A few days ago, we decided to watch the movie ‘Sleeper’ , a classic comedy flick, written and directed by the famous director/comedian Woody Allen. I’m not much of a woody allen fan.. but sure if you want to have a good laugh then he’s the guy.

After playing the great comedian for the early 1950’s, woody took to film making in 1966 by re-dubbing a Japanese action film with a surrealistic touch of comedy. It was not his best but was the harbinger of good stuff to come!

To this day, when I watch any of his movies now , I would end up saying ‘that’s silly! ‘ What really makes me stick to watch his movies is his witty scripts though. The writer in him never fails to amuse! The futuristic appeal that Woody added to ‘Sleeper’ holds good feasability even to this day and speaks of his writing genuis (despite some possible consultation he would have done) !

‘Sleeper‘ itself revolves around a guy, Miles Monroe (Allen), who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 during a routine visit to a hospital. After 200 years, a group of scientists wake up Monroe to help them defeat the totalitarian leader of their society who dies and is furtively being replaced with his clone through a project named ‘operation blue’ . The scientists want to know what the project is about and since he is the only guy they know of who does not have his biometrics(finger prints, retina scans blah blah..) with the government, they try to send him as a spy !

To avoid being caught, Woody masquerades as a house-maid robot and is shipped to the house of a beautiful woman named Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton - Something’s gotta give fame. God, she looks so young and charming! Only at the end of the movie did I come to terms with her identity saying ‘ Oh Diane Keaton -the Something’s gotta give lady?! ‘) who he begins to develop a romantic interest in.

Her world is full of contraptions like the ‘orgasmatron’, the ‘confession robots’ which Miles (morphed as her robot) is supposed to be able to operate but has no idea of ! That leads to some hillarious scenes which climax in Miles taking Luna as a hostage into the woods once they find out that he is not a robot at a robot-fixing store !

In a case of mistaken identity, Miles and Luna come to know what the secret project is about(a country with no leader, death of leader kept as secret until his clone is set into the world) and are asked to perform the leader’s cloning themselves using his only remains - his nose! Instead of a routine ’save the world’ ending, Miles and Luna end up saving themselves and realize that, after all, ‘love is itself worth living for’.

Some of my favorite scenes/lines in the movie are:

• Monroe [when he dosen’t understand what to do next with his life] :
  I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here. I’m 237 years old, I should be collecting social security.
• Luna: “ok! you dont believe in science, you dont believe in government…what do you believe in?”
  Miles: “Death and Sex!..two things that come once in a lifetime… but at least after death, you’re not nauseous. “
• Miles:Science is an intellectual dead end, you know? It’s a lot of little guys in tweed suits cutting up frogs on foundation grants.
• Luna Schlosser: It’s hard to believe that you haven’t had sex for 200 years.
  Miles Monroe: 204, if you count my marriage.
• (When Monroe wakes up after 200 yrs)
  Miles Monroe: Where am I anyhow, I mean, what happened to everybody, where are all my friends?
  Dr. Aragon: You must understand that everyone you knew in the past has been dead nearly two hundred years.
  Miles Monroe: But they all ate organic rice!
• Miles Monroe: I’m what you would call a teleological, existential atheist. I believe that there’s an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey.

`Sleeper’ was hysterical from beginning to end. The very opening scene shows Monroe covered in tin foil. As soon as Monroe awakes, he is disoriented, smiling aimlessly and walking backwards and into people. Allen’s comical blend of intellect and charm shows up soon after.
Another funny scene is when he tries to escape with the flying device, which fails to work and curses the company who manufactured it!

Arguably, one of his best says the world of imdb reviewers !