CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

85 Alexandra
xx All of Us
53 Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
57 Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
40 America the Beautiful
66 American Teen
74 Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
63 Appaloosa
xx Ashes of Time Redux
65 August Evening
xx Bachna Ae Haseeno
62 Baghead
81 Ballast
55 Battle in Seattle
59 Beautiful Losers
xx Beer for My Horses
47 Before the Rains
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
xx Billy: The Early Years
63 Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
56 Bottle Shock
75 Boy A
55 Bra Boys
xx Breakfast with Scot
61 Brick Lane
64 Brideshead Revisited
61 Bustin' Down the Door
xx Call and Response
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
47 Choke
xx Choose Connor
xx Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips
54 CSNY: Déjà Vu
41 Cthulhu
64 Duchess, The
85 Edge of Heaven, The
66 Elegy
33 Elite Squad
52 Elsa & Fred
80 Encounters at the End of the World
26 Everybody Wants to Be Italian
64 Fall, The
28 Fireproof
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
65 Flow: For Love of Water
37 Forever Strong
39 Forgiveness
82 Frozen River
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
62 Girls Rock!
xx Goal II: Living the Dream
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
57 Good Dick
54 Hamlet 2
xx Happy-Go-Lucky
25 Hell Ride
44 Henry Poole is Here
31 Hounddog
53 Humboldt County
72 I Served the King of England
71 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
64 In Search of a Midnight Kiss
46 Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
67 Jellyfish
xx Just Buried
62 Kabluey
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
78 Last Mistress, The
52 Last Stop for Paul
70 Love Songs
xx Lower Learning
63 Man Named Pearl, A
89 Man on Wire
62 Mister Foe
86 Momma's Man
74 Mongol
80 Moving Midway
46 My Mexican Shivah
xx Nights and Weekends
73 Obscene
80 Order of Myths, The
67 Patti Smith: Dream of Life
xx Phoebe in Wonderland
55 Ping Pong Playa
77 Pool, The
72 Priceless
82 Rachel Getting Married
61 Red
55 Religulous
71 Roman de gare
78 Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
51 Savage Grace
58 Save Me
72 Secret, A
45 Shoot on Sight
57 Sixty Six
55 Sukiyaki Western Django
16 Surfer, Dude
82 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
63 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
71 To the Limit
57 Towelhead
72 Transsiberian
83 Trouble the Water
83 U2 3D
84 Up the Yangtze
52 Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
79 Visitor, The
61 Wackness, The
xx Whaledreamers
54 What We Do Is Secret
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
67 XXY
55 Year of the Fish
39 Young People F**king
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Sleepwalking
Overture Films

Sleepwalking reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 40 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.3 out of 10
based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language and a scene of violence

Starring Charlize Theron, Dennis Hopper, Woody Harrelson, Nick Stahl, and AnnaSophia Robb

Forced out of her home after her boyfriend is arrested, Joleen Reedy needs a place to stay with her 11-year-old daughter, Tara. She turns for help to her younger brother, James--a simple and overly trusting man who doesn't hesitate to welcome them into his modest rental apartment. Almost as soon as she moves in, however, Joleen hits the road with another man. Utterly ill-equipped to be the sole guardian of an adolescent girl, James does his best to make his distraught niece happy. But before long, things spin out of control: He loses his job, and Tara is put into foster care. That's when James makes a fateful decision that will bring his life full circle and force him to face his demons. He takes off with Tara, and the two assume new identities as father and daughter. What starts out as a ploy to evade authorities takes on a deeper significance as James strives to become the dad Tara never had and for the first time finds a true purpose in life. But when their road trip takes them to the Utah farm where James grew up, old wounds reopen between James and his father, whose emotionally abusive and sometimes violent ways have changed little since James was a boy. (Overture Films)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Zac Stanford  
DIRECTED BY: Bill Maher  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: July 8, 2008 
Theatrical: March 14, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Canada / USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Despite its deficiencies, and the inadequate screen time allotted to Theron (who's quite good), Sleepwalking has a core of feeling. It's about a do-gooder who, lacking all skills for it, does good anyway. His emotional odyssey has real poignancy.
Read Full Review
63
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Stanford's script is painfully obvious, right down to the line of dialogue spelling out the title's significance.
Read Full Review
50
USA Today Claudia Puig
Portentous and dull, the film features one of the worst over-the-top performances by Dennis Hopper, who plays an abusive father.
Read Full Review
50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Well-intentioned to a fault, Sleepwalking blurs the line between dramatizing free-floating misery and spreading it.
Read Full Review
50
Film Threat Zack Haddad
It’s a shame that this film’s star-studded cast wasn’t able to save the mediocre storyline.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Ronnie Scheib
The overly simplistic script by Zac Stanford (“The Chumscrubber”) hits nothing but high notes, making the whole dramatically less than the sum of its parts.
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
The movie seems unusually honest in portraying the no-option existence of the working poor, but the story slips into melodrama in the last reel.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The whole picture plays like a pop-up book in a welfare agency.
Read Full Review
50
Time Richard Schickel
It's because of AnnaSophia Robb's performance...I don't think you'll see a more fascinating and nuanced performance at the movies this year.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
But the regularly overlooked Stahl burrows honestly into this unpleasant place, adding another worthy portrait to his indie gallery of interesting losers. He's still an actor worth keeping your eyes on. Assuming you can keep them open.
Read Full Review
50
Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
Terrific performances and a bleak, riveting look at life on the economic fringes eventually gives way to an overly familiar tale of abuse, denial and catharsis that feels like warmed over Sam Shepard minus the poetry.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie seems terrified of true psychological complexity or perversity. It's less a family tragedy than a lousy country dirge.
Read Full Review
50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
A feeling of hopelessness pervades Sleepwalking.
Read Full Review
50
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Unfortunately, Sleepwalking isn’t content being a character study of damaged adult siblings (if it were, it would have made a nice companion piece to Kenneth Lonergan’s "You Can Count on Me," which is a far less sobering, but far more effective, movie).
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A bummer.
Read Full Review
40
The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
Even if the movie takes you to some dark places you would rather not visit, at least you will remember the actors who navigate the tortured journey.
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times Stephen Holden
As Mr. Maher, in his feature directing debut, brings in surreal touches and puts on literary airs, the film’s grip loosens, and its vernacular turns increasingly wooden.
Read Full Review
40
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
There's loads of suffering in Sleepwalking, piled on until the picture almost becomes an unintentional comedy.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Despite honorable work from Theron, Robb and Stahl, Sleepwalking makes good on its title in a not-so-good way.
Read Full Review
38
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Relentlessly depressing.
Read Full Review
30
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
An inert, sloppily written melodrama as grim and featureless as its frozen Midwestern setting.
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Michelle Orange
Theron and Woody Harrelson provide vitality against the film's heavy load, but they aren't around long enough to keep it from collapsing under its own portentous weight.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A slow-moving family drama guaranteed to induce a nap if not somnambulism.
Read Full Review
0
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A soporific dud, which should have been tossed out of Sundance.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: Fantasy Football | Miley Cyrus | MLB | iPhone 3G | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use