaneous that way. Or perhaps the reason for these shortcomings was that the film had six different writers who, from my understanding, each worked independently to a degree to write their own individual scenes. In any case, these flaws don't ruin the film. It's not a perfect film, but none are, and this one is definitely worth watching.

OperaLA I must admit that I do not know whether the film's success is due to, or in spite of, the multiple writers. When one is aware that several writers, including the director, wrote different scenes, it is a challenge to find just what the cohesive factor is that makes the film so engaging. Admittedly, some scenes are ineffective (the initial poker scene), while some are wildly successful (the poker scene invaded by the characters played by Joey Lauren Adams and Parker Posey). It is one of those films that is MORE than the sum of its parts.After several viewings on DVD (I wish I had seen it in the theater), I realized that many details, at first insignificant, contribute to its impact. The film begins broadly, simply and beautifully -- Stolz, Tilly, and Scheffer are on the highway coming home from a road trip. The open western landscape is practically a metaphor for their friendship. However, the film slowly narrows in, and as the love triangle develops,the view gets less broad. A beautifully conceived and shot example of this is the poolside party scene that begins as a B&W camcorder viewfinder "point of view", then cuts to full color at a particular point of introspection. It sent chills up my spine.The visual details in the location designs and cinematography are rich and revealing, and seem more considered and professional than one finds in most low budget independent films. However, this strong consistency in production values neither spotlights nor hides the writing dissimilarities.I strongly recommend this film.

Danny-Rodriguez That category being a movie about relationships, the undertone of being unfaithful and the small things about relationships which aren't covered by normal big romance movies. Realism, indie film-making, long shots and acting which looks like it's improvised makes a movie for me. I dunno, maybe this category of movies is really my all time favorite, the other being gangster movies and such because these movies speak to me... Social commentary about my life and my thoughts and my own relationships are all in this movie like they are in Chasing Amy, my second all time favorite movie of all time. Resrevoir Dogs, being THE gangster movie, is the first.In my opinion this really is modern movie making at it's best. Watching films like this I feel like I'm seeing Man Bites Dog again for the first time. Like in one sequence, similar to another sequence in the movie Boogie Nights, there's a scene which lasts for many minutes and which is shot in only a few shots through the eye of an old black and white camcorder made the hairs on my arm stand up in awe. This is a key scene in the movie and I wont spoil it for you but if you've ever had a relationship and been in these sort of awkward social situations before then you will feel the pain of these characters and be totally in the movie the whole time you see it from beginning to end. Or like another scene where they are all at a very formal and "boring" party and Frank shows up and it all blows up in everyone's face. This, I think, was my favorite scene in the movie because of what happens in it, how it happens and what happens because of it.There is of course also the Quentin Tarantino cameo which didn't escape my eye either. The movie is worth seeing just for that but the whole film still meant so much more to me than that.I'll wrap this up now with a few things I wanna say about the whole set up of these people's lives. Some are in the movie writing business and some are in the landscaping business but what I found deeply interesting was that we never actually see them at work. It's all just worked into the dialogue of the film which I really liked because that is not the conventional way. Usually you'll have a few scenes of them at work to establish this but in stead this movie focuses completely and utterly on the characters... And what a wonderful set of characters they were.

smatysia I wonder sometimes about IMDb's "Weighted average" on movie ratings. This film has a "weighted" score of 5.7, but a real average of 7.0. What's up with that? Anyway, I liked this film. I had never heard of it, but taped it from cable some time ago. It is a quiet film, basically a character study. Eric Stoltz and Craig Sheffer did fine jobs as the male leads. I was impressed by the beauty of Joey Lauren Adams in a small role. (I was unfamiliar with her.) Most impressive, though, was the performance of Meg Tilly. She just exuded a semi-shy charm all through the movie. She seems to have dropped out of sight in recent years, and that's too bad. This film is worth a rental. I would buy it if it were on DVD. Grade: B+