While You Were Sleeping 1995

Feel-good romantic comedies don't feel good when they deliver an empty, saccharine view of the world. On the other hand, when they're as breezy and adorable as "While You Were Sleeping," it's time to fall in love. This is a formula film, but it has the kind of good cheer and fine tuning that occasionally give slickness a good name. The year may be young, but the first hit of the summer is here.

It's not marquee value that insures the success of "While You Were Sleeping," which stars Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman. It's the word-of-mouth-worthy fact that this spirited screwball romance creates a rosy glow. Credit much of that to a smoothly workmanlike director, Jon Turteltaub, whose "Cool Runnings" was unabashed fun and who has much better material this time. Ms. Bullock and Mr. Pullman also deserve credit for setting enough sparks to melt snow.

The film takes place at Christmastime in Chicago, where Lucy (Ms. Bullock) has a thankless job collecting tokens at a municipal train station. ("I sit in a booth like a veal," she says.) Lucy is terribly lonely, and she does not lead a charmed life. Regulars order lunch from the local hot-dog vendor by asking for "the usual." When the practically invisible Lucy tries saying that, he has no idea what she means.

People seem to forget Lucy all the time, but no one does it more spectacularly than Peter Callahan (Peter Gallagher), the handsome Mr. Right for whom she has been pining within her glass cage. One day, Lucy watches in horror as Peter is mugged. Then she leaps to the tracks and rescues him from an oncoming train. "Oh, God, you smell good!" Lucy exclaims while trying to save him. In the midst of this, Peter opens his eyes and spies Lucy, after which he falls into a coma from which he may never emerge.

Movies about coma patients aren't necessarily funny -- not when the coma barely spoils anybody's day. Yet "While You Were Sleeping" bustles along happily and follows Lucy to the hospital, where a nurse mistakenly identifies her as Peter's fiancee. Next thing she knows, she is surrounded by the Callahans, who travel in a pack and may just be the family she longs for. In any case, she's stuck with them: Lucy can't explain the mixup without the risk of giving Grandma Callahan (Glynis Johns) a stroke.

The plot thickens irresistibly with the arrival of Jack (Mr. Pullman), Peter's suspicious brother, who regards Lucy with a lot more curiosity than the situation demands. And she, in the words of her pesty neighbor and would-be swain, Joe Jr. (Michael Rispoli, a scene-stealing treat), looks at Jack "like you just seen your first Trans-Am." That sounds as if the film is ready to collapse into sentimentality, but it works wonders with the long, obstacle-strewn path to a sunny ending. Incidentally, Lucy is so hapless that she forgets to take off her overcoat en route to the altar.

Ms. Bullock is the film's main attraction, bringing a warm smile and a winning array of mannerisms to her role. A shy heroine in the gorgeous-wallflower tradition, she drowns in oversized clothing as Annie Hall did and seems in a perpetual state of comic dishevelment. Forever covering her mouth bashfully or shrugging off life's affronts to her dignity, she has trouble only with being too radiant for her character's supposed mousiness. Well, that's what makes this a fairy tale.

And Mr. Pullman, the fine comic foil last seen sparring murderously with Linda Fiorentino in "The Last Seduction," becomes a crowd-pleasing leading man. As Jack does a perpetual slow burn in Lucy's presence, Mr. Pullman smolders with consummate ease. Connecting with Ms. Bullock far more successfully than Keanu Reeves did in "Speed," he engages in the graceful teamwork that really makes this story click. As written by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric Lebow with echoes of well-worn screwball love stories, "While You Were Sleeping" touches familiar comic bases with effervescent style.

The supporting cast is especially solid, with Peter Boyle and Jack Warden on hand to wisecrack expertly (as Peter and Jack's father and neighbor, respectively), Jason Bernard as Lucy's ever-patient boss, and Mr. Gallagher to wake up entertainingly for the story's third act. As Mr. Turteltaub keeps the actors humming and the material nicely on track, he also throws in occasional sight gags that recall the good-natured slapstick of "Cool Runnings." Watch the one about the newsboy and wonder why it doesn't happen more often.

"While You Were Sleeping" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It includes very mild profanity and very faint sexual innuendoes. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING Directed by John Turteltaub; written by Daniel G. Sullivan and Fredric Lebow; director of photography, Phedon Papamichael; edited by Bruce Green; music by Randy Edelman; production designer, Garreth Stover; produced by Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum; released by Hollywood Pictures. Running time: 100 minutes. This film is rated PG. WITH: Sandra Bullock (Lucy), Bill Pullman (Jack), Peter Gallagher (Peter), Peter Boyle (Ox), Jack Warden (Saul), Glynis Johns (Elsie), Michael Rispoli (Joe Jr.) and Jason Bernard (Jerry).