Winter Films - 12

I hope you’ve been thinking a lot about the film you want to write that’s set in winter. Last week we looked at the iconic Groundhog Day and this week we move to a less iconic but still interesting film set during a Chicago winter, While You Were Sleeping [1995].

Is there a deep meaning in this film? Not really. It’s just a fun rom-com that’s got a particularly appealing main character at its center—Lucy.

Since Lucy’s dad died she’s been completely alone. She doesn’t date much, that’s clear, and she has a pretty ordinary job—she collects fare tokens as people go through the turnstiles on the Chicago elevated train. She’s in a booth all day, talking to no one for the most part, and fantasizing… mostly about this man she sees every morning. He’s tall, dark and handsome. He always smiles, and he’s never even noticed her. Not really. He’d smile at anybody, he’s that kind of a guy. But it’s the highlight of her day when he comes through her turnstile. And she fantasizes like crazy about what she’d say to him if it ever became possible to actually speak to the guy.

Then, one day, he’s pushed onto the tracks. A train is coming. The crowd is totally shocked and it’s Lucy who jumps down onto the tracks and saves his life. She ends up going to the hospital with him—which he doesn’t know because he’s unconscious. And it’s at the hospital that a nurse mistakenly assumes she’s his fiancée. Now, this is a role she’s be very happy to fill for him, and she’s about ready to tell the nurse of her mistake, when Peter’s family shows up. And though they didn’t know Peter had a fiancée, they welcome her with open arms. And it’s so… wonderful. She has no family and these people are welcoming her into theirs. So she goes with it.

Having dinner with the family the next day—Peter is still in a coma—is a revelation. She falls in love with the whole bunch of them. When Peter’s brother Jack shows up, though, she realizes she’s in trouble because Jack doesn’t buy that she’s Peter’s fiancée… she has to keep trying to convince him, which she manages to do in quite funny ways.

When Peter wakes up he doesn’t know Lucy but he, and the family, assume the concussion has made him forget her. But Lucy? She finds herself falling for Jack…who is still suspicious of her.

And all this takes place in icy, snowy Chicago. You do get the feeling that you’re actually in this city in winter—you can almost feel the cold wind blowing off the lake. And this mirrors the coldness and emptiness in Lucy’s life. She’s a warm person, but losing her father and being so alone could turn anyone a bit cold.

But Lucy has an indomitable spirit that can overcome the winter, overcome her mistakes, and help her find happiness…despite the cold!

Copyright © Diane Lake

10Feb19

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